The fact that you can't control the camera beyond a 'bring to rear' command is still very annoying when you've got enemies approaching from all sides.

The graphics are not too bad and the water effects are quite nice, but what you end up with is a side-scrolling-perform-as-many-tricks-as-you-can-in-the-time-limit game - which becomes boring after a few turns.

The camera angles are poor to the extent that Demon Stone plays almost like a side-scrolling game, progressing slowly and mundanely from one cluster of enemies to the next.

It just feels like no effort has been made to make this a killer game – this is the type of game that might do well in the arcades but not at home. There isn’t even a two-player mode in the game to add any form of variety – a criminal act for scrolling shooters.

Playing through those 30 or so hours is one of the most enjoyable Xbox experiences around, as the game can be played at the player's own pace. There's no rushing to meet timed events or missing out on special items that only appear for half an hour.

While the game may be some distance from Bungie's massive shooter in terms of quality, it's well worth a look for anyone after a quick blast in a game that will remind us all that the "X-Files" was once a decent TV show.

Put simply, Fantavision is a work of art. It’s beautiful.

Pirates works as a kiddie game, but has no real redeeming qualities for a tougher audience. It just lacks any attention to detail.

The two things that platform games rely on the most - the level design and your degree of interaction with them are both massively flawed, and to add insult to injury the usual Sonic technical misgivings are all correct and present: good looking graphics, but prone to tearing and glitching.

As you can probably tell, the main problem with this game is that it’s scrappy and disjointed. The areas that show flair and imagination are cut short by generic and shockingly unoriginal elements that make you cringe and turn away in embarrassment.

Koei certainly knows how to sell an add-on without leaving its consumers feeling cheated - basically, this is how expansion packs for console games should be employed.

Whether each play is successful or not is therefore something for which one rarely feels wholly responsible, although the overall sheen ensures that your suspension of disbelief can easily compensate.

Despite improvements, the game does look visually dated, and as such can't hope to top PGR2 in a beauty competition.

Think of it as PSO I+II… though not as good and minus the online features. Make of that what you will.

This is really just an upgrade to DW3, so if you’ve got that, you’re probably better off waiting for DW4, but then it does open up new features in DW3 and has an extra hard difficulty level, so if you’re a DW nut... But if you fancy taking your first foray into the series, this is definitely the best one so far.

Unfortunately, the slightly awkward camera angles can make it tricky to see where enemy shots are coming from, which is very frustrating in the heat of combat.

A very fast arcade-style game that is positively overflowing with character.

The Quest mode is too loose and culminates in boss battles that do away with the puzzle element completely, in favour of random dice turning. The result is a game that's great with some friends, but fails to ignite when played alone.

This touchy-feely emphasis might not be to everyone's taste but if sheep herding, bowling, stroking a tiger's nether regions and teaching a chicken to breakdance is your idea of fun, then Creature's Isle is the creature feature for you.

From the title screen to the sound effects, everything here is right. You can even see the outside decals of the machine around the screen as if you have just popped down to the arcade!

Running at a rate which manages to put "Time Crisis" to shame, HOTD3 is an accelerated, highly detailed, classic arcade shoot-íem-up which will keep you in a constant state of high alert verging on panic, right through to the final frame.

For all this complexity the cards can actually prevent you from really getting into the game.

A very accomplished F1 product that will ignite the passion of fans. The rest of us however, should wait to see if the inevitable F1 2003 drives any better.

It's all a bit like typing while wearing oven mitts.

There is nothing wrong with this game universe or the adventure within it, if only we all the had the time to enjoy it properly without the need for work, study or sleep getting in the way!

It's a Japanese RPG in the truest sense and conforms to all the clichs of the genre. It has its misfits, its central (male) character with a mysterious past (and a strange birthmark on his shoulder) and a turn-based battle system with magic and hit points. It has its world map.

This game is a good, solid beat-’em-up, but it’s no Street Fighter or Tekken. Despite the fact that the fighters are in 3D, the game is really a 2D experience.

It’s all a vaguely swashbuckling load of fun, with action and strategy thrown in together, but nothing outstanding.