It doesn’t take long to work out that they’ve basically reduced an intelligent thriller into a brainless beat-’em-up. Be warned!

Invisible barriers also pepper the apparently open areas which grace certain courses – call us new-fashioned, but PLAY doesn't expect to be dismounted for no other reason than touching a piece of earth that the coders have deemed "out of bounds". Put a tangible obstacle there or let us the hell through!

While there are a few tweaks, this is essentially the same game as the previous three.

If you can get past the pastel coloured craziness of it all, then Dragon Ball Z: Budokai provides a decent enough challenge – just don’t be expecting another Tekken 4 and this should find favour.

In wishing to both typify and exaggerate the visual style of a bygone age, Rez ultimately commits the cardinal sin of placing graphics before gameplay – a facet attributable to SEGA's desire for the title to be seen as art.

One major plus point is a superb, absorbing 5.1-surround sound experience that demands volume and really brings the game to life.

The greatest shame about Midnight Club: Street Racing however is just how repetitive it can become.

A frantic and fun blaster that should do well on the back of enthusiasm sure to be generated by the movie.

It still feels clunky compared to the bling slickness of "NBA Street Volume 2" but that owes more to the fact that American football is more about fat men made of burgers barging each other over than it is playing with style and finesse.

It’s not the quality of sound or graphics that should make you consider Rally Fusion as your next purchase, it’s the depth of the challenges – the variety of which will take you a decent while to explore and conquer.

The game is not too big and in fact can be finished extremely quickly but there is always the option of racing again in a new car or just watching the models strut their stuff.

Graphically City Crisis is nothing special and after a while the gameplay does become rather repetitive as you simply perform the same operations over and over again.

If The Bouncer had been cast with a little more of the freedom associated with the RPGs it borrows its visual flair from then this would have been a defining moment for the PlayStation2.

There are enough varied magical effects to keep the action interesting and fill the screen with the occasional burst of bright, explosive light effects.

Don't worry about what it isn't, just enjoy it for what it is – one of the few playable and, yep, fairly enjoyable superhero games out there.

In "Wipeout," when a missile is homing in on you, you are filled with a sense of dread and impending doom. In Drome Racers you just can’t help thinking “oh well, never mind”, which sums it up nicely.

The action itself is fast and fluid.

Ultimately, Vampire Night lacks the sparkle that the best examples of this genre display. It looks good, sounds okay (apart from some cheesy voice-acting) and whilst it lasts (not very long as it happens) it is quite entertaining.

Better visuals and a more complex conversation system would have made this a game to live up to the legendary magazines. Almost.

Hardcore RPG fans may find it a bit on the easy side and it's not a particularly long game, but there's definitely more to it than EA's effort despite not having movie clips throughout.

We just can't get that excited about Konami's latest venture. Maybe it's the annoying plot twist that happens halfway through the game - think "Ico" with a plaster cast - that essentially forces you to replay through all the frightening locations you've already visited.

It’ll certainly keep you busy, until the next FIFA game comes out (in a few months), just don’t expect to be too excited by it.

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

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.

It's such a shame that the missions don't use the area to its full potential and, unlike GTA, there's very little to keep you coming back once you've completed them all.

A quite shallow, but still rather fun game of combat that can be quick to play and is enjoyable for a short period of time but just lacks the depth that most commanders of armies would like to see.

Technically, everything about this game is average. The graphics are passable, the sound and speech are good (but hardly mind-blowing) and the gameplay is familiar.

It’s fun but, existing in the half-world between dimensions, it fails to satisfy either the lust for old fashioned action or the flexibility of the modern gamer.