The intelligent imagery used in the novels gave them a universal appeal, whereas the relative simplicity of the videogame would suggest that the target audience is far narrower.

It's definitely more playable than 2004, but you're still better off with "Winning Eleven 6."

Aside from being a hell of a lot easier than "Colin" to get to grips with, the overall experience is not as engaging as Codemasters’ title.

Overall, this is a decent, efficient addition to the genre, with a few good additions here and there for hardcore fans while the game's accessibility makes it a fine starting point for newcomers.

It doesn't include as many next-generation enhancements as we would like to have seen, but at the end of the day the original game was ahead of its time when it launched on Dreamcast.

It’s not 'impossible' hard, just so unforgiving that it fails to be 'enjoyable' hard.

The intelligent tactical basis should certainly make this a massive hit with hard-core strategists, but the average gamer may struggle to be inspired by the map-based gameplay action and heavy subject matter.

The only downside to Night Of 100 Frights is the sheer lack of originality and so-so difficulty level.

It is also, bizarrely, needlessly fiddly to walk in a straight line. Its almost as if the game is expecting you to strafe as your viewpoint veers to the left and right, causing you to correct the movement on a constant basis.

The music, sound effects, cool fight scenes, bullet time and being able to fight an Agent. It's all good. This is the very nature of a license – you love to hate them and hate to love them. They bring as many problems as they do solutions but every once in a while the good stuff outweighs the bad.

If you can adjust to the tricky controls and the shockingly hard difficulty setting, then you'll find a fun, original title that mixes current 3D game design with the style and atmosphere of a retro classic.

Visually the game is competent, but having seen the PS2 version, we were disappointed to discover that this Xbox port looks nigh on identical.

If you can forgive the faults, love bikes and have the patience of a saint, then you will enjoy Speed Kings. The game’s major failing is to borrow so much from the real king of speed, Burnout 2, and never innovating in the process, merely imitating.

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.

Although Blinx has its flaws, it is innovative and unusual enough to make it a worthy purchase.

Ever played "Secret Of Monkey Island," "Day Of The Tentacle," "Full Throttle" or "Sam And Max Hit The Road"? Then you’ll love Neighbours From Hell.

The main problem is that, aside from some rather nice visual effects, everything about the game feels out-of-date.

Call us old fashioned, but shouldn't a game be tougher at the end than the start? Amped 2 does start to pick up after several stages, and once the methods have been mastered there is some serious enjoyment to be had.

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.

The no-holds barred combat fails to provide the variety you’d want and the gore of the real event isn’t in evidence.

An above average RPG when released on the lesser Dreamcast system, on the PS2 it is merely average.

The vehicle and character designs seem to have been built from a kit consisting of ideas from games that share a similar theme, and in such a hurry that someone forgot to add grime and wear definitions.

There is little here to sparkle the imagination and the best we can say is that it’s a fair time-filler. If only the developers had the nerve to try out some fresh ideas, or even implemented old ones in exciting ways then we’d be looking at a much healthier product.

There's no denying the snippets shine with sheen, but while Frodo et al are off saving the world, your party feel like impostors - the real adventure is elsewhere. And it is - in a legion of other superior RPGs.

There are some great touches, like how you can throw a gas canister over a crowd, shoot it and let hot fuel rain over the heads of multiple enemies, but they’re simply not held together.

Why publishers can't just leave classic titles to die gracefully in the warm glow of our misguided reminiscing, is beyond us. Taito Legends represents the crème of the crop, but it still tastes a little sour with age.

The graphics vary wildly from very nice when you’re up high doing a bombing run to absolutely horrible when you get near the ground – what the hell is pop-up doing on a Gamecube?

We’d recommend Primal to those of you who like games to act as a dictator rather than an instigator. And those who find fetching cups off coffee comparable to the heroic tasks undertaken by the heroes of Greek mythology.