There's no denying that this brave attempt at combining styles has resulted in a good solid title that's entertaining and fun to play.

A game whose high-resolution graphics, expansive levels and creatively devised puzzles will delight Xbox owners everywhere.

The next time a game developer gets a wacky idea, and an original game design, they should concentrate on offering a full adventure, rather than knocking off a few levels and making it depressingly hard to get through.

The gameplay is as solid as you’d expect it to be, but what of the problems that have plagued this type of title in the past (on the PSone at least)? Yes we’re talking about massive loading times and missing frames of animation.

The game looks better than ever, with more colours making it a real visual treat, and the additional buttons allow for plenty of new tricks.

The main drawback though is simply the hardcore nature of the beast, the controls are as intuitively arcade based as Madden and so playing is made difficult if you really don’t know what a ‘screen pass to the wide out is’.

A massive improvement over the previous Mat Hoffman title on the PSone. It’s nothing too original and it does have its flaws.

Madden has always been the king of the hill and this year is no exception.

The game itself is still a really enjoyable romp, but that doesn’t stop this being possibly the most lacklustre Nintendo release to date – the ‘Magical’ is ironic, surely?

Without the huge stars of the NBA to play against, it already falls flat next to EA’s "NBA Street" and despite all of its urban trappings this is a very bland and unexciting ballgame.

Our main gripe other than this that there is too much emphasis placed on completing the tasks in order to open up new levels – this is very restricting.

Authentic play, televisual presentation and a storming soundtrack featuring Bon Jovi and Andrew WK add up to the finest American Football game money can buy.

Unfortunately, it’s also in the multiplayer mode that Beach Spikers manages to falter slightly thanks to the rather lacklustre selection of mini-games that have been.

The lack of endearing characters dosen't help the cause either – there is no empathy on your part as your character comes across as an extremely nasty person...a large slice of fun, but nothing special.

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.

Quite simply the new Mack Daddy of extreme sports games. Think what might happen if "Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3," "Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2" and "Jet Set Radio Future" all settled down and had a baby together… that’s Aggressive Inline.

The game feels very much like a third person version of "Command & Conquer."

You do this with the aid of obscuring camera angles, slow reactions, moves which force you to fight in the wrong direction, clumsy controls and a loading time that exceeds all expectations.

A blast, and for some simple brainless hack n’ slash action you won’t find a better packed or well-presented disc on the PS2.

This game is indeed all we hoped for and a little bit more.

It’s got more longevity than a lot of games out there today and offers a style of gameplay that we’ve loved ever since the original Tony Hawk’s game. Acclaim, we salute you.

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 doesn’t seem to know whether it wants to be a realistic simulation of the sport or a straight-out arcade game, as it stands it manages to succeed as neither.

With some excellent kiddified gameplay, superb graphics and enough content to keep the little people quiet – for a while at least – this is a fine example of how to use a tie-in licence properly.

All this hard work is wasted thanks to the abysmal gameplay and game design. The license does nothing to enhance this mediocre title – in fact, it further highlights its flaws.

Alien Escape is just too simplistic and too shallow to warrant serious attention.

Playing the game is a bittersweet experience. It’s strangely diverting, but all the time you’re thinking of what it could have been with a bit more testing and tweaking.

Think about it: How many other games out there can keep our collective attention for so long without even giving us anything as tangible as the thrill of completing a single level?