Basically a vanity game made by Anime fans for Anime fans which sticks to its guns to create a shallow shoot-’em-up with an inspired styling.

Sadly, your competitors behave like drones, slaves to the racing line. When a rider glances over at you, your presence has not really been registered.

Whilst its general pace is unequivocally pedestrian and the missions are overly long and drawn out, Top Gun remains a surprisingly seductive prospect, albeit one devoid of significant exhilaration.

Some will find it frustrating, others irrelevant, while a small number of people will no doubt relish it for the very flaws we pointed out.

With all the new franchise options Madden 2004 is a definite must for anyone who likes to get into the nitty-gritty of the game, but otherwise you might be better of waiting for the rather nifty-looking "NFL Street." Overall though, this is the best American football game you can get.

If anything lets the game down it’s this combat system, which really doesn’t need to be there.

When not having "almost fun" by busting ghosts (see boxout) we're left wondering what the game wants. Gallons of paint and polish can't disguise the fact that the heart of Ghosthunter is very old.

With no improvement of note this one is for hard (armored) core fans only.

The end result is, like the best blockbuster movies, a flawed but enjoyable waste of time.

Then you meet the game’s other personality, the ‘stealth’ bits, thrown in to remedy the aforementioned mindless repetitiveness. And it’s an unpleasant little turd whom you won’t be wanting to spend much time with.

This entire concept is ridiculous. Why, oh why is your team so rubbish? Falco is supposed to be an 'Ace Pilot' for crying out loud. Your team is supposed to be the galaxy's last, best hope, yet they can't even shoot more than two enemies on any given level. They may as well not even be there and save us the worry.

In short, there are no clear delineations in skill level. Whilst this is one way of making Virtual On more inclusive, it also removes much of the game’s innate charm. To make matters more complicated, Marz lacks a TwinStick peripheral.

The extra games are all very nice and shiny but some more work should have gone into creating a level field of play, wherein each character can compete fairly and we aren't left damning Kobra's utter rubbishness as Noob-Smoke kicks seven varying shades of faeces out of him yet again.

Sadly, Genji gameplay appears to be as stuck in the past as its setting and there's no amount of elegance that can cover a flaw like that up.

There is enjoyment to be had here but it is so short lived that there is no point donating much more than one evening to the game. For a franchise that started out so well this does indeed seem to be the fall of Max Payne.

Onimusha's stars aren't exactly in the same league as Dante, Jean Reno or Mr Viewtiful and B) The eccentricities of the series don't make for a beginner friendly combat game.

The action, story and move-set keep things moderately interesting, but after a while the woolly targeting starts to grate.

For our thoughts on Doubles in Smash Court 2, take the implied criticism of the last sentence, breed it with a retarded monkey suffering with diarrhoea, square the answer and you'll have some idea how awkward a mode this is.

To get the most out of this you will need to play it for quite a while, and those of you that do will no doubt find the extra features rewarding – if you only dabble with the game this is not an essential addition.

Maybe if it actually looked better, if more of the levels weren't so sparse or uninspiring then we'd be able to forgive the shallow gameplay and the fact that combat is too straightforward.

It rapidly descends into an overly-linear memory test which, without the physical act of aiming or the genuinely engaging ducking mechanic of "Time Crisis," all too quickly becomes repetitive and dull.

We've all seen the future and the harsh reality is Spyro: A Hero's Tail is unnecessary with the superior competition around.

In such a saturated genre perfection is necessary but Vexx only comes off as average.

Unless you count the prospect of photographing a different playmate as enticing there is little to encourage you to play on. And the Playmates all look reasonably similar anyway.

An engaging and amusing game that should appeal to the young and young at heart alike.

Sadly for Konami, Enthusia is here, slightly queer, and we just can't get used to it.

On one hand the characters and art endear you towards it, but when it comes down to it, the fighting is just too shallow to recommend this over any other boxing game out there.

It's good fun, but the novelty of these funky worms waving goodbye in surreal style can wear off pretty quickly.