Like so many classics, the fun in Tony Hawk's 3 comes from being given a liberating amount of freedom.

The learning curve is pure genius... A perfect game in almost every way.

A remarkable achievement of proportions we never imagined possible. It has single-handedly changed the way we see all videogame entertainment and the repercussions it should have for the industry are staggering. In one fell swoop your entire games collection has become obsolete, all other games seeming pathetic attempts to waste your time.

To have a game this amazingly good on day one brings tears of joy to our eyes. Everything in Halo is going to make you praise the day you were born.

Half-Life 2 establishes a class-step in gaming we haven't seen since "Elite" on the BBC Micro.

Goldeneye is even better than "Mario 64." Even Oddjob could figure out what that means! A Nintendo 64 without Goldeneye is like James Bond without a vodka martini.

A breath-taking game. It's majestic in scale, beautifully realised and virtually flawless in execution. Scary, shocking, captivating and, in every sense, brilliant.

A thoroughbred that out-strikes the opposition as if it were high on steroids. Put bluntly, we're not gonna get a better beat-'em-up. Tekken 3 is a killer app that is close to perfection.

Half-Life is brilliant in every respect with huge monsters appearing later on, Half-Life gets so spooky it hurts, so frightening people simply watching jump!

Every moment spent in the game world, from the ramshackle village to the far-from-abandoned military installation, is pure, adrenaline-fuelled fun. The game doesn't want to be big or clever - it wants to take you on a roller-coaster ride that leaves you breathless. And it does.

One of the most well oiled pieces of software to be released, ever. This can stand proud next to the likes of "A Link To The Past" and "Ocarina Of Time." You'll be coming back to it again and again for many years to come.

The biggest, best and sexiest racing game ever. What we have here is a gigantic car game that's such enormous fun to play because of three main elements: unparalleled realism, ground-breaking graphics and the chance to spend a lot of money.

SOL's storyline (and this is being generous) is woefully inept, consisting of such high-calibre nonsense that there's absolutely no point following it.

In a complete reversal of modern trends, these are games whose visuals play second fiddle to the sheer wealth, diversity and involvement of tasks on offer, all the while playing on some very tongue in cheek moments and dark humour that even Hollywood's finest would have a tough time trying to rival.

It's about being in one long and deeply worthwhile experience that manages to do the impossible and improve on what has gone before, and then has the confidence to expand itself to a size that defies belief. Pack some sandwiches, it's going to be a long trip.

Everything about Vice City positively reeks of genius.

It could be argued that Halo 2 multiplayer is not only leagues ahead of any other broadband enabled game, but it may even leave the single-player experience in the shadows. The options for online play are far more varied than even Ubisoft's Clancy titles, and the interface and lobby systems represent everything that Xbox Live is truly capable of. [XBM]

The lack of any kind of weather (wet roads isn't a weather condition, merely a clever effect), the frame-skipping problems (it just shouldn't exist!), and the lack of car damage (erm… this is a simulation, right?) drags the score down from the high nineties. Still, this game is without a doubt the best racer on any platform.

The storyline to Majora’s Mask is far superior to that of the first game and besides the camera and the occasional annoyance created by the advance of time, the puzzles, quests, objects and characters that you meet in this game make it a more than worthy sequel.

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

A masterpiece of handheld gaming.

Short of smacking your knees with a sledgehammer and scraping your face with a cheesegrater, the genre couldn’t really feel much more realistic (and no, none of us plan to stand on one of those daft ‘skateboard PS2 peripherals’ either).

A groundbreaking title that takes the genre in a new and exciting direction. Capcom has once again managed to breathe life into a genre that had been stuck in something of a rut of late.

Damn them… why could they not have implemented the fantastic Player Editor last time? Why couldn’t they have made it easier to get into last time? Why now a better interface, sideline players, cheerleaders and cool boxes?

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.

For me, the PC was designed to run Civilization 2. Sid Meier is a God and I'll be playing this for days, weeks, months even!

GF doesn't really go anywhere new so don't expect too many surprises in that field, where it does excel is in keeping to the tried and tested Lucasarts formula of comedy and logic combined to give you the most senseless fun you can imagine.

To accompany the breathtaking graphics is a soundtrack of pure extravagance, and it does wonders to heighten the action and suspense, we can tell you.