The Thaumaturge shows plenty of promise, but lets itself down somewhat by failing to play to its strengths. Warsaw and its history and culture is a joy to experience when the game properly engages with it, but an insistent focus on a comparatively dull main story ultimately detracts from this for a fun yet frustrating experience.

Awesome Level Max includes some excellent action that is worth the price tag if you're itching for some more Trials Fusion, but sadly the Awesome Adventure isn't nearly as expansive nor as interesting as I'd have liked.

Last Hope International is the definitive Star Ocean 4 experience, and as far as I'm concerned, the best next-gen RPG money can buy.

There's a lot to do in Just Cause 3, it's just that doing it all isn't really that much fun. In fact it's probably a better game in retrospect than it is when you're playing it: freed from the controls and other issues, you'll remember it fondly. You'll also likely want to get back to it: there's a moreish, Ubisoft-style vibe here that encourages repeated playing. Those of you that wanted Just Cause 2 Part 2 will love what's on offer, but it all feels lesser than the sum of its parts.

Total War Pharaoh is a fun game, but one that lacks ambition. It squanders its potential with meagre gameplay, story, soundtrack, and performance, and fails to add anything of note to the Total War series, or leave an impression of its identity.

Despite some effort to make Reflex more than just another MX vs ATV game, it's ended up feeling very similar to what's gone before it.

It's funny, challenging, and easily worth replaying a few times; there are only two endings this time around, but you're unlikely to see everything the Phenotrans lab has to offer in a single outing.

The standard tilting-world stages are fun, although they'd arguably work better with a standard GameCube controller, but the mini-games only really serve as something else to put on the back of the box.

A great looking PSP game and features more content than on PS3, but the fundamental problems haven't been addressed. The single-player, albeit longer, is still quite dull, and the online matches still take forever, especially now communication is nigh on impossible. Fun but flawed.

The battle system is perhaps the game's strongest asset, with stylish gun-slinging action that wouldn't look all that out of place in something like Devil May Cry.

While it's by no means a perfect recreation of the sport, it does a lot of things very well. Casual fans might be best advised to stay away though, unless prepared to invest a lot of time into learning circuits and how to drive the incredibly powerful cars.

Ultimately, Hotline Miami 2 improves upon its predecessor in a way that is pleasing, but non-essential. And to get there, it undercut the one thing that made the original great. Hotline Miami was nasty, brutish, and short. Hotline Miami 2, sadly, is not.

Despite a fundamentally flawed default control scheme and somewhat bland visuals, Innocent Aces remains a solid flight-sim.

These clashes between East and West cause more than enough sparks to make Binary Domain one of the most interesting culture shocks in a long time. It's redolent of the late Dreamcast/early PS2 era, when games were edgier and more interesting, before they were focus-tested into oblivion.

With plenty of puzzles, numerous game modes and two-player support (on PSP) PipeMania is a fun, tough puzzler that is different enough to other puzzlers on the market to warrant a purchase. Its quite severe learning curve might put off some people, but once you get in the pipe laying zone you'll find an incredibly addictive game.

It's not massively inspiring, nor is it innovative, but it is a solid and at times addictive little number.

MUA fans may bemoan the lack of change, and they'd have a point. Bar the Fusion Powers there's little new going on here. But it's still a fun, albeit brainless romp that's sure to please Marvel fanboys.

Batman: Arkham Origins is a wonderful version of somebody else's game. While a return to the Arkham series is welcome – and if you take only one thing away from this review, it should be that Origins is a worthy entry – there's no denying that Warner Bros. Montreal has taken Rocksteady's tremendous template and crafted a similar experience.

If you want a genuinely ambitious video game based on a movie license, check out Toy Story 3. If, however, you or a family member really loves Lightning McQueen and the movie's cast of characters, this simple but fun arcade racer won't disappoint.

It's a skill-based game that manages to be surprisingly technical, but never at the expense of fun. It's hugely rewarding, too: after several extended spells on the game, Mr Gaston had the balls to perform Gold Digger on stage in a Croydon nightclub - and round there, they kill people who suck at karaoke.

It's tempting to see this as a metaphor for the game as a whole: beautiful from a distance, but disappointing when you really open your eyes. Still, I find that I have a certain affection for this game - one that I never expected to develop. If Ubisoft decide to make a HAWX 2, I'll certainly be in line to take a look.

The Turing Test can be quite accurately described as Portal meets Soma, exploring similar ideas of AI and selfhood. The trouble is, I suppose, that both those games did each aspect better.

It does exactly what a Borderlands game should: offer great shooting and fun looting. The introduction of moon-based combat has added some spice to general gameplay, while Aussie voice acting has also injecting some more character into what was already one of the more entertaining series on the market.

Regardless of that feeling of déjà vu, Carbon is another solid racer from EA, and the Auto-Sculpt feature is absolutely fantastic, not to mention the impressive car roster and functional online component.

Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, but don't drop them in the sea, and mind out for the runaway chickens, and remember to lift with your noodley arms rather than your legs.

A joyous and relaxing city builder that will make you think.

Layers of Fear is a fun ride. If you can live with the poor frame rate you'll find a horror game that relishes the chance to mess with your head, delivers plenty of scares, jumps and heart-pounding moments, and wraps it up in a bizarre yet intriguing storyline.

All in all, Tourist Trophy is very close to being the game Gran Turismo loving bike fans would have wanted.

It's a reviewing cliché, but this is one for hardcore fans only.

This Director's Cut deserved to be spared from patchy audio and shonky cutscenes, but it wasn't. Regardless of this fact, the brilliance of the Templars remains largely undiminished.

I have no idea what the development budget was for Trackmania Wii, but with more resources it could have easily been the most impressive racer on the platform. As it is, it's hugely addictive, but also terribly sloppy. The final game should have been much better.

It's unquestionably fun. But that doesn't excuse the many, many problems, most of which should have been ironed out when the series was a PS2 exclusive over five years ago.

Episode 4 confirms what we already knew about Resident Evil Revelations 2: that it's a success, mixing and matching elements of Resi's old and new – while throwing in Raid mode – to good effect.

A short but sweet point and click puzzle adventure that takes you from dairy farming in Norway out to the stars and beyond. Godspeed, Ruth, you were a joy.

Art of Rally is that rarest of things: the video game as essay. Now and then, the medium throws up chewy cogitations on the nature of choice and of play—usually so inward-gazing as to cause neck ache—and you feel like saying, “Would you kindly shut up, and let me get back to it.” But the developers have instead filed a report on something they love, taking the delicious murk of their favoured sport, scouring it clean, and schooling us lightly in its history. The danger of doing that, of course, is in boring us, but Art of Rally, while a glittering reflection, is anything but dull. To do something dangerous with style may be art, but Funselektor has done something dangerous with art, and arrived at pure style.

It's not as visually brilliant as the best 360 games, but the cats are modelled excellently and purr with personality. The island is bright and colourful and Bumble has the kind of voice the kids love but adults find grating after two minutes.

If you can get over the gameplay issues and quite fancy a slow but considered puzzle adventure full of quirky humour, you'll be hard pressed to find better value Wii game.

Still, if you're still a plastic guitar aficionado then Warriors of Rock is undeniably fun; it just severely lacks in ambition, and its ostentatious new coat of paint is little more than a sleight of hand designed to trick you into thinking you're in for a different ride this year. You're not.

We have been given a finely tooled zombie shooter, but it lacks the power of the original. This has less to do with its diminished darkness—Left 4 Dead was a far gloomier ride, lit by the panicked sway of torches—and more to do with us. And with the years. There is plenty to enjoy here, and I heartily recommend it to any who relish killing the dead. But Turtle Rock Studios wants to take us back to another time, and it’s 2 Late 4 That.

Leviathan manages to just about recapture what makes Mass Effect compelling, but by failing to develop any of the game's most central characters it struggles to find a place in a narrative that many of us will already be done with.

Hogrocket's iOS debut has managed to set up a great premise, but the promising development team hasn't quite been able to deliver the goods. Ultimately, Tiny Invaders fails to build upon its entertaining concept.

Maybe if it inspired loss of bladder control in the same way the original did - or, better still, how Monolith's Condemned did - it might have been slightly more memorable. FEAR 3 is sadly lacking in the fear department, and has subsequently lost its defining characteristic.

As a port of a popular fighting series, Power Stone Collection is excellent, but as an alternative to the Dreamcast classics you might have tucked away in a box under you bed, it fails.

Maybe if it inspired loss of bladder control in the same way the original did - or, better still, how Monolith's Condemned did - it might have been slightly more memorable. FEAR 3 is sadly lacking in the fear department, and has subsequently lost its defining characteristic.

A copy of budget-priced Just Dance 2 will ultimately make you a happy-looking tit with enough change in your back pocket to make a cool jingly noise when you're doing some booty shaking.

If you're a Sonic fan Chronicles really is an essential purchase. It's one of the best Sonic games we've played in ages (given the quality of some Sonic games in recent years this doesn't come as a surprise) and, despite it not being as in-depth an RPG as we'd hoped, it's really a lot of fun while it lasts.

A solid, entertaining third-person shooter, best played with a friend, but it's not quite the big advancement over the original it could have been. It's a more cohesive game, thanks to its location and more believable main characters, but the AI still disappoints at times and the new morality system misses far more than it hits. It's also incredibly short, and without a top-tier multiplayer component to turn to, your fun will likely be over very quickly.

Make no mistake, this is Gran Turismo as you remember it but on a handheld, and done in a way that betters what I imagined was possible.

Zeno Clash is incredibly hard to explain; it's so off-the-wall that it demands to be experienced first-hand.

Romeo is a Dead Man is another signature digital idiosyncratic reverie from Suda51 and Grasshopper Manufacture, a kaleidoscopic muddle of visual styles, music, and ideas that offers acres of fertile concepts and feelings to interpret and muse over. However, when the dust settles, it isn’t all that enjoyable to play.

The combat can be slightly uninvolving at times, and the exploration side of proceedings serves little more than to connect one battle to the next, but the experience as a whole is surprisingly enjoyable.

The cutscenes are lovely, the dialogue and voice over work stereotypical but fitting, and the soundtrack is a wistful traditional Japanese score that rekindles memories of The Karate Kid. Still, Mini Ninjas will do nothing to quell the growing call from core gamers for IO's "next-gen" Hitman game.

At points Comic Jumper will frustrate to the extent that you'll want to walk away and never look at it again, but if the humour grabs you then it's possible to overlook the many problems.

While the game insists on holding your hand a little too tightly and the time limits can cause a lot of unnecessary stress, de Blob 2 remains a solid platform game with an interesting mechanic at its core.

PES 2008 on PS3 is for a next-gen console but it is not a next-gen game. You cannot ignore the fact that, for whatever reason, this is a poor effort from Konami.

Mafia 2 feels like a game that could have been great. Clunky controls are hardly game-breaking, and some might argue part and parcel with the open-world genre, but without the features associated with open-world games Mafia 2 is more easily compared to Uncharted and Gears of War - and in that circle it's simply not action-packed enough.

What we have here is a developer that is happy to nudge us with knowing jokes, but who doesn’t dare to frighten us. We might call it a Craven effort. As for the ending, there isn’t one—just a montage of postscripts, detailing the fates of the various characters. Only, we already know their fates, having been at least partially responsible for them. As the credits rolled, the sweetness of the humour had grown stale, and I felt distinctly unsated, though hardly hungry for more. I hate to say it, but Supermassive has made a Butterpop.

I would have liked to have seen a bit more customization, and it's unfortunate that the grab tricks got the shaft this time around, but those minor blemishes hardly prevent SSX Blur from being one of the Wii's first must-have titles of the year.

On-pitch action is fast and frantic. It may be to simulate the pressures of knock-out football, but end-to-end contests seem much more frequent, with chances at either goal. Players are able to get the ball out of their feet quicker to make passes, but still suffer when it comes to intricate dribbles.

Despite originally pitching itself as a more serious fighter, Dead or Alive 5 stays very true to its roots by offering a gentler introduction to the genre. Tits, thongs and throws, it still offers everything you'd expect from Team Ninja's famous fighter, though maturing fans might find themselves put off by all the titillation.

Tokyo Jungle should be praised for its originality, even though it isn't a consistently engaging experience. If you're willing to suffer the slog of survival through testing environments and even more testing game design you'll be rewarded with a 70-year dynasty of beagles. If you don't have such patience, you might find that your mutt barely makes it to his first birthday.

Cities Skylines 2 is a well-loved home that picks smart renovation over a sweeping revolution. With incredible visuals and immaculate detailing, few cities can eclipse this colossal effort in terms of sheer freedom and choice.

As a whole, and occasional framerate drops aside, Virginia is wonderfully cinematic, and a fantastic story to inhabit as it unfolds. It's just not for everyone. Which is true of everything that's ever been made, I suppose, and in this case at least what has been made is new and different, and incredibly stylish.

The fourth episode brings a welcome jolt of movement and energy, with an urgent pace and the introduction of a new, intriguing character. Some of the branching choices still feel shallow.

Infected is the gaming equivalent of a video nasty that devotees of gore-splattered mayhem will lap up like a new Romero movie. Designed exclusively for the PSP, it also shows developers are starting to really think about what handheld gamers want, rather than just porting stripped down versions of established PlayStation franchises.

You get to have a different survival story every time, in a lovely setting, whilst discovering hints of civilisation in the emptiness – feral children who share arrows with you, the distant radio signal that is your first objective, fires that are lit before you arrived.

For all of SuperBot's noble efforts in creating an accessible yet technical fighter, you can't play PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale without ever feeling like something crucial is deeply lacking. The weak roster and poor presentation actively works against the title, and while there's enjoyment to be found this is a game that's highly unlikely to stick in your mind or, more vitally, ever be asked for at parties.

This is pure throwback FPS fun, an updated take on the '97 3D Realms original. As such, the objectives are barely removed from that of the archetypal Doom: kill everything, find the key and get to the door.

DeathSprint 66 taps into a deeply disturbed corner of your imagination and begs you to die over and over again. You can't help but play along - it's that fun.

For hardcore shooter fans, Galaga Legions is an essential purchase, and can rightly be considered the definitive Galaga game. For everyone else, we can't recommend it over Retro Evolved 2, which remains the Xbox 360's best shooter by a country mile.

What it does do is offer a tech demo-style example of what Move can do in the basic realm of mini-games.

Despite a few niggles with the note structure changes and the nagging feeling that this could have all been DLC, Greatest Hits is still a lot of fun.

On one side you've got some brilliantly designed platforming, with Ubisoft able to breathe new life into what could have been quite stale gameplay. Sadly, the combat, of which there is a lot, fails to do anything interesting. It's too basic and as a result dull and repetitive.

PES 2009 is a good game, but the times they are changin', and we're afraid that Konami is being left behind. Time for a reboot, Seabass.

Crash Course isn't likely to win any awards for its visuals, looking like a smart version of an Xbox LIVE Indie game, but it does the job and no fancy effects get in the way of the requisite precision jumping.

Online play would have made this the perfect multiplayer offering but the developers have got to leave something to add in a future release.

The best time I had with the game was a ten-minute stretch that contained (a) no crashes or bugs, (b) the right level and world tier—essentially, a measure of enemy toughness—and (c) a harmony of tactics, sorcery, and gunfire.

Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice is one of the best PSP games I've played.

Its most brilliant innovation, though, is the chance to fail. Each case is a hunt for clues to populate your “deduction space”, a literally cerebral device where information snippets get associated with neurons in Sherlock’s brain, which you can mess around with to make connections. Once enough deductions are made, conclusions become available which allow you to close the case, finger a suspect, and decide their fate.

The single-player Career won't take all that long to complete, but with a hugely entertaining multiplayer mode both on and offline, there's a good chance you'll continue playing for a while after.

Although it's missing the official licence, it's incredibly addictive and packed full with unlockables.

The shock value of Ladykiller in a Bind's sex scenes wear off the more they occur, but that doesn't take away from the interesting manipulation game that sees you trying to gain votes from your classmates.

Although the controls in this Wii version of Medal of Honor Heroes 2 are superior to those in the PSP version (if you can get the hang of them), I found myself having more fun with the handheld game.

Super Mario Maker for 3DS is a perfect fit for the handheld, with loads of content and excellent creation tools, but why can't you share levels online? That decision is baffling.

The recently released "ProStroke Golf" demonstrated how a more advanced control system can work on consoles, and playing Tiger Woods 07 does feel like a slight step back. At the same time, the controls have a simplicity to them that makes the game easy to play, and there is level of depth to the control and shot choice for the more serious players.

The cutscenes are lovely, the dialogue and voice over work stereotypical but fitting, and the soundtrack is a wistful traditional Japanese score that rekindles memories of The Karate Kid. Still, Mini Ninjas will do nothing to quell the growing call from core gamers for IO's "next-gen" Hitman game.

A solid, entertaining third-person shooter, best played with a friend, but it's not quite the big advancement over the original it could have been. It's a more cohesive game, thanks to its location and more believable main characters, but the AI still disappoints at times and the new morality system misses far more than it hits. It's also incredibly short, and without a top-tier multiplayer component to turn to, your fun will likely be over very quickly.

Ultimately this is pretty yet uninspired.

A laughably-shambolic campaign and multiplayer that is merely serviceable and too timid to step out of Battlefield 4's shadow.

Lego 2K Drive is a breezy kart-like racing game with plenty of things to do, a unique twist in its customisation options and overall, the kind of fun you’d expect from a Lego game - although its microtransactions leave an uneasy taste in the mouth.

Just Cause's biggest draw is its huge island setting, but it's also what prevents the game world from feeling truly alive. As much as soaring through the sky in a fighter jet, before freefalling hundreds of feet, and then parachuting to your target destination is great fun, that's pretty much what you do, over and over again.

This remake has been handled with an unusual level of respect and a commitment to the original, and the graphical overhaul strikes a happy balance between old and new.

As addictive as the perk goals are, it's the bread-and-butter sabotage that proves to be the real distraction.

LittleBigPlanet Karting is an enjoyable game, but it's far from a great one, and it doesn't feel like it's had the love and attention previous games in the series have clearly benefitted from. Play it, mess around with its tools, and have fun, but LittleBigPlanet Karting's lack of personality will result in no long-lasting impression.

Quickly it becomes second nature to scavenge the flanks, and poke your gun into every nook and cranny, looking to surprise your enemy or bypass an overwhelming opposition stronghold.

Dawnguard is considerably better than most of Bethesda's recent Fallout 3 DLC, but you'll be sorely disappointed if you go in expecting to find Skyrim's version of Bloodmoon or The Shivering Isles.

Quarantine Circular, while lacking the same focus as Subsurface Circular, is another engaging untangling of science fiction concepts with interesting characters, and it leaves you waiting for the next instalment.