Essentially, Mario Party 9 is a great leveller. No matter if you play games for a living or only touch a controller when one is forced into you hand, chances are you'll be in with a shot of winning come the end of the each game. The Wii has always been about bringing people together to play, and Mario Party 9 does that considerably better than I thought it would.

It's not quite as whiz-bang as LEGO Star Wars III and feels quite formulaic at times, but there's no denying it has charm and widespread appeal.

Its narrative is fractious and slight, compared to Sledgehammer’s previous work, but the chance for a chaotic, target-rich experience with friends exerts a stronger pull than usual.

There's no denying that GUN Showdown is an entertaining game, but you'll have to overcome the incredibly awkward controls in order to get any enjoyment from it.

The level designs vary from excellent to poor, enemy variety is non-existent (ok, the gang members where masks, but still), the aforementioned rescue missions become tedious, and the end arrives a couple of levels too soon.

Lumo could have easily been another retro inspired title that did little other than revel in old-school visuals. If anything, the reverse is true here. While visually a little unappealing, the isometric adventure and platforming gameplay are great, with a smattering of hair-pulling moments not enough to irrevocably damage what is a lovely trip down memory lane.

Titan Souls is one of the most interesting titles I've played this year. Some issues aside, this is a unique and memorable experience.

ProStreet isn't a bad game, it simply doesn't hold a candle to its competition, and Need for Speed fans will be left wondering where all the fun has gone from the illegal, turned legal, street racing series.

A game with visuals this simple really doesn't have any right to look this good. It might be a trickier experience than fans are used to, but it's still a joy to play. It's not as good as the previous two games, but at a budget price it's still a game few PSP owners will be disappointed by.

You can sense, in Weird West, a developer both returning to his obsessions and toiling on a fresh frontier.

It's not quite as whiz-bang as LEGO Star Wars III and feels quite formulaic at times, but there's no denying it has charm and widespread appeal.

After the slump of the second episode, the drama picks up its pace and the central relationship is tested in some interesting ways.

Bold, thrilling and immense, and deserves every success. The Action RTS has arrived and let's hope it is here to stay.

Although it is never great to aim low, I can't help but think the reaction to Return to Arkham would have been better had both games simply been 1080p, locked frame rate versions of the originals, running on Unreal Engine 3.

Unlimited may once again frustratingly fail to reach the potential of Scribblenauts’ terrific core conceit. But if any game this year makes my son and I laugh as much as this has over the past week or so, I’ll be absolutely delighted.

A perfectly serviceable DLC offering.

Tidy controls and some classic retro styling, along with a great soundtrack straight from the chips of a Mega Drive assure this is everything a Sega classic should be.

An extremely competent hack 'n' slash that achieves exactly what developer Raven set out to do: deliver a real Wolverine experience. This isn't the feral X-Man as family-friendly super-hero, but a full-on blood thirsty killer.

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.

It's a rather chaotic mix of excellent gameplay and flawed finishing, but as the beginning of what should be a continuing series of RTS games, it's by no means a bad start.

Enjoyable enough, but overall it adds little to Revelations 2.

The mini-games here are far better than those in last year's disappointing sequel and the Balance Board support gives it some unique novelty value.

Fun, but a little shallow.

There remains about Pokémon Brilliant Diamond the glint of something far gone, and there is something warmly reassuring about the place.

It's hard to be down on a game that, when judged on its own merits, is great fun and addictive, but it's equally hard to look past the fact that this is essentially the same game we've been playing since it belatedly arrived on the GameCube.

Sarcastic gripes against weird game elements aside though, Juiced 2 is a more than satisfactory racing game that offers some fun car stuff, all packaged up in a presentation featuring lots of busty girls in small amounts of tight clothing, which - speaking as a hot blooded male - is never a bad thing.

It certainly won't be for anyone who doesn't first and foremost enjoy the tower defence genre as a whole. It's great value, offering 12 levels and online leaderboards. The fact that there's no multiplayer, locally or online, is a criticism, as are the quality of the environments, which are a bit bland, but otherwise Savage Moon offers a unique and refreshing counterpoint to the cutesy tower defence games the market seems to be flooded with at the moment.

Available for less than £10 online, the many great physics-based puzzles and unrelenting feeling of fear are well worth the asking price, but don't expect a game that will compete with multi-million pound projects.

LEGO Batman 3 starts slow and then gets a lot better, and then overwhelms with so much content it's hard to be disappointed.

Despite the fact that all the evidence suggests Virtua Tennis is a series stuck in a rut, Virtua Tennis 2009 is still great fun and this Wii version feels different enough that it'll be worth a shot for many.

It's destined to be nothing more than a forgotten idea, stuck behind a wall, trying desperately to get noticed.

Dead Island 2 is the loud, boisterous, vibrant cousin to Dying Light 2, with a meaty combat system, insufferable characters, and a much smaller but densely packed world.

It's fun, with a compulsive quality and a constant glut of rewards to keep you playing and earning more weapons, perks, and Yet More Stuff for your build(s), even if it lacks the time pressure and one-more-go appeal of Mercenaries. At five quid, however, there's no going wrong here.

If you like SingStar and like the thirty tunes listed above, you'll love it. The majority of the tunes are the kind that everyone knows most of the words to, and the collection is far more balanced for males and females than some of the previous expansion packs.

You shouldn't buy Thrillville Off the Rails for the mini-games - there are much better social video games out there. But as a theme park creator it's not bad, and has literally hundreds of options to tweak and manage.

For kids into fashion this would make an ideal gift.

It has neither the depth of Top Spin nor the excitement of Virtua Tennis, and is bizarrely inferior to its predecessor in almost every way.

The new gesture controls simply don't work well enough, and in a game that promotes button bashing the constant use of the Wii-mote is more than a little tedious.

It makes the most of modern technology to bring a classic game world up to date, throws in simple but intuitive controls and doesn't rely on constant fire-fights to bring excitement.

A worthy addition to any Wii owner's game collection. It may be unusual, insistent on clinging to a long-gone gaming era, and incredibly hard at times, but by including every major Metal Slug game, is without doubt one of the finest platform shooter titles yet released.

This will be good fun for Star Wars fanatics who want to see how Renegade Squadron fits in with the overall Star Wars story, and the game's best feature - online multiplayer - should keep most entertained for a good few hours. But this isn't an essential PSP purchase.

As it happens, though I played for much longer, I had had more than my fill after the first four hours, with no desire to venture back in. Strange to tell, I mourn the very things—the scalable vantages, the unlockable skills—that Ubisoft has left behind for the sake of freshness.

The racing is by no means terrible, and will serve its purpose for those interested in a Cars video game, but had that aspect been nailed, the whole experience would have been elevated a notch or two.

Killer Instinct possesses the fundamentals to be a crowd-pleasing title, and certainly does a decent job of inviting less experienced players into the genre, but its limited modes and insistence on milking your funds KOs a game with potential.

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.

The attention to detail in the environments is superb, with little touches here and there for fans to pick up on, and the many forgotten characters are excellent. The platforming is top notch when the camera doesn't get in the way, and the paint and thinner mechanics give the game a unique hook.

If you like the idea of messing with some storm troopers to the extent that it verges on Force-fuelled torture we recommend you give The Force Unleashed a look.

Guardian of Light is a thoroughly refreshing take on tomb raiding, and – aside from the aforementioned control issues - has made the transition to iPhone surprisingly well.

There remains about Pokémon Brilliant Diamond the glint of something far gone, and there is something warmly reassuring about the place.

Soulstorm, like its predecessors, does a great job of providing an intense, war-torn, battlefield for you to play with. But the most important thing is that the game is great fun, and will surely touch the soul of every RTS geek who's ever dreamt of being a Space Marine.

It's far from perfect and more annoying than accidentally ramming your already-bleeding knuckles against a table edge that's been smeared with salt and vinegar, but it's the kind of pain that probably turns people into fetishists. It might be wrong, but on this occasion it feels oh so right.

What First Light does is take the best slice of Second Son, repackages it in a new story with some extras, and asks for just over a tenner to take it for a spin.

If you're after a simple game that a large group of non-gamers can play together, Scene it? will do the job very well. With the promise of downloadable content, the game should live on well beyond the initial 1800 questions and the lack of wires on the big button controllers is great for a party environment.

The 3D looks pretty smart, but this is the same old PES I've played many, many times before. It's still a smart game of football, but as with a number of 3DS launch games, it's not making the most of the hardware and doesn't really offer anything new.

The new levels are a nice bonus, but half the fun of the PSP game was feeling like you'd achieved something when completing a level; on the PlayStation 2 that feeling is all but gone.

With some impressive combat mechanics, an excellent game world, some of the most disturbing enemies ever seen and tight production values, Dante's Inferno delivers the goods.

The game suffers from far too many core gameplay problems for it to be a worthy contender to "PES 6," and it's only really the online play that is worth investing any time in. You can have a decent few hours playing online or perhaps with friends that don't know any better, but EA needs to change things considerably next year.

The football is shoddy, avatars glitch out and every now and again and the responsiveness of the game is occasionally brought into question - but none of this stops the experience being enjoyable. To conclude then, the answer to a question that has been on everybody's lips: is Kinect Sports better than Wii Sports?... Without a doubt.

Well designed, accessible and hilarious, never has a game caused so many neighbourly complaints or united so many gamers and non-gamers on one noisy level playing field.

Whether the King of all Cosmos is getting a little old or the designers have just lost their way slightly, this latest Katamari game lacks the quirky humour of previous games, favouring more obvious quips, and in turn the whole game feels a little forced.

Repetition is probably Warp's biggest issue. Without much in the way of enemy and environmental variety, it can start to feel like a chore at times to make your way through the facility. Puzzles and progression blend together. Unfortunately, Warp's challenging difficulty forces the game to devolve into decidedly cheap scenarios.

It's challenging, often frustrating, but wonderfully satisfying. Buy it. Play it. Get the t-shirt.

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.

It's got a great look and can be played without causing too much stress. The DS is the perfect console for casual gaming and Contact fits that bill perfectly.

Predictably, Proving Ground falls into the 'more of the same category'. When that means more of the same of something brilliant and proven, there's reason for both contentment and disappointment, but if you know you like Tony Hawk, though you'll not be blown away you should certainly feel comfortable here.

An FPS where your weapon should be the last thing you use, not the first, Rainbow Six Siege is a fantastic tactical shooter.

A more involving main mode of play and online support would have made the world of difference, but it's still an entertaining game.

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.

Where Crimson Alliance could have joined the white noise of dungeon crawlers, Certain Affinity has managed to design a solid and - more impressively - distinctive game, regardless of whether the simple, pick-up-and-play approach turns off a few hardcore fans of the genre.

Whilst the whole package is graphically very dated and lacking in originality, there is an undeniable depth to this tactical shooter that knows exactly what its target demographic wants, and it's nice to see Sony continuing to support the PlayStation2 online community.

It may be stunningly unoriginal, but Table Top Racing still manages to deliver a functional racing game. The short race times lend themselves to the platform and it's at its best when power-ups are fizzing all over the screen.

The action in F.E.A.R. is relentless from start to finish, and the AI of enemy soldiers is about the best you'll find in video games at the moment. Sadly, the core game is let down by some sloppy technical issues that really shouldn't be seen in a port of a game first released in 2005.

If only House of Ashes were possessed with something malevolent enough to actually scare us; sadly, it commits a litany of sins, none of them original.

The multiplayer support is a great example of local wireless multiplayer gaming done well, and if you've got friends with the game you'll have hours of entertainment ahead of you.

Quite how Gearbox's pocket shooter turns so many negatives into such a playable game is inexplicable, but sometimes the most unpolished combat boots are the most comfortable.

Gameplay still lags behind the mighty Pro Evolution Soccer in a few areas, but the 'first touch' and 'off the ball' systems continue to impress.

Its mixture older-style exploration with LoS' combat results in not only a truly great Castlevania game, but also a great action title and one of the best offerings on Nintendo's console.

As good as Close Quarters is, then, it just doesn't have the tools to offer up anything so profound at Battlefield 3 proper.

Playing UNBEATABLE makes you feel like you’re watching pirated episodes of your favourite show. Its janky narrative structure and limited content make it feel appropriately criminal to grow attached. However, while frustrating at times, these jagged edges are part of the charm. UNBEATABLE feels like an unapologetic guilty pleasure.

If mainstream releases are leaving you feeling a little uninspired, Omega Five should be just the kind of boost your daily intake needs.

As SimBin's first title on the platform, Race Pro can definitely be characterised as a solid, if mildly uninspiring, effort. However, if the same attention to detail had been paid to the game's presentation and structure as had been paid to the level of accuracy in the track, car and damage modelling and the handling physics, Race Pro would be a real stand-out title in the genre.

While the game's superb comedy feel makes the experience great fun, any evilness is all but lost, which is a shame as a touch more comedy cruelty would have been brilliant.

The jointed Tokobot moves work well, and the opening sections are good fun, but the ideas soon run out, leaving a game that isn't brilliant as an all out action platformer, nor a puzzle-based adventure.

Predictably, Proving Ground falls into the 'more of the same category'. When that means more of the same of something brilliant and proven, there's reason for both contentment and disappointment, but if you know you like Tony Hawk, though you'll not be blown away you should certainly feel comfortable here.

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.

When you and your two pals are sharing item pick-ups, driving in each other’s racing lines, and skimming past one another for a boost, Team Sonic Racing shines. It offers something different in the kart racing genre.

The tombs themselves would be good enough to carry the game without challenges, but they add an extra layer of difficulty for completionists. If nothing else it should make for some exceptional Twitch runs.

If you like cats and you like visual novel dating sims then you will 100% like Purrfect Date.

As a game, we preferred the original LocoRoco, but at £1.99 what you get is amazing value. LocoRoco Cocoreccho will have a great time, with or without you.

Being more of an epilogue than a sequel, Rogue falls short of delivering a full-fat experience.

Once you get past the terrible opening missions and start blowing things up with massive explosions there's a game here that is worth a look, but it's criminally unpolished and as such will leave many gamers rather unsatisfied.

It's not going to set the world alight like Gears of War and it doesn't revolutionise survival horror like Resident Evil 4, but its thrilling combat and sensational visuals make it well worth adding to your collection.

It's hard to know who it's for. Newcomers can get by with the original, and old hands have played most of it before. If you're a massive fan of the series - and of Frank West in particular - it's still worth picking this up, but even at twenty notes, there's little to make this an urgent purchase.

Endless Ocean is a game that goes out of its way to ease the player into its world. It's so calm and relaxing that at times you'll wonder if you have a pulse, only to suddenly spring back to life when something catches your eye - be it a massive shark or some sunken treasure.

A lot of fun and a highly accomplished debut.

It's not just Nippon Ichi fans who will love Prinny. Masochists will too. For them, the endless death and difficult platforming will taste as good as a vanilla milkshake on a summer's day. The controls, though, really do have the potential to put everyone off.

A wondrous world and keenly felt themes are slighted by unsubtle writing.

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