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

As it is, Auto Assault is a distraction - a bit of massively multiplayer fluff - not the genuine competitor to World of Warcraft people hoped it would be.

While the rewards in hidden areas aren't as satisfying as you might expect from a game like this, Gato Roboto's tense, creative boss battles with a talking rodent are an absolute delight.

Despite a lead character that isn't the most likeable we've come across and some pretty repetitive gameplay, X-Blades still manages to be decent fun.

Tembo could have been great, but sadly it's a game in which you're made to crawl over the line instead of gloriously smash through it.

The Station is futuristic sci-fi puzzling delivered with polish, but the trouble is that what you receive doesn't feel very new.

Rebellion has wrought a breezy shooter, angled it towards multiplayer, and burnished it with wit, but its minute-to-minute action is repetitive and feels imprecise.

While offering some beautiful build and buy items as well as some more controversy to a game that feels too clean, it can't make up for the empty experience For Rent gives.

Life is Strange: Before the Storm, despite a great second episode, ends feeling rushed and loses the focus on Chloe and Rachel's relationship.

The skills and experience system may not be new but they don't get anything wrong either and if you make it to the end then you'll find that Silverfall is a satisfying nut to crack.

It’s a pity that such a fun, arcade adventure requires grinding so early on, because it serves no other purpose than to hinder progress. Pirates is an enjoyable jaunt played in short bursts, but one that promises a little more than it actually delivers.

It's hard to recommend the PS3 version though. With its slow frame rate and other graphical glitches it's nowhere near as polished as the Xbox 360 game, making this yet another port that hasn't been given enough care and attention.

Excellent occasionally, good in parts and downright dull in others, Yoshi's Woolly World is a disappointment.

Ultimately, die-hard fans of the series or devotees of traditional RPGs will find a lot to love in Children of Mana, while the rest of us will yearn for something that doesn't rely quite so heavily on hackneyed game mechanics and endless button-bashing.

It’s nice that the developers get to play around a little through these map packs and let off some steam, and as they stand, these maps and the Mob of the Dead mode are engaging deviations from the jingoism and machismo, but is it not also a shame that developers are reduced to using map packs to go a bit hog wild, rather than hedging their bets on something new?

So, if it wasn't for the frustrating camera, Squad Command would have been a recommended PSP purchase for all. As it is, it's only recommended for die-hard Warhammer fans and turn-based enthusiasts.

It's monotonous and lacking the exciting moments of the book and film, but you do get to play as Harry and act like a wizard in Hogwarts.

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.

F1 2014 feels like something that needs to exist while Codemasters works on rebuilding the foundations for next-gen.

Retro/Grade is built on a unique idea that simply isn't explored in an exciting enough way or to a sufficient depth to keep you interested for long.

Some will enjoy this, but for most the game won't keep their attention long enough to justify forking out full price. WET is good fun for a couple of hours but ultimately it's a classic case of style over substance.

And it feels empty; fetch quests are all well and good but after the impressive voice acting and general spectacle of the main adventure starts to fade, you’re left with an altogether dull world in which to roam.

As a teaser for Life is Strange 2, Captain Spirit does its job, but here’s hoping there’s more subtlety to the writing for the next big thing from Dontnod.

EA has managed to produce a competent virtual version of the classic board game, but we still can't recommend it over buying the real thing. You get numerous boards and the questionable Get Rich Quick mode, but you lose so much by not being able to play the way you want.

Most PC gamers will find the experience too dumbed down to warrant investigation. On console EndWar is good. On PC it's in over its head.

The DJ system is unique and intuitive, the visuals well polished and, even with my rock/punk roots, the soundtrack is a commendable mix of uncensored beats. Nevertheless, the broken fighting mechanics and sluggish pacing are enough to keep this game from reaching true icon status.

The Run certainly isn't terrible, and a big improvement on Black Box's previous effort, Undercover, but it needed more moments like the avalanche and less monotonous freeways. With the campaign over in an afternoon and the rest of the package failing to offer anything to keep you playing, The Run is some decent throwaway fun that will be forgotten as soon as you move on to something else.

Without any truly brilliant missions to balance things out, the single-player campaign never really gets off the ground. Multiplayer games are a lot more fun, but if you have no interest in taking to the skies with other people, this isn't a squadron that you want to be part of.

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.

The Run certainly isn't terrible, and a big improvement on Black Box's previous effort, Undercover, but it needed more moments like the avalanche and less monotonous freeways. With the campaign over in an afternoon and the rest of the package failing to offer anything to keep you playing, The Run is some decent throwaway fun that will be forgotten as soon as you move on to something else.

Entertaining in places, Killer is Dead will only appeal to players who enjoyed Suda51’s previous titles, particularly Lollipop Chainsaw. If you’re not convinced by now, this will do nothing to alter that mindset, unless objectifying women is your thing.

About as good as I could imagine a game in the series being on the PSP, but that doesn't automatically make it an excellent game. Control issues to do with the use of a manual camera, the PSP's lack of horsepower and a series of missions that focus almost entirely on killing make this an Assassin's Creed game that lacks the quality seen in the console games.

It should provide an entertaining ninja experience for the under 10 market but in doing so can't be recommended to more experienced gamers. If you're old enough to remember the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on pre-32-Bit hardware, you'll sadly fall into the latter category.

EA has managed to produce a competent virtual version of the classic board game, but we still can't recommend it over buying the real thing. You get numerous boards and the questionable Get Rich Quick mode, but you lose so much by not being able to play the way you want.

Last Stop is most enjoyable when it isn’t going anywhere. The end of each episode may hook you with a cliffhanger, but, when you look back on the game, the story fails to hang around. Instead, the scenes that stick in the memory don’t mean much at all.

774 Deaths is hard to recommend, which is oddly befitting for a game that's been custom built to be agonising every step of the way. If you like a challenge then it's an interesting curio you can really sink your teeth into, but give it a miss if you get frustrated easily.

Uprising's decent value at £15, but without any multiplayer features it lacks longevity and feels at odds with the original game. It introduces some nice new units and successfully makes a move into the dungeon crawl arena, but ultimately it's an underwhelming experience that never hits the spectacular heights of the game that fathered it.

It's got an unforgivable opening, it looks worse than Final Fantasy XII, and that was released a year and a half ago on the PS2 and 70 per cent of the characters may as well not exist. But it does get better.

If you're a Wii owner you could do far worse. And for some crazies out there, the whole constant death replay entire stages thing will be like vanilla milkshake: aka as good as it gets.

It's clear that Ubisoft had some big ideas for Shaun White Snowboarding, but many of these have been hampered by an overly difficult control scheme, cumbersome navigation, a terrible map, too much collecting and a disappointing frame rate. The recreation of the four ski resorts is excellent, the online functionality is well thought out, and at times the views are magnificent, but the game just isn't as much fun as it should have been.

And as fun as the game can be from time-to-time, after a few hours with Street 3, it's impossible to shake that feeling that you've played this one before.

A fairly well-paced, but fairly unadventurous racing game.

This massive open-world is unfortunately full of dull objectives to complete that rarely vary from one to the next. There are some pretty sights in here, and it's more fun in co-op than solo, but that doesn't make Wildlands anymore than serviceable.

Despite a lead character that isn't the most likeable we've come across and some pretty repetitive gameplay, X-Blades still manages to be decent fun.

Good fun, but it's short-lived in the extreme. While £2.99 might not seem much, other App Store games offer far better value for money, making it feel like you're paying a slight premium for the license.

With a license that seemed tailor made for the video game treatment and a competent developer (Grin, makers of the PC GRAW titles and the forthcoming Bionic Commando) in charge, there was a chance this would be something really rather good. What we ended up with is a perfectly passable, often enjoyable game, but not something that will be remembered once you've beaten it over the course of a few evenings.

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.

And once the brutally short campaign is over, Dark Void is over.

But the goal of a port whose appeal is laden in nostalgia is to bring that nostalgia on board, and unfortunately it's very apparent what is missing in this game.

The new online mode makes multiplayer gaming all the easier and gives players a greater chance of playing the game in the best way possible, but other than that it feels like a slightly tweaked, albeit newly clothed and well polished, version of the first game.

Gris plays to your aural and optical senses by delivering something exquisite in that area, but lacks a compelling story to prop itself up alongside equivalents.

Tron: Evolution is simple fun, but let down by a fairly short campaign that becomes samey far too quickly.

If you're not entirely sure whether you're going to enjoy The Mercenaries 3D or not, ask yourself this: is £35 too much to spend on a mini-game ripped out of Resident Evil 4?

A novel take on the beat-'em-up that is accessible and engaging.

EA has managed to produce a competent virtual version of the classic board game, but we still can't recommend it over buying the real thing. You get numerous boards and the questionable Get Rich Quick mode, but you lose so much by not being able to play the way you want.

F1 2015 represents the best driving seen in the series to date, but sadly doesn't provide the graphical leap it should, nor does it come with the feature list fans rightly expect.

1-bit Ninja's appeal is immediate, and its visual style will easily curry favour with anybody that remembers growing up in the '80s and early '90s. Even two decades later, however, Super Mario Land vastly outshines this simple imitation.

Fingers crossed Episode Two shakes Alien Breed Evolution up a bit.

A fairly well-paced, but fairly unadventurous racing game.

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.

Retro gamers might not be able to resist the lure of a jazzed-up version of such a revered title but I'd recommend the average DS owner sticks to the more user-friendly thrills of New Super Mario Bros and lets this old bird rest its tired wings.

State of Decay 2 has some lovely elements that will make you want to keep playing, and yet others that make you want to turn it off again, so you get caught in a fretful loop of not knowing what to do with yourself. Like some kind of restless corpse shuffling back and forth with no purpose, perhaps…?

There's not much variety to be had, and you can wade through it in a couple of decent train journeys, but Predators keeps itself sharp enough for you to chop until it stops.

So while it’s difficult to give it a glowing recommendation, it’s impossible to hate. On balance, it succeeds – for just long enough to be worth going in.

Wreckateer's main problem has nothing to do with Kinect; the game's fatal flaw is that it never manages to engage with its audience. The hollow, unmemorable levels are bountiful yet unspectacular, and the game's tumbledown physics feel so commonplace and uneventful that even the novelty of aiming with Kinect can't save it.

Despite the fairly clunky gameplay mechanics, the so-so acting and the new character, you're still wandering around an island that you've spent hours watching on TV, doing things that you've seen characters do, which makes up for many of these problems.

Contre Jour manages to successfully ape some of the App Store's most popular mechanics, but it doesn't really know what it wants to do with them.

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.

We can't help but feel that Burst Limit is an opportunity lost.

But the goal of a port whose appeal is laden in nostalgia is to bring that nostalgia on board, and unfortunately it's very apparent what is missing in this game.

Resident Evil Zero is a well designed survival horror game that offers more scares than Resident Evil 4 and 5 combined, but its dated gameplay will turn away many.

The designs of Elizabeth’s family aren’t so much foreshadowed as foreshouted, and the plot soon wavers off-key and winds up shipwrecked. But something about it hangs around, like the hum of an unsettling tune.

The shooting is top notch, but poor pacing and bland environments ensure you never engage with what's going on, and technical hiccups and formulaic game modes sour the multiplayer. This game proves the potential power of the genre on its device, but not the potential excellence of its own franchise.

In the last nine months we've had Batman: Arkham Asylum, Bayonetta and God of War 3 – all blockbuster titles that have raised the bar for action gaming. In the shadow of these juggernauts, this is a decidedly tame offering.

If these games shaped or changed you, you might find the notion of their being shaped and changed, in turn, an unwelcome one.

This puzzle-platformer’s puzzles and platforming might be merely alright – and the music is a proper irritant – but Pikuniku is full of so much cheer and loveliness elsewhere. It’s bursting with character in a story that’s equal parts silly and uplifting.

It doesn't have the cuteness and incredibly simple pick up and play appeal of Wii Sports Tennis and it's not really in-depth enough to be a simulation.

Technically accomplished and mechanically sound. But unfortunately that's not enough in a world of Dead Spaces and Gears of Wars. Aside from marvelling at the odd collapsing building, there's little here to hold your attention for more than a few hours. It's not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination; it's just an entirely forgettable one.

Sadly, that string of hours, spent clambering up towers and defogging the map, bounding across the fields in a hopeful, happy loop, was the last of the fun on offer.

Technically accomplished and mechanically sound. But unfortunately that's not enough in a world of Dead Spaces and Gears of Wars. Aside from marvelling at the odd collapsing building, there's little here to hold your attention for more than a few hours. It's not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination; it's just an entirely forgettable one.

The set-up is interesting, but the execution isn't nippy enough for a mini-game collection. More creativity has gone into this than a lot of other generic Move titles, but chances are you'll get bored before you've seen all the game has to offer.

Combat is a breeze and the four playable races create some intriguing situations. Yet, for a game of this type, the interface issues are almost inexcusable and the relative simplicity of the game only makes these problems all the more frustrating.

Technically accomplished and mechanically sound. But unfortunately that's not enough in a world of Dead Spaces and Gears of Wars. Aside from marvelling at the odd collapsing building, there's little here to hold your attention for more than a few hours. It's not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination; it's just an entirely forgettable one.

As much as parts of LEGO Jurassic World are very enjoyable and provide some gentle laughs, it's hard not to feel, once again, that LEGO games are in need of a shake up.

As much as it pains us to say it, having been big fans of the original GameCube game, the control issues in this Wii port make Mario Power Tennis hard to recommend. Had there been support for a traditional controller this would have been an excellent party game, but as it stands it'll really only be acceptable to gamers who don't know any better - who may well find many of the issues nothing to worry about. For that reason Mario Power Tennis on Wii gets a pass, but we really expected a bit more from Nintendo.

Infinity Blade 3 has a dark side; a noticeable lack of variety and an inconsistent difficulty. It’s worth the price for genre and series fans, but tread carefully if you’re a newbie.

Outside of the first-person shooters designed to work with Move, this is one of the better non-mini-game collections, but things start to become increasingly less interesting the farther you progress.

An imaginative horror game, Perception is coming at a well trodden genre from a new angle, but despite its good ideas, it doesn't quite live up to its own potential.

Just another half-hearted port, albeit one that's been released at a relatively low price point.

After EA's recent run of quality, it came as quite a shock that Undercover simply doesn't feel ready. The in-game performance is frankly terrible and one of the main event types is deeply flawed. We can't deny that there's still fun to be had here, especially in the highway battles (and with some of the dialogue), but we simply can't recommend a game that performs so poorly that it's at times unplayable.

Although the game offers little in the way of innovation, Hijinx Studios has refined the traditional SRPG with great success. The fact that it has the words 'Vandal Hearts' in the title really doesn't do it any favours though; if this was a new IP, free from the shackles of the series and the scrutinising eyes of its fans, the game could have reached much greater heights.

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.

The gameplay works, but the simple presentation and general lack of polish unfortunately relegate the game to something only a very small minority will enjoy.

One of those games that simply isn't best played on the Wii. Racing games are yet to prove themselves on the system, and Carbon is another that suffers due to the Wii's controllers. Control issues aside, it's another solid racer from EA, and the Auto-Sculpt feature is absolutely fantastic.

At its best, Code Vein 2 provides comfortable, anime-flavored escapism. It’s shallow stuff, but it's combat offers a reliable source of mindless fun if you’re willing to wade through the mediocre world and performance issues.

A brief hit of retro goodness that loses its enchantment all too soon. If you're looking for a demanding blast from the past, Renegade Ops will sort you out for a week or two; just don't expect to be playing it for much longer than that.

Playing And Then There Were None, you get a feeling that there's an opportunity for someone to do the whole classic detective thing properly - we're talking about playing as Hercule Poirot in a point and click style game based on one of the classic books. With good graphics too. Get it done.

Kinect Adventures' set of five games was never designed to innovate, but it clearly fails to do the bare minimum that is necessary for mini-games to have a purpose. Mini-games are fun in small, pint-sized, easy-to-play quantities, and while Adventure succeeds in offering pocket-size entertainment the gameplay is nowhere near interesting enough and fails to capitalise on the novelty of Kinect.