Outlast 2 has some great design elements, and the night-vision handy-cam mechanic is still scary. But the jump scares and gore don't mix right with the elements of psychological horror, and the story retreads horror tropes that didn't need retreading.

For Splatterhouse to be a good game it needed to have more depth. For the majority of the game's 10 chapters I simply button mashed until I could activate my special attack, and repeated that over and over.

The difficulty curve isn't so much a curve as it is a sudden vertical wall, and other game modes seem to rely on trial and error more than outright brain power.

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

It's all a bit sad really. Flock! is an enjoyable game when it all works, but it's far too easy to encounter one of its many soul destroying problems that'll make you wish you were playing something else. It's certainly something quite unique on the current crop of systems, but that doesn't stop if from being a disappointment.

I don't know what a chocolate and monkey milkshake would taste like, but it somehow sums up Not a Hero perfectly.

Sniper Elite 3 has its moments, but they are too few and far between. Every so often you'll find yourself enjoying it, but that soon fades as you enter a pattern of shooting hundreds of dudes until you can move forward and snipe again.

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.

If only Dalcò, rather than honouring his heroine by smothering her search for truth in confounding gloom, had abided by her love of illumination.

Fans of the show are likely to get a kick out of the solid virtual representation of the key characters and locations and will probably enjoy the combat for a few hours. Problems will become more and more intolerable though, especially towards the end of the game where bosses are bordering on unfair, and platforming sections repeatedly make you want to quit the game there and then.

Blood & Truth is an exciting shooter with some deft VR touches; its forgettable plot and characters are made up for by the intricate details of its world.

Once you've got over swearing at your tank, jumping back to the menu screen to try and pick another one or change weapons, swearing at the game again, and have settled down to try and make the best of a bad job with the crappy tank that you've got to begin with, something strange happens... you seem to want to keep playing.

Hopefully next time Rios and Salem will be a little less wise-cracking, take things a little more seriously and come complete with levels and gameplay scenarios that match the clever aggro system.

Rooms' bland and blurry visuals will do little to attract potential players. Its flaws will likely put off all but the hardiest of puzzle fans, but ultimately this is the exact audience the game was designed for.

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.

If you're somehow done with all the big FPS releases of the year then TimeShift isn't a bad option, it's just not a game that will get a second look by most gamers gorging themselves on the likes of Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4.

Headspun is intriguing and takes creative risks by blending genres together. It's a shame about those few missing links.

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.

KOFXII's biggest problem is that the fighting game bar has been raised considerably in the last 12 months, with the release of Street Fighter IV in particular showing how reboots should be done.

As an arcade blaster it does a reasonable job, but repetition ensures that even the ridiculous-but-fun Ace Kills get old quickly.

There's nothing wrong with The Lego Movie Videogame, but it just doesn't have the same appeal as other entries in the series.

With so many high quality shooters on the market already, each trying to offer something that the others don't, all Confrontation really has going for it is its low price tag. For what was such a well respected series, that's really not good enough.

For Splatterhouse to be a good game it needed to have more depth. For the majority of the game's 10 chapters I simply button mashed until I could activate my special attack, and repeated that over and over.

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.

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.

It ticks all the boxes for those fans though, with only the slightly underwhelming visuals likely to disappoint.

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.