As if intentionally trying to be the best it could be, Battlefield: Vietnam has possibly the greatest musical score known to game-kind.

For newcomers, what you’re getting is the ultimate vision of the best game from the 90’s.

The simplicity ultimately ends the enjoyment prematurely. It only takes a few hours for the combat to grate, and as it’s the only thing you do, it’s the worst thing for an Action RPG to end up doing.

The most striking thing about the way Ninja Gaiden plays is that there isn't a cheap gimmick or the odd handy feature: it's that the animation and control are coupled perfectly to make a fluid and almost effortless game experience.

Carve’s myriad of flaws and shortcomings ultimate conspire against it and ultimately, most gamers will find their hard earned cash is better off being put to something better (even if it is full price) than simply getting this because it’s cheap.

An ideal example of the perfect rental video game. It’s neither hugely challenging nor is it easy to put down. It doesn’t last very long but that’s what keeps its simplistic nature appealing all the way through.

An improvement over its predecessor, though only due to the expunging of the irrelevant mini-games with an entertaining yet shallow adventure.

Rarely are games so well judged and lovingly crafted as this, and we defy anyone playing Metroid: Zero Mission not to lament the fact that brand new 2D gems like this could become a rare occurrence when the PSP moves hand-helds into 3D-ville.

At every turn, Sega GT Online screams "middle of the road", beset with every GT cliché in the book and with few noteworthy features beyond the obvious online antics to make it stand out from the overcrowded ranks of Gran Turismo wannabes.

With simplistic controls, the fluidity of the gameplay is neigh-on faultless, something that has manifested itself in the success of the team system in the game itself, which in itself gives the game more depth than it would otherwise have enjoyed.

While it’s nothing spectacular and it won’t last you forever, it’s a far more appetising than picking up one of the older games in the series up on budget.

Suffers from the ailment of been there, done that, and got the +3 t-shirt of protection (+ 5 against missiles).

Fans of the original Fallout games are clearly not going to enjoy this bastardisation of their favourite game, and those who enjoyed the "Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance" titles will find Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel to be inferior to that franchise.

Counter-Strike: Condition Zero only gets its score because of the multiplayer, and if you’re after this for anything other than a visual tweak and a disc filled with Half-Life 2 videos, you’d be best off not bothering at all.

For a port of a PC game, Max Payne on the Game Boy Advance is astonishingly well-done.

The story is very perplexing at times, no doubt. There’s an awful lot of backtracking and some really tough spots. But the game does everything that it wants to and everything it needs to to secure itself at the top spot of scary games chart.

It's just about as good as anything else on the format at the moment and with the addition of the awesome Pacman Vs. (a contender for best multiplayer game on the Cube) bundled in for free, at least Namco have given the Cube faithful the best value for money of all the versions.

The gameplay might be simpler, the setting more clichéd and the duration shorter, but the ideals of the old ‘Looking Glass Aesthetic’ remain intact. If you care about this, you’ll love Invisible War like your own child.

We were disappointed by the length and size of the maps sometimes, sure, but there is no escaping the fact that the wealth of options present in Invisible War make it one of the most approachable games we have ever encountered since, well, Deus Ex.

It hits the nail on the head in terms of entertainment. It may be very familiar, it may not be the best of its genre, but it is excellent mindless fun.

While fans will lap it up like an autograph of the late Lorne Greene, there’ll always be that nagging feeling that this could have been much more.

It provides a great new game mechanic that should interest many, but with such a limited scope, lack of variety between duels, and poor likelihood of any kind of expansion save for some new spells, it’s hard to promise everybody will get their money’s worth.

Far too ambitious and the multitudes of bugs make playing a hugely intricate strategy game a trial.

Harvest Moon is hugely addictive and will almost certainly have you playing for hours on end when you only expected to fill that blank half-an-hour in your schedule.

The short life span hurts Everything or Nothing but it would be a crime for this game to be totally ignored.

Despite being a completely different genre, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga manages to do that one thing that not many others have managed: it transcends the barrier set between genres, and the result is nothing short of brilliant. Bouncy, platformy fun.

The story is nothing short of fantastic and it’s worth noting that this being the last Kain game under the direction of Amy Hennig (who is off to create games for Jak and Daxter developer Naughty Dog), she has really gone out with a bang.

Waking up bleary eyed the next day, our mouths taste like dry Toads and the room smells of Peach. But that won’t stop us going to Mario’s for another party, with so much to do if he threw a party every day of the week we still wouldn’t get ‘board’.

If you find yourself tempted just to try out The Cat in the Hat, even just on rental, and you’re legally old enough to be able to watch a movie with either sexual references or sexual swear words, then we’d suggest you spend your cash on something a lot more productive, such as therapy or films with sexual references or swear words. Either way, you’ll end up having just as much fun as any child will with this.

Look at this game as a collection of linear puzzles as opposed to the poorly constructed and under-evolved adventure-type creature it is, and you may be able to glean a little entertainment in the wake of titles like In Memoriam. If you love the genre. Maybe.

A solid addition to a fine MMORPG but the technology used in Dark Age of Camelot is really starting to show its age. The interface is clunky and upon closer inspection, characters do look a bit blocky.

If you switch off the appalling speech, turn on the subtitles and switch on your brain, then we are confident you’ll enjoy uncovering the dark mystery that lies within the walls of the Black Mirror.

A game that captures you with its atmosphere, makes you sit on a towel to prevent having to clean the chair after playing. But it is also a little short lived - there’s no multiplayer support, and you eventually stop jumping at the well timed monster attacks.

Be it gold teeth, feathers or whatever, the same worn-out old gameplay devices are trotted out one after another – there’s nothing in Tak we haven’t seen many times before and, in the likes of Rayman, Banjo-Kazooie and Mario, done much better.

Don’t play this. And if you must go near it, make it only in the spirit of exploring just how wrong a game can be.

Etherlords II, on the one hand, benefits from having an excellent combat mechanism lying within the game. Unfortunately it takes a nose-dive because the game that surrounds it isn’t worth a toss.

It has its faults, shortcomings and severe community deficiencies, but if you put the time and effort in to learn the intricacies of how it plays in both grunt and commander modes, you could end up playing this one for a long, long time to come.

The visuals are simply superb, and as we mentioned earlier, the courses look gorgeous and animation is up to the high standard Nintendo has created for itself.

The ability to show others your own work makes the game the unendingly original, organic environment that it is. But all said, Second Life is what you make of it.

A fantastic game which is an absolute must buy both for fans of the genre and people looking for a real grown up challenge on the Gamecube.

While it’s simple and easy to get into, Shadowbane seriously lacks the depth and long term appeal of titles like "EverQuest" and "Star Wars Galaxies."

Regardless of how you feel about graphics in The Wind Waker, one thing is a definite; adopting a cel-shaded style hasn't harmed the game. In fact it has added to it.

Although the game's save-point system is fine in principle, the points themselves are often well hidden, and almost impossible to find without a guide of some sort. This means that players will often end up completely missing one, and having to adventure for some time without banking any of their progress.

A better game than "Mario 64." Super Mario Sunshine is gorgeous on practically every level, from storyline to graphics, sound to gameplay, design to concept – nothing has been left to languish in an uncared for state, and everything is polished to perfection.

Controlling the Master Chief, on his mission to save the multiverse from the nasty Covenant aliens, has never been so enjoyable. Conversions may be a risky business, but here, the risk has paid off. Halo is a sublime piece of software.