The action comes hard and fast in between moments of tension too, so your hands need never be idle on your controller.

Beijing 2008 is not a good game. Despite the extra coat of gloss, an impressive roster of Olympic events, a practice, competition and Olympic modes, and even offline and online multiplayer, the majority of players simply won't derive much enjoyment out of its extremely repetitive and often overly punishing gameplay.

Okay, so I'm being slightly facetious here, but I honestly don't think it's good enough to release such a boring product onto XBLA. Where are the extras for fans? The new game modes, extra levels, character bios, unlockable cartoons? Anything!

It's obvious that Dynasty Warriors 6 is a game made for its long-term fans, and there is little doubt that they will lap it up even while they complain about it being simplified. For everyone else, there probably hasn't been a better time to try out the series, but if you've played in the past and it wasn't to your liking, version #6 won't change your mind.

If anything, Crazy Taxi is a nice history lesson in gaming and shows a new generation where a mechanic that has been used in several games the past few years originated from. It's furious fun in small doses, but only leaderboard nuts will still be playing it after a few weeks.

Hydrophobia Pure is a decent enough game for a downloadable title, but as mentioned feels more like a tech demo for water physics than a fully thought out game. You can see what the developers were aiming for, but it misses the mark in many places.

There is nothing at all wrong with Ubisoft's Open Season; it's a technically competent, well produced adventure game designed for kids, and is a game they will probably love.

But L.A. Rush strays too much from the roots of the series and instead focuses too much on a sub-culture that had lately been flogged in almost every game. It doesn't help that the main character that comes off as a bit of a tosser.

There is really no need to get this game at all unless you are a massive fan of Mustangs but even then, there are better games out there that feature these classic V8 powered muscle machines and do everything better than what's on offer here.

The thing to remember though, is that Epic Mickey 2: Power of Two doesn't quite innovate as much as you would expect a sequel to but it's still built on an incredibly stable base of the original game. For this much, anyone into an old school platformer that you would only experience last generation should definitely give this a shot, or any Disney aficionado who wants to be reminded why they love the production company so much.

It suffers from a game-destroyingly-bad aiming/camera system that I just could not get over.

A daring departure from the cartoon-roots of the series, but it's as though the developers used up all their creativity on this. The levels are repetitive in design and layout, and the enemies are generic hordes of identical clones.

Alone in the Dark has enough innovations to warrant being experienced by most gamers, but is crippled by poor design at the most basic levels.

It's repetitive, the controls are simple, the graphics aren't that great, even for an Xbox 1 game but TMNT should be a hit with the under 10's that love a nice simple action game aimed at them.

A solid fighting game that had the potential to be something truly brilliant. There isn't much in the gaming world more satisfying than beating others online and it comes to you here in bucketloads.

Sadly, a missed opportunity from EA. Someone has come up with a great concept, brought on board some incredible comic talent to help bring it all together but it's let down by a poorly designed fighting engine and badly balanced characters.

Yes you do kill innocent villagers, yes you do get funky with Vietnamese hookers, and yes you do get to experience the horrors of the Vietnam War, but while Shellshock Nam '67 isn't quite a masterpiece, it is still an enjoyable game if you're starved for a solid shooter.

The issue with SVC Chaos is that while it has a great deal of pick-up-and-play it severely suffers from an absence of any longevity outside of its online component. SVC Chaos feels more like the beginning of something really exciting, but falls far from containing anything of real substance.

A poor port of the original PC game. It has faults in almost every area that considered alone would have be forgivable but together, combine to seriously impair the games enjoyment factor.

The shoddy on foot action and the terrible AI, the bugs, including bad pop up, bad collision detection and glitches in animation both in cut scenes and in game, the terrible mission design and trite story add up to a really average game.

Unfortunately for Tenchu Z there are games that do the stealth action genre a hell of a lot better, and with nothing else going for it other than ninjas, this one is best left in the dark.

It is buggy, ill tested, and not much better than draft material. With that said genre fans may find a little something to admire with Bullet Witch; whether it is Alicia's magical powers or some of the lively boss encounters.

Chosen One is a decent enough romp for a couple of nights play, however it's hard imagine you'd invest any more time than that. It fails to exceed the fun factor, and overall quality, of similar games to come before it.

The game is not without its many shortcomings, however, and those easily frustrated by lousy checkpointing or undercooked and simplistic gameplay elements should steer clear.

Unfortunately the truly shoddy product that shipped to retail is unlikely to please anyone: it's buggy, glitchy, poorly optimised and visually unimpressive from a technical standpoint, and the missions are boring and the combat is repetitive too.

Save your cash for better games.

There's fun to be had, but there's still quite a long way to go for the Medal of Honor series to bridge that gap between Battlefield and Call of Duty, and hit the high notes it once did.

It's hard to recommend this one at full price, but if you're pretty patient I have a good feeling you will enjoy the experience Rise of Nightmares offers. If you're pretty sick of Kinect already, this is not going to be the game to sway you over.

Facebreaker is only for gluttons of punishment and definitely a game to avoid or give to someone that you do not really like for Xmas.

Getting a head start in terms of money and items will appeal to Fable fanatics, but for everyone else, it's not worth the gamble.

Warriors Orochi is nothing more than fan service from Koei and Omega Force.

Suffers from a very pedestrian single player game that lacks the humour of the comic on which it's based, which is very disappointing considering how funny and clever they often were. Multiplayer is more fun, and is a good game for weekend hire.

Transformers: The Game is fine for a weekend rent, and with a few beers the easy achievement points may justify the hire fee.

It pains me to speak so harshly about a product that has the delightful Simon Pegg attached, but Spare Parts is down there with Yaris as one of the worst XBLA has to offer.

Even though it contains vehicles that look like they belong in the world of Red Faction, nothing else about the game seems to have anything to do with that universe. It could have been called 'Monster Crash Super Derby' and have felt absolutely no different.

It's a generic, cheap cash-in that is poorly executed, uninspired, and rarely even enjoyable.

The graphics are great with plenty of detail, you are never fighting the controls, the speed effects and weapons are great and the storm drain levels rock. There are parts of this game that almost make you feel like you're in the middle of some Jerry Bruckheimer movie.

This is not a game, it is just a bunch of barely interactive episodes of the show and as such, is only suitable for die hard fans and people in need of a quick gamerscore boost. Everyone else should steer well clear as there is precious little fun to be had here and the whole thing soon gets mindlessly repetitive.

While there's nothing broken about Superman Returns, it just doesn't amount to a particularly fun experience, with boring super-powers and mindless melee combat.

It isn't an awful, broken, unplayable mess or anything; it's just not a particularly outstanding game in any regard. Competent and generic spring to mind as soon as you start playing, but it borrows enough of the right elements to make it playable.

An ultimately flawed platformer that falls short of its goals of innovation and another game that is marred by its attempts to appear darker and more mature.

Part of my childhood has died with Duke Nukem Forever. I guess this is what it would have felt like if Toy Story 3 had have been a letdown.

The jury's verdict is in, and CSI: Hard Evidence has been found guilty of being boring and bland.

Scores of less than 50% generally indicate some sort of game-breaking technical flaw, unforgivable glitches or an Entomologist's dream serving of bugs. But in the case of Eragon, it's the simple fact that the game is absolute crap. Awful graphics, pedestrian gameplay, and about as much depth as the average puddle, Eragon lacks any sort of redeeming qualities...with the exception of just how quickly the painful ordeal is over.

Call of Juarez: The Cartel is an incredibly disappointing sequel that manages to remove everything that makes their prequels so appealing.

Apart from Alan Wake, it hasn't been a stellar year for survival-horror titles, but that doesn't mean you need to bring yourself to the level of playing through this sequel.

Last year, Space Giraffe came out. It was a 2007 version of tempest with some improvements and surprisingly enough the original just doesn’t compare.

Poor controls, shonky camera, lacklustre presentation and a whole bunch of glaring bugs and glitches spoil what is at times a pretty good fun action shooter.

If you can persist though, the frantic arcade pacing and frenetic aerial combat in large open areas is quite enjoyable while it lasts.

A very sloppy port of a much more stable PC version, and how the game managed to pass through any non-catatonic Quality Assurance team is beyond comprehension.

Let's get serious; Beast Rider is a game to be avoided.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is yet another example of movie tie-ins failing to even come close to their potential.

This is one for the kids and as such a generic plot, comic voice acting, simple puzzles, below average graphics, and a general lack of nuance may be acceptable.

The game is plagued by faults in the control setup and AI deficiencies as well as a limited online modes.

Monster Jam is a simplistic arcade racing game that is below average in all areas.

If Omerta had a persistent world in single player, rather than neighbourhoods which you played then left never to have an impact on you again, or more in depth strategy system when it came to earning money and resources, action cut scenes rather than stills, ok, so it still wouldn't be the greatest game ever, but it would have been worth spending time with.

Nothing but average.

It's pretty sad you don't even need to read any reviews to know this game is bad. It's a movie tie in, made as a marketing vehicle for Marvel's Thor movie, a movie not particularly highly rated at that.