Much like a fireworks display: it shines very brightly and provides a big hit of enjoyment, only to fizzle out all-too-quickly and leave you with little besides fond memories and a hole in your pocket.

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 addition of multiplayer gives it some lasting appeal, but the Force just isn't strong enough in this one to make it a must-have.

It's too limp to be a real contender in the simulation market. Sure, it's got boobs and sex, but they're too easy to get these in this game.

Admittedly the name gives you fair warning, but the heavy reliance on the stunt events detracts from the rock-solid arcade racing experience at the heart of the game, and may turn off a lot of players.

Suffers from a real distinctive lack of style. Nothing about it stands out, even the fancy hard disk recording Time Control mechanism.

The Campaign mode offers solid gameplay, and the open-ended nature of the main and side missions does allow for a little more replay ability than one would first think from looking at the box.

The end result feels like two separate games crudely soldered together, there's a connection there, but it lacks cohesion and a real weld between worlds.

It doesn't really bring a lot of new ideas to the third-person action game genre but the period of history it depicts is interesting and the decision to incorporate mythological elements was a good one.

The fairly repetitive and shallow missions, the dreary presentation of the film plot, and the uneven sights and sounds are normally sufficient to warrant a 'fans need only apply' status.

The game's saving grace is the awesome graphics and sound, solid multiplayer and the times in a race when everything just comes together. All flaws aside, there is a decent off-road racer at the heart of Dirt 3. You may just get a little frustrated finding it.

Sega Rally Online Arcade is a very arcade-like racer that is bound to impress those who loved to get their race on in arcades whenever they could, but be warned that the formula has not been shaken up too much since the original game hit, which is a bit unfortunate.

Although I did know what kind of game Dragon's Dogma was when I picked it up, I was hoping that it would be different, have something I found compelling, something I could get addicted to and want to spend my time with. But for me, this kind of 'old school' gaming found in Dragon's Dogma is simply tedious and rarely enjoyable.

After the plot falls over dead, the wonderful action stands up and carries it home, bearing the weight of the game's many failures on its back.

Gears of War: Judgment isn't actually a bad game by any means - it performs admirably and takes a few risks with the series' conventions to provide a unique (Gears) experience for players. The problem here is that the experience just isn't memorable enough - this is essentially a Gears of War game done by the numbers with all tactical involvement completely removed or made superfluous.

I appreciate the effort that has gone into re-making the game engine from the ground up for the new generation of consoles, and giving the ball independent physics is a step forward, but apart from the presentation everything else is a step back.

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 you’re a fan of the film then you may get a kick out of The Thing and it is fun to play after watching the movie again. Just don’t expect the games biggest selling point to be anything more than a worthless gimmick.

The game is a little on the easy side. Ok, a lot on the easy side if you’re good with puzzles but not too hard for kids and of course it suffers the fate of all puzzle games; When you’ve solved them once, there is no challenge in solving them again.

The story is told badly and some of the additions and changes are almost criminal. The graphics generally look awful with splashes of beauty, like the sight of a supermodel purging.

If it weren't for issues with pacing and repetitive environments during the first half of the campaign, Armageddon could really have become something memorable. Instead it's hard to think of it as anything but a forgettable third-person shooter where it's fun to explode everything to smithereens.

With so many great games on XBLA let alone on disc, it's hard to recommend I Am Alive. It feels like it never reached its full potential. Maybe with more time or a bigger team Ubisoft would have a classic like Assassin's Creed on their hands, but unfortunately it falls flat on too many levels.

Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires has been around the block a couple of million times by now, and its safe to say that the tricks being turned here are unlikely to surprise or please anyone besides the most hardcore fans.

As aforementioned, Army of Two does have its issues. It's got a flawed partner intelligence system, some horrid hovercraft piloting sequences, and not to mention the game is region-locked for online play.

In the end, the game really is just too human: flawed, ageing but with the potential to do great things.

But at the end of the day, there's nothing on offer that actually changes the core Hexic experience, and as such it's difficult for us to recommend a purchase at its current price.

Crackdown 2 still feels rough and unfinished. In fact, it feels even more so than the first, especially when viewed as a single player experience.

Just plain average. It’s not a terrible game; just that this has been done so much better in many other games.

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.

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.

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.

As possibly the only tennis game to be released in 2012 (no others are announced yet), and the only tennis game released in almost a year, Grand Slam Tennis 2 will definitely suffice, just don't expect a game-changer. There's a bit of work to be done before EA climbs to the position of number one seed.

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.

As such it really boils down to that third group, the Guitar Hero fan who doesn't care about Aerosmith one way or another, and sadly this game won't do anything much to win them over either.

At the end R:Racing is not a terrible game, but nor is it even a good game, it should probably come with a sticker on the front saying Rental only, and then only if you’re desperate for a new racing game.

The modes on offer are skeletal and offer little that can't be found in exhibition. It looks great and plays smoothly, but there isn't enough lasting appeal to recommend the purchase.

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 true that the game is extremely frustrating and is in fact so full of bugs that a call to the exterminators may be required – and it's for that reason that it has received such a low score.

The greatest challenge in the game is really overcoming the controls and camera though, so if you are the kind of person who is easily put off by unconventional control schemes, perhaps you should look elsewhere for buried treasures.

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.

The use of a fantastic ball physics system and a wide variety of game types should keep players happy and interested for a long time to come. Unfortunately, the enthusiasm witnessed in the technical attributes of this game was not translated to its overall presentation.

For the fourth game in the series some of the main problems like team and enemy AI and dodgy controls should have been fixed long ago.

It’s fun to play, but the dull missions and average graphics make it the kind of game you’ll probably enjoy for a week and then let gather dust on your shelf.

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.

The game combines a tired formula of spawning wave after wave of mindless enemies in the same room with you with the clumsily-executed 'squad-based' combat, which is enough to stave off any fan of the genre aside from stout Barker fans in it for the intriguing but sadly unrealised plot.

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.

WET is easy to recommend as an overnight rental, but chances are it's something you don't want hanging around the morning after.

Whilst it's not a terrible game, and there is some fun to be found here, it gets repetitive fairly quickly.

I cannot recommend more than renting Mafia II unless you have a particularly strong affection for the subject material. Mafia II is not broken nor does do any one thing particularly badly; the overall experience is just a real disappointment and I would rather swim with the fishes than play it again.

It really should have come as an add-on for the original game, and not as a full priced, stand alone product.

It really is one of the easiest games I’ve played. The problem is there is nothing in the game that’s quite spectacular enough to make up for it either.

Fans of the third person/action genre have seen everything that Alias has to offer before in the form of "Buffy" and "Indiana Jones" and except for the CIA/hi-tech storyline the game doesn’t really present gamers with anything new.

Disappointing.

Good level design and multiplayer options raise CCFTF to a higher standard but it is not enough to make up for abysmal AI, rough graphics and questionable realism.

Like cinema coke, the gameplay has been watered down to the point where it almost feels like an occasionally-interactive movie, where you only need to pay attention during fight sequences.

The multiplayer components mean the whole family can get involved, especially the mini-golf which is great.

Offers so much potential but ultimately falls short of its ambitions and as such fails to stand out from the crowd (or even its own antecedent).

Soccer is a game about tactics, skill and precision, and this game shirks all of that for a quick bang, and it doesn't really work.

The bizarre weapons are a lot of fun, but with the woeful A.I. and lack of Xbox Live support, it's hardly worth it unless you are a serious fan.

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 obvious the game could've used another couple of months in development, and with a more engaging protagonist, perhaps some branching narratives and a vastly overhauled driving experience, Just Cause could have been a real show-stopper.

Mercenaries 2 feels like a rush-job sequel to a game that came out years ago, and for every step forward it takes at least two or three back.

If you enjoyed the original, the sequel is basically more of the same, just a little more refined.

While tactics are required the crux of battle really comes down to brute force, which may diminish the longevity of the game's appeal.

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.

There are a lot of great ideas contained in the game, but overall the game falls flat and leaves you feeling greatly unsatisfied.

The strategy is basic at best, while the audio-visual presentation is tepid and uninspired.

In a climate of next-gen gaming, Rogue Trooper comes across as an anachronistic ode to the Xbox third person shooter. Not exactly rough around the edges but then not entirely polished either, it's a game best suited for either rabid fans of the comic upon which it is based or those who simply must experience every game out there that lets you play with big guns.

A slow paced game that will turn away many potential gamers. On the other hand it has a story which is of the highest quality and will keep patient gamers happy the whole way through the game.

Blood Stone is true to the Bond spirit, but it does nothing to innovate or push the 007 game forward. It's polished and worth sinking a couple of hours into, but there's not enough content here to keep even the most avid Bond nut interested for long.

Poor game design has produced a very repetitive, unbalanced and lacklustre gaming experience.

There is absolutely nothing here that is different to the xbox version apart from minor graphical advancements. So, on the one hand there is still a great game here, but with annoyingly random game crashes (and THAW is the only game I've had crash on my 360) and the fact it's anything but next-gen I really can't recommend it to anyone.

Despite its hefty premium pricetag, it plays and feels like a second-string budget title, albeit with a coat of shiny graphical gloss.

The arcade version of Contra was never as well-loved as its NES counterpart, so the choice to port it to the Xbox Live Arcade seems questionable...but not nearly as much as the dodgy online co-op implementation.

Fatal Inertia is certainly a respectable racer, for what it brings to the table. Though there are far too many shortcomings for it to really deserve a place in a collection alongside a Project Gotham or Forza Motorsport of current acclaim.

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.

It seems the guys over at Neversoft never got the memo. You know, the one that said, "Hey all, there is this other game called Skate coming out around the same time as ours so we better do our best to make this Tony Hawk game as good as we can.”

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

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.

Alpha Protocol does many things right and succeeds where it count for an RPG but falls short elsewhere.

The Dragon Knight Saga may be a little rough around the edges and seem like a poor man's Oblivion, but there's enough here to interest fans of Western RPGs and, although it can be totally frustrating at times, it's the sort of game that draws you back in to see just what that next cave around the corner might have in the form of enemies and loot.

Primarily a nostalgia piece, and while it is an extremely faithful recreation, therein lies the problem. What it does well has been done before, and the attempts to innovate the series for the most part fail.

A few interesting urban levels, cinematic cutscenes and kickass surround sound aren't enough to save Shadow Ops from being decidedly mediocre. It isn't horribly bad, but it isn't good either.

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 uninspiring execution made for a run-of-the-mill beat-em-up game with a host of problems, from imprecise controls and a lazy camera to the lackluster presentation.

This is one of those budget games that offers a few hours of fun. You pop it in and play then return to it later on.

A better game than the original and is full of potential for further releases in the franchise.

Mortal Kombat: Arcade Kollection is unfortunately a painful reminder of what could've been a full HD remake. That being said, without any major overhauls to the game's mechanics, it still wouldn't have played as well as it did in the past.

PowerUp Heroes is a game that I cannot recommend to be purchased at full price, but if you've got children who would really enjoy stepping into the shoes of a super hero this is something I can wholeheartedly recommend. I personally found it to get rather repetitive but I am much older than the target audience, so I can't say for sure how repetitive it may be – but just don't expect something super substantial.

"Spider-Man 2" was leaps and bounds ahead of the original, but the third outing tinkers with what made the second so great without improving on any of the things that sucked. This wouldn't be so bad if it didn't add a host of new suck in the form of dodgy camera control, frustrating combat and dull missions.

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.

It has its fun moments, but on the whole, there's nothing new here and nothing to warrant even a rental, let alone a purchase. It's good to be bad, but not *this* bad.

I find it such a shame that EA take the great and imaginative world of Harry Potter and choose to merely give us these tired half-efforts of a game, when there are so many more interesting ways they could use their license.

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

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.

Nothing but average.

Just Dance 3 is evidence that despite the questionable quality of the franchise that the series is here to stay. While it's not particularly a bad game, it's just more of a case of it not feeling like a game at all but rather an interactive jukebox. This will be a hit with anyone who has Kinect and a group of rather confident or at least willing friends, but the whole experience feels notably half baked.

It's effectively a dumbed-down version of a fairly engaging PC release, one that removes a lot of the depth, strategy and team-oriented gameplay of the original.

Moments where Captain America became a joy to play did exist, but they were few and far between. Any hints of promise this game exhibited during previews earlier in the year were dashed before the end of the first couple of chapters. Super Soldier isn't as dire as earlier Marvel games, there's just not much substance to keep even an avid fan of the character interested.

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

It really is a crying shame that Infinite Undiscovery turned out to be exactly the sum of so many disparate parts that don't even work on an individual level.

If you are a serious fan of the original game, you may wish to purchase and play through this expansion pack, but there's a pretty good chance that, by the end of it, you'll have had more F.E.A.R. than you'd C.A.R.E.D for.

As expected Square Enix has produced something lack of what a standard expansion would expect, in this case Square Enix has produced its own standard of expansions, ones which lack creativity and stream out repeated content.

In the end, I find it too hard to recommend this game to anybody that isn't either a fan of the Harry Potter franchise, or a parent in search of a simplistic experience to keep the little ankle-biters busy.

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.

Nothing but a rushed, messy and lacklustre attempt to cash in on a popular PC franchise during the Christmas rush period.

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.

Perhaps this is part of a sinister marketing ploy by Microsoft to encourage Xbox owners to upgrade to the Xbox 360 by ensuring that Xbox ports suck compared to their hotted up counterparts?

Save your cash for better games.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The people listed as Quality Assurance in the back of True Crime: New York City's manual should all be fired, or shot in the kneecaps, because there is no game on the Xbox more bug-ridden, glitched, and downright broken than this one.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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