The single player experience is good enough to practice on before you go into battle with your friends, but the battle itself is where the action is at.

On one hand, SingStar owners will love the new tracks but will hate the fact that there are absolutely no new features to be had – so we’re looking at a five or six out of ten. For gamers who haven’t played SingStar and don’t own the game, we’re looking at an eight or a nine. I fall into the former category, and I’m pretty sure that most people will too.

The main aim of the game is to create smooth combinations and do it with enough rhythm to win more medals" than your opponent - but that isn’t particularly difficult, even later on in the game.

The presentation is nothing short of stunning in places, but is nothing above terrible in others. It hooks you at the beginning with a promising storyline and the popular setting, but just seems to not care if it keeps you on the line or not, sinking into mediocrity way too often to ever draw you all the way in.

The package is the perfect compliment to the first collection – although if you’re deciding between the two, the first contains more instantly recognisable titles and would come as the recommended purchase.

You can overlook the sloppy graphics, the poor narrative and the occasional rudimentary puzzle, because the design of Penumbra sometimes reminds you how inspired it is, offering the player some genuinely interesting puzzles in a properly spooky setting.

It is fair to say that I was completely amazed when I booted the PSP up for a quick go, and then realised that I was still playing the damned game four hours later. I can’t reiterate enough, that I never thought that a handheld FPS could work as well as this.

Despite the slight visual upgrades, the engine is essentially the same as it was five or six years ago, as is the gameplay, as is the general plot, as is the method of reaching your goal. The tactical advancements are welcome and really do add to the game, but when the game is so bland, that isn’t saying much.

The only issue I have with the package as a whole is the random shoddiness of the emulation. One minute you can play through a section with all guns blazing from every part of the screen and you’ll get bucketloads of slowdown occurring.

Graphically stunning and sonically amazing, the gameplay lets it down for me. In multiplayer, there is fun to be had, but the single player challenge is a long, hard slog that is pitted with dodgy AI and too many anomalies.

The best football game available for any format. Period.

If ever there was a game that needed to sort the wheat from the chaff, and then add a mammoth box of wheat to the resulting tiny pile, Fuzion Frenzy 2 was it.

The only thing you pretty much can’t do as a pirate is getting your own parrot, which is a shame but we’re willing to overlook it just this once.

The bottom line is if you can put up with some quirky controls and are a massive fan of the originals then this is probably worth a look. However, if you are a purist and perhaps have a favourite Metal Slug outing, then you should wait for it to appear on the Virtual Console.

Overall, this is a none too shabby collection. The decision to buy will depend on your desire to have a true arcade version of the games and how sentimentally attached you are to each title.

I implore you to give this a go if you’re a wrestling fan, and even if you aren’t – it might well be worth a play. I like the improvements that have been made, and I’ll be playing this long into 2007.

Rating this game has never been easier. Stay the hell away from Gothic III. The amount of glitches in this game instantly ruins whatever experience it aimed to achieve. There are not enough patches in PC gaming history to sort this one out.

One of the few games that have glaring holes in the gameplay, and gets away with it scot-free. Why? Atmosphere.

Put it this way, I must have clocked up around 30 hours of play so far and I'm still not tired of simply moseying about town, popping a few grinds and flip tricks, trying to get an astronomical high combo score to unlock an achievement. It just feels so right and ultimately therapeutic.

This game may be worth playing in about a year’s time when Obsidian has finished patching this clunky monstrosity, but right now, it’s a strictly average affair.

There are games out there that are five and six years old that do point and clicking better than this. That’s not to say that it’s distinctly flawed, because it runs along just nicely. It’s just not very good.

Petroglyph have done a nice little job on expanding what was already a good game. Granted it isn’t the same as all the other RTS games out there, but isn’t that what you want – a little diversity? If the first game left you wanting more, which it certainly did for me, Forces of Corruption will most certainly fill a void in your Star Wars craving.

Sure, there’s some slowdown in places, and graphically everything looks as current-gen as it possibly could, but the gameplay mechanic and the sheer fun you’ll be having reliving your school days will make you completely oblivious to any of these problems.

Surprisingly solid for the greater part, don’t get me wrong here. Unfortunately, it’s let down by a lack of any real challenge and fails to really inspire or capture the player in any way at all.

It's a game trapped in the past. Not the 80's as such, but in a time long before GTA showed the world what spatial freedom was all about. Freedom is a word that Radical has toyed with, not exploited. Ergo, in the case of Scarface, the world is never truly yours.

I desperately wanted to like this game. Really. But the terrible gameplay, boring mission structure and pathetic mini-games just make me pity it.

A great puzzle element, eye grabbing funky visuals and a nice array of bonus features gives a nice sprinkle of longevity for any puzzle fan. Well worth checking out, even if it can be the most unfairly frustrating game ever created at times.

Sometimes, try as you might, you can’t put your finger on what makes a game fun to play, and this is one of those occasions.