Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys!

Platform: Nintendo DS
Verdict: A lively afterlife.
Rating: 7/10
Zombies eh? Can't live with em, can't live without em. One minute they're lurching from beyond the grave to munch through our cranium for tasty think-jelly, the next they're mankind's last hope against big brained invaders from planet Mars.
At least, that's the simple premise for the b-movie loving, comic strip aping Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys! Instead of the typically popular zombie infatuated slaughterfests that pitch your shotgun against their vacuous head, this time around you play as the undead.
Teenage Zombies is like a Cartoon Network animation adaptation, even if it hasn't yet or ever will grace the idiot box. With three zombie kids to hot-swap between at the press of the touchscreen, Ignition Entertainment's side scrolling platformer attempts to inject afterlife into the under nourished genre.
Looking ever so slightly like Earthworm Jim's mutant offspring, Teenage Zombies has a lovely hand drawn style with the three brain hungry teenagers each exhibiting wildly varying characteristics and undead abilities.
With earth invaded by technologically superior floating brains, the Teenage Zombies are in culinary heaven, just so long as they can get through the seemingly intraversable levels.
Thankfully these young rotting pals can work together to get on. Lefty can extend her arms to reach higher platforms, Halfpipe can jump off ramps and crawl through narrow gaps while Fins has a tentacled appendage that allows him to walk up walls and monkey-bar across certain terrain.
Each level thus presents itself as a light-weight puzzle, asking you to pick the right zombie for the right task. And in this it gets things pretty right.
Unfortunately such potential is often left wanting with picky collision detection requiring some pixel perfect platforming where others would forgive and some rather rote and stilted one button combat sitting alongside overly slow character movement.
Still, it's a fun new IP that sticks its dismembered tongue out at all the bland brand games on the DS, and for that I salute it with one hand raised and the other on some disinfectant spray.

Lost Odyssey

Platform: Xbox 360
Verdict: 4 discs of epic.
Rating: 4/5
Retro gaming is enjoying quite a renaissance at the moment with the Wii's Virtual Arcade and Xbox Live Arcade jointly offering glimpses into cherished pasts and shattering rose tints while swimming in nostalgia. They rarely are as good as you remember, spoilt by the heady modernities of adaptive difficulty, quick saves and the removal of pixels from perfect jumps.
Lost Odyssey is somewhat of a retro title too. Despite its super HD sheen and now-gen residence on Microsoft's box of tricks, it's a game that could easily hark from the PS1 era (or beyond to the distant ages of Dragon Quest on the NES), namely mimicking such titles as Final Fantasy VII. Coming from Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series that's hardly surprising.
From the traditional turn-based combat and amnesiac hero to the victory fanfare motif, Lost Odyssey screams Final Fantasy, and for many that's a great thing – with few Japanese style RPGs on the 360 it's a welcome addition to a catalogue obsessed with shooters and racers.
Compared to the West's forward looking titles like Oblivion and Mass Effect though, it's a game that seems lost in time. Even the Final Fantasy series has moved on from the staid and static turn-taking (as seen in its 12th iteration on the PS2) and while that may be a bugbear to many, the epic, emotionally charged and superbly translated story about immortals and a world at war (penned by award winning novelist Kiyoshi Shigematsu) will be enough to satiate any misgivings.
Despite such a traditional template, Lost Odyssey does bring new variants to the genre such as larger combat parties. The Ring System is also one such mechanic which introduces a rhythmic requirement to timing for otherwise predetermined attacks. With random battles rearing their ugly head though it may not be enough to compensate.
While Lost Odyssey may tread old gameplay with only a few pleasing additions, it's a game that prides itself on story telling, stunning graphics and cinematic direction that reward only the determined and time rich profusely – almost enough to make me want to be a student again.

Professor Layton and The Curious Village

Platform: Nintendo DS, out soon.
Verdict: Curiously, infuriatingly, entertaining.
Rating:4/5
Upon the discovery that maths can be fun (and also make a lot of money), the scientists in Japan have concocted yet another game that massages the cerebral cortex to extrapolate emotions of smug satisfaction upon the successful completion of brain tingling puzzles. In the case of brain-freeze puzzle frustration, the egg heads use quality animation, rustic graphics and a plot full of mystery and intrigue to keep the curiosity brimming.
Having found the Brain Training series to be at once a mathematically entertaining revelation (maths is fun?!) then a creeping disappointment (no it isn't), I struggled to raise the enthusiasm to match my brain age to that of a spring chicken (or at least appear to be younger than my parents).
Professor Layton though is a canny fellow. He takes us on adventures in a country that looks straight out of the French animation Belleville Rendezvous, disguising what is essentially a giant compendium of classic brain teasers as an intriguing mystery, spawned from the will of a recently deceased Lord.
As a rudimentary point and click adventure, the emphasis is on gentle exploration and constant puzzling to solve the mysteries of St Mystere. With almost every conversation with its colourful inhabitants comes a puzzle, varying in styles between maths challenges, riddles, mazes, sliding blocks and optical illusions. Such variety is certainly thankful considering their frequency and while some will be familiar and easy to solve, some will involve much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Thankfully those scientists have a handy hint system setup to keep the weak of mind going. With up to three hints per puzzle the answer can become easier to obtain but to keep the balance, hint coins are required. With a limited supply (that can be replenished with rigorous searches through the village) it's certainly no fast track to the climax of a story full of twists, turns and runaway cats.
Full of brain teasers that are genuinely fun and carried by an engaging plot and beautiful animation, Professor Layton also manages to solve the puzzle of how to make educational gaming fun and that takes more than just an equation.

Neves

Platform: Nintendo DS, also blocks of wood.
Verdict: Pure and simple puzzler.
Rating: 3.5/5
Ever the multidisciplined toy, the Nintendo DS' tendrils are reaching far into the world, pulling in anything that will work with a touch screen and please the broadening selection of gamers under its thrall. Neves (seven spelt backwards) is one such title that updates an ancient puzzle game (the Tangram) to a more portable format.
With similarities to the Pentomino puzzles that Tetris adapted, the Tangram is a dissection puzzle dating hundreds of years old, originating in China and numbering fans of the likes of Lewis Carol and Napoleon. You're probably more familiar with it as being one of those stocking filler presents your grandparents got you for Christmas that involve fitting seven different shaped wooden blocks into a predetermined space.
Instead of lumbering around a box full of wood you can now carry your DS with the extra added bonus of having 500 different shapes of complexity to fit those blocks into. Using the touch screen you can move, rotate and flip pieces with great ease and speed while the bare bones presentation keeps things simple and intuitive at the minor sacrifice of eye candy.
While the standard mode allows you to take your time over the puzzles, extra modes including timed games and stricter rules help spice things up, with 2 player games a possibility too. Other than that and the option to download speed runs to compete against, Neves is a game that takes one pure and simple concept and does little else with it.
Tetris converted a traditional puzzle into an addictive, global phenomenon. Neves' strict adherence to its source however means it certainly won't do the same. If you like the gentle brain exercise of Tangrams though you certainly can't go wrong, unless you really like to keep things old-school and made of wood.

Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom

Platform: Xbox 360
Verdict: Infinitely boring.
Rating: 2.5/5
The circle is many things to many people – a special ellipse in which the two foci are coincident, a symbol of divinity through the halo, of infinity in the serpent Jörmungandr who could encircle the world and grasp its tail in its teeth and, according to Plato, an immortal, self-eating being of perfection that existed at the dawn of the universe. Unfortunately there's nothing as profound or perfect about the Circle of Doom, apart from an unwanted lesson in mediocrity.
Spin-off sequel to the popular yet niche original Xbox series, Circle of Doom is a Lord of the Rings wannabe full of swords and sorcery. Debuting as an interesting and fun pseudo RTS, Kingdom Under Fire cut itself a path between button mashing combat and the strategic deployment of troops in massive battles.
Eschewing the tactics and mass-battle mayhem for a traditional dungeon crawling template, Circle of Doom's bid to appeal to a wider audience comes at the sacrifice of depth. But then again, when all you want is to rend and sunder with a massive sword perhaps that's ok. Well it would be if the game actually delivered on its promise of satisfying barbarism.
Circle of Doom isn't a game that requires curious exploration or puzzle solving, it's about fighting monsters with an ever expanding arsenal of enchanted pants and big choppers. Choosing from a selection of warriors with predictable stats (fast but weak katana wielder, slow but strong hammer slammer etc), it allows for plenty of stat heavy customisability and weapon crafting.
Unfortunately such self-made variety is nulled by the painfully stilted combat. Relying on a slowly recharging meter to merely swing your sword means button mashing is impotent early on, while the lack of a block move or deep combos means titles like God of War are way above where it needs to hit.
From the obscure opening cinematic to the easily broken tutorial, Circle of Doom does little to convince of its immediate merits and problems unfortunately persist throughout the game – graphical pop-in and glitching shadows disapoint while the audio is generic and repetitive with abruptly reactive music framing each encounter with little subtlety.
There's little positive to say about Circle of Doom other than the fact that it includes online play if you want to share the adventure with a far away friend. Perhaps it was rushed out before Ninja Gaiden 2's inevitable domination of the genre once again. Whatever the cause, it can't be desirable to desire the Game Over screen which is more confounding than the nature of 3.14159.

The Club

Platform: 360, also PS3 & PC.
Verdict: I'll not be joining.
Rating: 3½/5
Those that predicted a Running Man style direction for sport after seeing the lycra clad trash The Gladiators, may still be crying in disappointment into their giant foam hands. Luckily for society, blood sports are generally frowned upon, even if they involve opera singers covered in lightbulbs. So, it's up to the underworld to organise such nefarious activities, perhaps in the shape of The Club.
No, this isn't Paul's dream dance game about a nightclub, it's an illegal group that organises death matches between skilled gunmen seeking riches, while the rich enjoy the show. As one of these gunmen you're tasked with surviving a tournament of different battles while racking up a huge score to become top of the table.
Bringing to mind 2000AD's revered Button Man series, The Club is a shallower gunfest with little story and lots of action. With a character select screen and an emphasis on speed runs and high scores, The Club draws from racers and beat-em-ups to add spice to the genre. Created by the team behind Project Gotham Racing this comes as little surprise.
At first the action may not quite click – relying on a string of closely timed kills to keep a bleeding combo meter going means the pace can take a little getting used. Once you grasp that this time the term 'run and gun' literally applies, everything changes for the better. Running full pelt through each environment while pulling off a quick succession of skilled shots certainly gets the adrenaline pumping, If only it had the controls to handle such frenetic action.
Strangely, the shooter made by a company famed for racers is let down by handling. Sluggish aiming, clunky controls and a reload that locks you into an animation is cause for much frustration. The disappointments don't end there either – with ties to beat-em-ups watered down to a single melee attack and the loud announcement of 'Fight!' at the start of each round, The Club feels like a watered down sum of its parts.
Feeling slightly clubbed to death by the glut of shooters on the 360, it's certainly refreshing to see someone try something new. Attempting to fuse aspects of shooters, racers and beat-em-ups into a new whole is admirable, if only the end result met that potential. The Club promised much and delivers some – disappointing, yet still worth a blast for the score hungry adrenalin junkies out there, and fans of pugel sticks maybe.

Eye of Judgement

Platform: PS3
Verdict: Eye candy
Rating: 3½/5
Those ignorant enough to that think gaming is still the preserve of the geek need look no further than the DS and Wii's success at Christmas - our once niche hobby is now becoming the mainstream replacement for DVD and music sales. Worry not fellow gamers, Eye of Judgement is a relic from the past, come to abuse new technologies while spitting on casual gaming with the +2 sneer of a basilisk's caustic saliva.
Essentially a card game in the vein of the all-consuming nerdfest Magic: The Gathering, Eye of Judgement uses the PS3's updated eye toy technology to create a mixed reality game where your cards come alive on the screen.
Split into a 3x3 grid, the playing board sits under the gaze of the eye (toy) while you take turns with your opponent to place a warrior card, cast spells and compete to be the first with five cards in play (or be last man standing). When you place a card on the board, the camera reads it and transforms it on-screen into an animated version.
With each move reliant on mana (which regenerates slowly every turn), cards can't just be placed down at any time – big nasty monsters cost a lot to use. Once down, a card is locked to its location and may only be rotated (to face a different adversary) and used once per turn when the mana allows it. Starting off slowly, each game eventually becomes a tense tussle for space on the board with the constant threat of a big hitter being played by your opponent.
Provided you're playing in good light the technology works well, with speedy computation and a charming mix of virtual and reality. The 3x3 board is a regrettably small area in terms of strategy but elemental based mechanics, spells and different attack ranges manage to keep things deep enough to be satisfying.
Online play is also included for those without geek minded mates but ultimately highlights how unnecessary the physical nature of the cards really is. Eye of Judgement is a fun idea, executed well but stands more as a tech demo than a necessary evolution of gaming.

Rez: HD

Platform: Xbox 360 Live Arcade
Verdict: Welcome home Eden
Rating: 5/5
Ever wondered what it would be like to fly and fight through a super computer's network to the hypnotic pulse of syncopated techno while gorging on beat-matched visuals too pure for human eyes? No? Well, welcome to Rez: HD, where hacking can achieve heights of Zen and an AI doubts reality.
For those with a Tron fetish, Rez is a synesthetic wet-dream, inspired by Wassily Kandinsky and cooked up from the crystallised post-club sweat of Tetsuya Mizuguchi, famed creator of other music embracing games like Space Channel 5, Lumines and Every Extend Extra.
Originally experienced on the under appreciated Dreamcast, Rez was one of those games of legend that lit up the DC's line-up alongside more traditional titles. Also ported to the PS2, Rez has finally found a home worthy of its audio/visual prowess on the Hi-Def and surround sound capable, Xbox 360 via the Live Arcade.
Applying crisp, retro-style vector graphics to the traditional on-rails shooter template, Rez sees you hurtling through abstracted virtual landscapes, attempting to breach firewalls and eradicate viruses to get to Eden, an AI that needs rebooting before its soul searching has catastrophic consequences.
Synced to pulsating music (written by masters such as Ken Ishi, Cold Cut and Oval) every shot fired in Rez triggers a timely snare or bleep and each progression in the level kicks out a harder, faster beat.
With a lock on system that removes the traditional need for button bashing, Rez's sublime fusion of audio/visuals and gameplay allows for zoned out, meditative gaming, despite the fact that a giant humanoid made of squares may be chasing you. The inclusion of a chill-out mode that removes the need for shooting is further proof of its wide eyed intention.
For many, Rez's gameplay may be a little too old-school – point and shoot ideals from yesteryear, but they'd be missing the point if they disapproved. Rez is an experiment in fusing stimuli into one indistinct whole and in that it succeeds in spades, even if the trance isn't to your taste.
Finally seeing it in Hi-definition is a dream come true, and for a paltry 800ms points (£6.80!), it can turn your home into a kaleidoscopic collision of colours and sound. Trance vibrator support may even peak your girlfriend's interest too.

n+

Platform: Xbox 360 Live Arcade
Verdict: A touch of zen
Rating: 4/5
Ninjas, they get a tough deal in life. When most action heroes just wade through bad guys with an arsenal of guns, ninjas have to traverse complex, insurpassable terrain utilising inhuman feats of acrobatic derring-do. When they finally get to fight it's often lonesome ninja with sword vs giant robotic squirrel with lasers for eyes and a heart of doom. If I was a ninja i'd go on strike.
n+ features one such super assassin, tasked with merely surviving a series of over 300 rooms where death lies waiting like a snickering kid. Each room has an exit and a switch to open it, getting to them alive is your goal. In your way lies a multitude of robots, mines and death defying leaps, and you don't have a sword.
Fusing old school 2D platforming with modern rag doll physics and momentum based gameplay, n+ is a wonderful minimalist game that orders you to master the art of jumping and seat-of-the-pants acrobatics, or pay with your comedic ragdoll death.
Using momentum, n+ allows your ninja to pull off spectacular jumps with careful timing. With wall jumping, improvised platforming and a touch of panicked luck, n+ at your best is a graceful ballet between homing rockets, death lasers and a twisting ninja. At your worst it's an exercise in frustration that thanks to polished programming, is always your fault.
Littering each room is a series of yellow dots that increase your time limit (disguised as an ever decreasing health bar). It's not imperative to collect them all before finding the exit but the collect-em-up nature of score chasing can often turn the simplest level into the most difficult - a choose your own difficulty level if you will.
Oddly addictive yet simplistic, n+ is a polished experience with expansive features like online multiplayer, a map editor, the all important leader board and saved replays (for when you pull off that seamless, super human run).
Initially debuting on the PC and darling of the indie scen, n+ proves how worthwhile Xbox Live Arcade is by bringing such gems to the masses. A ninja achievement indeed.

Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles (15)

Platform: Wii
Verdict: Zombies? Guns? Great!
Rating: 3½/5
Despite feeling rather undead due to a mutation of the common cold, the chance to play Umbrella Chronicles lit my eyes up, not unlike the post-midnight zombies in Dead Rising. If only it could induce similarly increased vigor too, just without the thirst for flesh.
For years the Resident Evil series has been king of the survival horror genre, sticking rigidly to its fixed camera take on 3rd person action and odd puzzles (stick the unicorn medal into the police station fountain?). Until Res Evil 4 redefined the series, the only real striations from routine were the weak Resident Evil: Survivor games which were compatible with a light gun for first person shooting hijinks. Umbrella Chronicles stems from this branch, stripping it down to a House of the Dead style on-rails shooter and pumping it full of lovely Res Evil 4 graphics.
Using the Wiimote as a gun, controls are basically point and shoot. Simple and effective. RE:UC also allows you to switch weapons, throw grenades, pick up items and slash like a nutter with your boot knife (waggle away!), all of which can be done with just the Wiimote. For those wanting a little more flexibility the nunchuk can be attached to spread the load or they can be slotted into the Wii Zapper for a chunkier experience.
Aptly titled, Umbrella Chronicles revisits previous games in the series (with some disappointing omissions like most of Res Evil 2), allowing you to relive the creeping horror and boss fights with the satisfaction that you'll never run out of ammo this time.
The pacing is great and the series lends itself well to the on-rails genre (you shoot zombies, course it would) but it's let down by being all too brief and the fact that apart from waggle features, it really does nothing new.
As a polished game that allows you and a friend to shoot waves of zombies, giant scorpions and mutated monkeys, it's an absolute blast, re-tread or otherwise, and it's certainly nice to see a game on the Wii for a maturer audience.
Now if only the pharmacy sold blue herbs.

Flatout: Head On

Platform: PSP
Verdict: Needs driving lessons.
Rating: 3½/5
Another week, another racer, and where PGR4 varied massively from Burnout Paradise, Flatout: Head On has plenty in common with Criterion's nitrous addict. For starters it centres heavily on crashing, particularly into fellow drivers or for the sole purpose of firing your writhing body through the windscreen for mini-game giggles - obviously no one has heard of seatbelts.
Ostensibly the fourth title in the series, Head On is its first appearance on the PSP, Sony's hand-held machine that often finds ill suited games burdened upon its shoulder buttons. Thankfully racers typically excel on it due to their basic controls (accelerate, left, right... who uses brake?) and its lavish display, perfect for framing the wide screen action.
With comparable nitro based action, exaggerated crash debris and a painful rock soundtrack, Flatout may sound like Burnout but in practice is more reminiscent of the PS1 classics Demolition/Destruction Derby, and is all the more better for it considering the absence of any sequels.
With an emphasis on banger racing, modded rust buckets with wheels, chaotic arena death-matches (Burnout has to get itself some of those) and crazy stunt games (bowling?), Head On ticks all the right, fun shaped boxes. Graphics are satisfyingly chunky, the game generally exudes a decent level of polish and the act of literally destroying the opponent is always welcome. At least it should be.
One thing holds it back - controls. The PSP isn't at issue here though, (unless you want to complain about the hand cramps the analogue nub can induce), the problem lies with the fact that the vehicles handle like a bull in a china shop - hard to control and always smashing into things. The destructible environment may be meant to be crashed through but the sluggish turning and general speed of races remains off putting to all but the determined gamer.
Which is a shame really because things do improve - the extensive career mode allows you to upgrade your car and buy shinier looking vehicles, which goes some way to addressing the handling issues. It would seem that instant gratification has been sacrificed for sense of progression, which is arguable good or bad either way. Cue another pun about my driving...

Burnout Paradise

Platform: Xbox 360, also PS3
Verdict: A brave new Burnout
Rating: 4½/5
Always one to champion gaming's ability to let you do things that in real life would see you hospitalised, incarcerated or dead, the Burnout series has featured highly on my list of greats. The high octane, crash fetishising gameplay is second to none (and thankfully nothing to do with J G Ballard), and puts chills into anyone I give a lift to after they've seen me play it (fear not, my aging Nissan Sunny doesn't have nitro).
After four iterations it's easy for a series to tire - just look at other yearly updated EA games like Need for Speed. Criterion were obviously aware of this and have worked to a bold new vision to reimagine Burnout while keeping it essentially the same. And what is this vision you ask? Paradise City.
Burnout Paradise drops you into a massive sandbox city where you can drive where you want (think GTA without the legwork or gun crime). No longer choosing between static tracks in a menu, you haphazardly determine the route yourself - from the traffic lights where you choose to initiate a race to the finishing line, the city lays naked to your improvised navigation.
Different car classes seek to replicate iterations in the series - from the speed based, burnout chaining of Burnout 2 to the aggressive, insanely fun takedowns of Burnout 4, there's something for every individual fan.
Graphics and mechanics are stunning as always, with spectacular emphasis on slow motion crash physics whenever something as trivial as a wall gets in the way.
The other feature Paradise wears proudly on its sleeve is online play. With a few presses of the D-Pad your friends can seamlessly drop into your game and meet up for impromptu races while Live Cam support spices things up with takedown snapshots of their mug, or worse.
With such progress comes disappointments though - the lack of quick restarts are divisive in their omission and the necessary reliance on improvised navigation means too much time can be spent with one eye on the mini-map instead of the road. Extended play soon sees you adapt though and in the face of how plain awesome the rest of the game is, they're minor grumbles. Much like the criticisms of my driving.

Project Gotham Racing 4

Platform: Xbox 360
Verdict: Rocket racer
Rating: 4½/5
Undoubtably the crown in the 360's launch lineup, Project Gotham Racing 3 was a sharp wake up to the world of Hi Def gaming. Featuring visuals that veered close to photo realism, its high-speed gameplay was also top notch yet as a sequel it disappointed many hardcore fans with its flawed balance.
After Sega Rally's over the top power drifting and mud splattering insanity, PGR4 initially feels too reserved with its tight controls and sterilised aesthetics. Perseverance however proves most rewarding.
Completely revising the handling model for the exotic bunch of cars on offer, Bizarre Creations has finally tweaked the series to perfection. Awarding speedy or technical driving, the new Kudos system helps broaden the games appeal to players of differing tastes while the handling models are at once forgiving for beginners, yet sufficiently deep enough for pro players to find rewarding.
Visuals have been further stepped up, creating a jaw dropping game that looks even better when the new weather effects kick in. The game's attention to detail is second to none too – from real cities accurately recreated to the colour of the speedometer in a Lotus' cockpit view, PGR4 is a sight to behold. Replays and a photo mode help cement how good the game really looks when your eyes aren't fixed on the vanishing point.
PGR4 also takes a large step outside its comfort zone by including motorbikes for the first time. Potentially game breaking, it was a brave move that has generally paid off, as they open up new areas of Kudos to explore. Handling does take some getting used to while riding a motorbike online is brave thing considering the ease at which an opponent can send you tumbling with a gentle shove of his car.
As well as reams of evolutions, gameplay modes and online components, PGR4 also includes the wondrous neon rage of Geometry Wars Waves as an arcade machine in your garage. The inevitable PGR5 will no doubt include the kitchen sink.

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

Platform: Nintendo DS
Verdict: Duller yet delightful
Rating: 4½/5
Considering how bright, colourful and cute the original Advance Wars was on the GBA, it's a wonder that its European release was delayed due to an imminent war in Kuwait. These days, media coverage beams combat 'highlights' into the comfort of your potato zone and 'realistic' games use the current war as their politically insensitive scenario. Advance Wars: Days of Ruin certainly won't blip on the politically correct radar because this time war is nothing to be laughed at.
Like last week's Final Fantasy Tactics, Advance Wars is a take on the age old game of taking turns to outmaneuver your opponent with superior tactical nous. Instead of wizards (or Chess pieces) you're controlling an army of tanks, battleships and helicopters, each with its own rock, paper, scissors style weakness and strength.
Set in a post apocalyptic world where a devastating meteor storm has wiped out most life and blotted out the sun with clouds of ash, Days of Ruin is Advance Wars with an ironically anti war conscience, initially tasking you with protecting survivors from Mad Max style gangs. A strange parasitic flower and a shadowy military group help take it into characteristically quirkier realms yet it still lacks a little soul, despite all the soul searching.
After the over complicated AW: Dual Strike, Days of Ruin sees Advance Wars stripped down and speeded up as new units and omissions (hello motorbikes, goodbye pipe runners) return balance to gameplay while streamlined controls and an intuitive touch screen input allow you to play as quick as you can think.
The over powered CO powers have thankfully been toned down, granting the game a subtler edge to its combat and notably, units can level up for the duration of a battle increasing depth on the battlefield.
While the revamped visuals may not be to everyone's liking (grey's and browns are so last year), what matters most to players is the gameplay and that has been honed to perfection. The final inclusion of online play (with voice chat between friends and map sharing) is a very sweet cherry on top. It's just a shame some its effervescent charm has succumbed to emo grumblings.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions

Platform: PSP
Verdict: Wizard Chess
Rating: 4/5
While I may suck at board games (curse you dice and your random ways!), I tend to fair better with videogames. Funnily enough, stick a board game onto a computer and i'm usually a whizz, although admittedly these tend to be board games that stem from that geekier pursuit of tabletop fantasy gaming, and before that Chess of course.
Final Fantasy Tactics is one such game, (landing on the PSP after brief forays on the PS1 and GBA) and draws from a long history of turn based strategy games like Front Mission and Advance Wars, albeit with more depth and more wizards.
Looking great on the PSP's screen and suiting long, ponderous train journeys, it feels like its finally come home. With a mix of pixel based sprites and isometric 3D it exudes charm and cute character (despite a heady tale of politics, war and betrayal) and is accompanied by gorgeous animated sequences to propel the story forward at times when a little extra drama is required.
Gameplay remains the same with slow paced, tactical battles as you and your opponent take turns to move your squad of soldiers, archers and mages. Stat heavy mechanics decide things like how much damage your characters give or take while job points are earned through engaging in combat.
These job points allow your characters to grow in any direction you choose, such as becoming a gladiator or assassin. The number of job types is massive and each brings its own strength and weakness, allowing you to tailor make a squad to your own tastes, providing masses of depth and replayability.
At times the combination of tall buildings and an isometric viewpoint can obscure your view but map controls help ensure it never becomes too detrimental to gameplay.
The difficulty curve is also a little too steep - a firm grasp of the game's customisation options are required close to the start, meaning new players can be caught unawares. When characters die on the battlefield they remain dead off it too, so pay heed to the brutality of (an admittedly cute) war.
Monopoly leaves scars too.

Mutant Storm Empire

Platform: Xbox 360 Live Arcade, 800MS Points.
Verdict: Squelchy, shooty stuff.
Rating: 4/5
When all attention is turned towards the stars in search of new and wondrous, imagined forms of life, there lies plenty of undiscovered ickyness in the depths of our oceans. Things you could only dream of flit by in the darkened abyss, nightmarish in their composure, sickening in their alien nature and possibly closer to us genetically than any creationist would ever admit. Such globular, squelchy, tentacled spawn is also what makes Mutant Storm Empire so great.
Sequel to Mutant Storm Reloaded, Empire scurries across familiar ground using the ever so popular twin stick controls to shoot independently of movement. The same organic monstrosities are there, this time accompanied by some mechanical beasts and the same frenetic action is present, this time made all the more tense by gameplay changes.
To warrant the sequel’s existence beyond feeding the mouths of hungry programmers, Pom Pom Games have evolved Mutant Storm by cross breeding it with some classic shooters. Removing the all powerful smart bomb (replaced by a super directional attack), Empire also introduces colour based combo chaining (think Ikaruga) and replaces the abstracted series of rooms with a coherent, seamlessly loading world (like Smash TV).
Fusing these ideas from other shooters into one neon soaked gloopy hue, Empire manages to redefine itself with a new play style, initially unsettling Reloaded veterans yet inspiring new challenges and techniques.
Colour based combos up the difficulty for score chasers while the lack of a smart bomb removes an easy get out clause for the novice - things may sound tougher but a multiple lives system that replenishes at the end of each area eases the pressure somewhat, creating a chaotic shooter that can be blasted through with little grace or played like an artiste with pin point accuracy and a thirst for the razor’s edge and topping the online leaderboard.
Full of aquatic character, Empire has some of the best audio design this side of an amplified petri dish and is made all the better by the inclusion of an online co-op mode, which is just what you need when the going gets a little too squishy.

Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action

Platform: Xbox 360.
Ostensibly the 360’s mimic of the PS2’s Buzz! Hollywood, Scene it? comes with four wireless big button pads for that ‘i’m on telly in a real quiz show’ feeling.
Featuring 1800 questions, Scene it? is rammed full of trivia to challenge the film buffs out there and keeps track of which ones have been asked to keep things fresh on repeated playthroughs.
Game types range from innovative Pictionary style questions to plain dull ‘guess the order of release dates’ for films you’ve never heard of.
At this point it becomes clear that Scene it? isn’t an ideal family game as many questions go over the heads of the young or casual film watcher although memory based quizzes using film footage help level the playing field.
7/10

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

Platform: Nintendo DS.
Sequel to the lovely Wind Waker on the Gamecube, Phantom Hourglass continues with the cartoonish style and sea faring adventures.
Showing how things should really be done, Nintendo have bestowed Phantom Hourglass with sublime controls and the perfect example of how to use the DS’ features without making anything feel forced or unnecessary (ok, so being required to shout at the DS may not be desirable when you’re gaming on the go).
With perfect, touch screen controls and charming presentation it’s a synch to lose yourself in the princess rescuing adventure. Puzzles may be too easy for some but it’s an adventure aimed at the younger generation with the added bonus of reduced frustration for those of us with adventure in our hearts.
9/10

Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat

Platform: Xbox 360, also PS3 and PC.
Going head to head with shooters like Halo 3 would leave many games trembling in the dust but CoD4 merely shakes the mud from its boots and soldiers on, bringing it’s own brand of chaotic realism to the mix.
As the suffix suggests, CoD4 is set in the present day, with a close to the bone fictional story of terrorists and nuclear bombs.
Ditching the bolt action guns of WWII for state of the art weaponry, CoD4’s action is refined yet retains the chaos of previous iterations.
Undoubtably one of the best looking games around, the battlefields are awash with smoke and bloodied inevitability with the FPS action claustrophobic and tense.
The tale may be a relatively brief affair and the endlessly respawning enemies a blot on gameplay but the addictive, RPG laced online modes more than make up for it.
9/10

Super Mario Galaxy

Nintendo Wii
After the disappointment (for some) of Super Mario Sunshine, Galaxies is Nintendo’s long awaited true sequel to the ridiculously good and rightly revered Super Mario 64.
Topping perfection is an unenviable task and while Galaxies doesn’t have the jaw dropping switch from 2D to 3D that Mario 64 revelled in, it certainly attempts feats of the same magnitude.
Set in space, in and around tiny planets and wildly imaginative worlds, Galaxies takes the notion of up and down and throws it into a blender with some dysfunctional laws of gravity. The result is a game full of mind bending, upside down platforming and pure reaction based gaming that shows the world Nintendo can still make proper games and that Mario is undoubtably still king of the Mushroom kingdom castle.
10/10

The Orange Box

Platform: Xbox 360, also PS3 and PC.
Verdict: The future’s bright.
Rating: 5/5
Now that my belly is fat with cake and my thumbs blistering from the excessive list of quality pre-Christmas games, it’s time to kick back and catch up on those titles I missed. They’ll handily help fill the gaming drought in this most depressing of months too.
With plenty of great games for Santa to choose from, The Orange Box was the most conspicuous omission from last year’s reviews, especially as it should have been one of my top 5 games of 2007. Time to make amends then.
The Orange Box isn’t a collection of citrus flavoured chocolates or some ill advised Dragon’s Den ‘innovation’ but a rather fine compendium of Valve made games. Included in this bumper package is the seminal Half Life 2 (the game that defined physics based puzzling) and its two highly rated episodic sequels. As if that wasn’t enough you get Team Fortress 2 (a super stylised multiplayer game) and Portal (a mind melting, space bending FPS puzzler) thrown in too. Both of which are inspiringly innovative in their own right and juicy, brandy soaked cherries on the already sumptuous cake.
For such AAA generosity there must be a catch right? Wrong. Unless you have some guilty complex that makes you insist on paying full price for every game in the (orange) box. Instead, pay your £30 and be glad Gabe Newell has seen fit to deliver his quality slices of prime gaming beef at a discount price. Be very glad.
So, you might have guessed I like it. You’re wrong (again), I really like it. I want to hug it, buy it presents and take photobooth shots of us on our perfect day. If that was any day in particular it’d be the day I finished the regrettably short Portal - the most perfect slice of gaming pie there possibly ever has been. Innovative, perplexing, amusing and downright marvel at the infinite vastness of space, mind bendingly brilliant. All in the pursuit of cake too.