What’s the evillest thing you can think of? Now wind it back a bit (we can’t print what you just thought of) and you should find yourself somewhere in the region of heinous war crimes.

Now think of another evil thing. Was it slavery? Good! Now imagine both of these acts being carried out by a pantomime villain in a pointy helmet in a way that makes everybody laugh and feel good about themselves. ...

Seven months. That’s how much extra time EA Bright Light has had to tweak and polish Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince after its release date was pushed back thanks to the movie’s theatrical slippage. The time could have been spent perfecting one of the most valuable game licenses. ...

It was always going to be a tall order for an unknown indie developer to steal the solid dilithium crown from Sins of a Solar Empire and developer SaintXi has failed to do so. It’s easy to forget that this is an indie release, as there’s a lot of depth to it and clearly thought has been put into trying to create a believable backdrop to the planet-twirling strategy. ...

After apocalyptic future worlds, there can be few settings less original than the Old West. Chuck in a desert, some dueling and a few authentic guns and you have yourselves a game, right? Well Techland don’t subscribe to that – Bound in Blood, like its predecessor, has ideas coming out the wazoo. ...

As a species, humans are easily bowled over by originality. Just look at what happened when the world encountered Spore: otherwise ordinary people would press the game into your face and shriek “GENIUS!” until they collapsed in exhaustion, weeping salty, jubilant tears. The brazen originality of i-Fluid is its most alluring feature: you’re a sentient water droplet in a Micro Machines-style kitchen. ...

There’s something bizarre about this game where mercenaries battle the forces of an evil dictator in central Africa. No, it’s got nothing to do with the setting at all - it’s that all the female mercenaries we recruited emitted orgasmic noises whenever we clicked on them. ...

We didn’t know this was a game based on an Uwe Boll film until about 30 minutes into playing. A passing scribe asked whether it was “that Boll Tunnel Rats game” and, when answered in the affirmative, laughed and gave his condolences. ...

The most evocative, stirring part of Terminator: Salvation is the loading screen, a burning red eye glaring out at you from the monitor. After that, it just degenerates into a mindless grind through tediously textured levels, fighting dull enemies and listening to dull characters say “Connor, do this” or “Wasps!” for the thousandth time. ...

There’s a nasty, DRM-shaped Illithid in the room that must first be slain in any review of Neverwinter Nights 2’s new ‘Adventure Pack.’ Ossian Studios acknowledged work on Westgate finished as early as 2007, but note that Atari were unable to decide how the pack should be copy-protected. So, perfectly reasonably, launch was held back for a year and a half. Wait, not perfectly reasonably, the other one. Ridiculously. ...

Imagine a straight-faced The Settlers and you’re getting there. The core play is that of nurturing a medieval settlement into a city, adding and upgrading buildings with various functions and attempting to keep your resources balanced and your inhabitants happy. ...