A year can be a long time in football. Conversely, a year in Pro Evolution Soccer seems to fly by, and the results are sadly all too predictable. PES 2010 is barely distinguishable from the 2009 effort – even the press release intended to trumpet this new installment struggles a bit, eventually resorting to talking about things like how players now raise their hands to solicit a pass. ...

Appropriately, you can play Sexy Poker one-handed. We used the spare hand to repeatedly punch ourselves in the head, but you can use it however you wish. The fact that this is an excruciatingly awful and embarrassing game is not entirely surprising – anything with the word ‘sexy’ in the title usually is – but it even manages to get the ‘poker’ bit wrong. ...

Wow, this is a strange one. Tornado Outbreak is a completely new IP from Konami – home of Silent Hill and MGS – but it looks and feels like a Saturday morning cartoon tie-in. It’s hard to believe that this saccharine sweet title was once thought to be MGS creator, Hideo Kojima’s next project after Guns of the Patriots. ...

Have you ever stopped to think about what’s in your Wii remote? You might sensibly think it’s batteries, or circuit boards, or jam, or whatever witchcraft it takes to make Nintendo’s motion magic work, but it’s not. Put the remote close to your ear and you should hear something unusual: “BWAAAAAAAHHHHH!” ...

Welcome to Eldar, the land of many grays and browns, brainless enemies and mercenaries, and mute characters. A console first for the action role-playing series, Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga presents plenty of problems from the beginning: an awful color palette, yawn-worthy cutscenes, stiff combat, poor enemy and mercenary AI, and a predictable story. ...

Sadbear lives! Once again we’ve turned Crayola Frankenstein and breathed life into the greatest platforming mascot that never was. Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Alex Kidd – all pretenders crushed under Sadbear’s lumbering trunks. But is nostalgia for this unlikely hero – our avatar from the original DS Drawn To Life – enough to warrant a second outing? We fear not. ...

It seems Astro Boy returns every decade or so, and now American film makers have retooled the iconic character for another reboot. Albeit low budget looking and feeling, High Voltage Software put more life into Astro Boy: The Video Game than we’d expect from a movie tie-in. Bright, sleek and silver, Metro City sets the stage for Astro Boy’s adventure against an evil robot-wielding president. ...

Poor Squeeballs. All these animated soft toys want is to be loved and given a good home. But they’re in for a world of pain before they can be placed on the shelf at the local toy store. It’s your job to make sure they’re fit for children by playing a set of minigames that ensures their wicked thoughts are whacked out of them. Don’t let their cute, wide-eyed exteriors fool you. ...

Star Wars has long been dead to us. However, we’re big enough to admit that the ‘franchise’ (what else can you call it?), especially the Clone Wars spin-offs, is aimed at a younger age group and not crusty, cynical 30-somethings like us. But this doesn’t excuse the churning-out of games of such mind-numbing dullness that they’ll cause instantaneous cerebral meltdown in anyone above 8. ...

All hail the hundredth WiiWare title. And thank the gods it wasn’t Sexy Poker. Winter of the Melodias is one of few games that deserve to trigger the illustrious milestone. (Frontier also marked the start of the WiiWare hundred with the dazzling original LostWinds). Bigger, better and bolder? ...