For a brief period, we considered giving Metroid Prime Trilogy a 10. The original Prime, released in 2002, was a near-perfect blend of sci-fi shooting and thoughtful exploration. The version on this disc has been immensely enhanced with spot-on motion controls that make the previously stiff aiming a breeze. ...

There are lots of things that Gradius ReBirth is harder than. Nails. Hulk Hogan. Licking your own elbow. And this leads to one of the game’s unfortunate downfalls – such difficulty has very limited appeal. Only fans of ridiculously hard 16-bit shooters will be in their element with this Gradius ‘remix,’ drawing elements from the first two games and the GameBoy iteration. ...

The basic premise of the game is unchanged from its Xbox origins: coloured shapes fall from the sky and you have to press the B and Z buttons to rotate a series of platforms so the shapes fall through the right holes. The difficulty increases as more shapes are introduced, butterflies steal the shapes, and bad guys called Meemoos block the holes. It’s all fairly straightforward. ...

Aren’t we over the whole ‘which random cool people are better?’ thing? Pirates, ninjas, zombies, aliens – they’re all here in this self-consciously ‘wacky’ dodgeball game. And if the premise of blathering on about how cool pirates and ninjas are is a bit tired, the game itself isn’t much better. ...

Cooking up the ideal blend of fun and education is a dark alchemical art, and success is rare. Things like Brain Training work because the mental workout is delivered in short bursts. Also, math and verbal reasoning work well in a quickfire format. History is harder to condense into info fun nuggets, as Ruthless Romans proves. ...

Nostalgia? Please. As great as the original Secret of Monkey Island is, it’s a new adventure we’ve all been craving. Even though Tales is the first of the series not made by LucasArts (although Telltale have no shortage of people who worked on them, such as Dave Grossman and Mike Stemmle), make no mistake: it’s officially the fifth game in the series, not some farmed-out spin-off. ...

We’ll hand it to Disney Interactive – after decades of publishing mediocre-at-best movie/game tie-ins, it might have cracked the formula for creating a fairly good movie-based game. Here’s the secret: instead of trying to make your game resemble the movie, try to make your movie more closely resemble a video game. Like the kinda-okay Bolt before it, G-Force makes its transition to the world of video games with ease. ...

For the first time in two and a half years Nintendo has a game that plays exactly like it does in the advert. Guy hiding behind the sofa during Resident Evil 4? Liar. Lady lunging across the living room in Wii Sports Tennis? Sick in the head. Wii Sports Resort, however, doesn’t lie. Nintendo could front the campaign with a chorus line of MPs and we’d still believe in its miracle powers.

The moment it clicked? ...

Your typical baseball game doesn’t come packed with fireballs, explosions, power-ups, and character-building, but chances are you already knew The Bigs 2 isn’t your average hardballer. In fact, it celebrates not being a staid old sim; yes, it sports MLB licensed-players, stadiums, and teams, but in reality it’s got more in common with a good ol’ action RPG than anything else. ...

Towering Adventures retains the basics of the original Rainbow Islands. It’s still a vertical platformer, except instead of fleeing the rising tide, you’re outrunning a succession of ultra-cheap bosses. To help your ascent, you can vomit rainbows, which can be used as platforms or to kill local wildlife. ...