It’s amazing how well this has aged. Sure, textures are a little flatter, there’s less detail in the background, and Taki’s chest has lost a few million polygons – but this is still a very slick, very attractive fighter. It plays superbly too – perhaps lacking in some of the subtler nuances of the sequels, but it’s well balanced, fast and, crucially, great fun. ...

Joint Strike works. The gameplay hasn’t changed since 1984 and this is a good thing, if you’re making a 1942 game. This is a classic vertical shooter, waves of planes swirl and spin from all areas of the screen, red planes offer powerups, bombs and health; standard planes offer points, lots of points. ...

Bashing exotic opponents with gigantic fantasy swords is brilliant. That’s the fundamental thing that sets Soulcalibur apart from other fighting games. Sensibly ditching the logic that says that being hit with a giant, medieval zweihander would cut you in half, its effect is downgraded to just driving you into the floor or knocking you into the sky. ...

Warlords is four-way Breakout at high speed against three other players, and is yet another piece of Atari Live Arcade graveware. Atari dug this one up, pumped it full of HD-o-juice, and it’s one of the few which almost holds up these days. ...

It’s an underwater fish-photographing on-rails romp. A submariner’s Pokemon Snap, then. While it’s not fun, nor much of a game, it’s something to be enjoyed while kicking back after an evening’s mindless blammo action. ...

Consistently successful college football coaches win for a reason. Coming off championship seasons, they don’t mess too much with winning formulas. A few tweaks to the playbook here, some new paint on the weight room walls there, and voila! It’s time for another year demanding blood, sweat, and tears from skinny freshman, grizzled seniors, and everyone else in between.

So it is with NCAA Football 09, this ...

Multi-format golfing fans will already know a thing or two about Hot Shots Golf – named Everybody’s Golf in the west – on PSP and PS3. Tee It Up is a competent clone, and a demonstration of how slim the good/bad game divide is. Played with the classic three-click golf controls, this is a classic cartoony golf game which slips up on the essential details. ...

Nineteen years ago we wouldn’t budge from our PCs thanks to Sim City. It wasn’t the building and maintaining of a metropolis that had us enthralled, but the option to lay waste to cities with earthquakes, tornados, and floods. Elements of Destruction is a crazy extension of that simple premise. ...

Like being taken outside and beaten up by a gang of enraged skinheads, Aces of the Galaxy is an outright assault on your senses of the most unwelcome variety. Like Space Harrier, Panzer Dragoon or most recently, Rez, Aces is an on-rails arcade shooter, accelerated to a speed which makes every stage a dizzying blur of enemies and lasers. ...

Granted, Hellboy is not a terribly sophisticated comic book character. His super powers are basically just that he's remarkably durable, kinda strong and has a stone hand he uses to punch things. Thus, even though his comics tend to have interesting characters and storylines (not to mention fantastic noir art), we didn't expect his games to be about riddles or gadgets or sorcerous cults or anything else that says "brainy" instead of ...