No doubt about it, drafting in British developers Slightly Mad Studios has revitalised the series and turned it into a serious contender. Of course, it helps that Need for Speed SHIFT has clearly used last year’s king of the road, Codemaster’s brilliant GRID, as its benchmark.

Gone are the police. ...

Comics fans are pretty blissed out right now, as they just got one of the best games ever to be based on a comic book with Batman: Arkham Asylum. It really raised the bar for superhero games, and will affect how all future games based on caped crusaders are judged. Which leads us to Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, and how the action-RPG series is starting to look like it’s on the wrong side of “evolve or die." ...

Somebody thought about this one. Tower Defense games are the easiest genre for a developer since Video Tennis; you build a road, some spaces to deploy guns, and then send a bunch of baddies down the path – game done. ...

IO Interactive’s Hitman series has come to define the soullessly violent videogame. IO Interactive’s Mini Ninjas will come to define games in which you can use your hat as a boat. It’s as innocent as IO’s amoral murder simulator isn’t. You’re a tiny ninja. You can turn into a slightly larger ninja, a flute-playing ninja, an archer ninja, a feral ninja or a ninja with a pointy stick. ...

Guitar Hero returns to the party once again – this time with a bang so loud it’d burst the ear drums of even the hardest of rockers. Last year, it managed to cement its place as the music game of choice for expert players thanks to some crazily difficult note charts and a comprehensive Studio mode for would-be composers everywhere. ...

Let’s face it: one’s enjoyment of a game in a popular franchise is always partly dependent on one’s familiarity with said franchise. So as much as we’d like to make a universal statement regarding the enjoyment you’ll get out of The Beatles: Rock Band, doing so does the game a disservice. ...

Codemasters takes the best aspects of its two hit racing franchises to create something very, very special ...

Flying fists, ancient and deadly techniques, atrociously bad overdubs, and no-shadow kicks are but a few of the marvels found in the world of import martial arts flicks. Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao borrows liberally from this treasure trove of Kung-Fu nostalgia. And we love it for that. But before long, you just might stop throwing punches and start throwing controllers with this one. ...

You’ve been chasing the enemy ace for ten minutes with your engine running hot from being pushed too hard and too long. Fuel is running low and ammunition even lower but you’ve finally got the drop on your foe. His German-made fighter can out-turn and out-gun your British crate but you have altitude and surprise in your favor. ...

Ten minutes in, we had to eject the disc to confirm this was Summer Athletics 2009 and not last year’s inaugural iteration. Same controls, lack of online play, charmless monkey gyrating around on the loading screen, and – barring two skeet shooting events – the same disciplines. Hell, half the Achievements are identical. Summer Athletics 2008: now with added skeet shooting. There’s a shining endorsement. ...