Back in the mid-80s, someone thought it would be a great idea to create a series of toys that looked like a cross between baseballs and shrunken heads that looked like they’d been violently mauled by a rabid animal or a runaway semi-truck. Madballs were gross. Kids loved them. But a Madball-themed XBLA shooter released about 25 years after the fact just seems inherently wrong. ...

It’s a game from the eighties powered by technology from the twenty-first century – a 2D, side-scrolling motorbike racing game with ramps, loops, and jumps to tackle, all powered by supermodern physics and running in delicious HD. Yum. ...

Pimm’s sweating on the table, fours and sixes scrawled on a sheet of white paper close to hand and an outstretched finger ready to point to the sky at the sight of toppled bails: it can only mean another Ashes summer. Should England win (our crystal ball’s cloudy at the time of writing), the inevitable wave of bat ‘n’ ball euphoria will certify Ashes Cricket 2009 as the hottest sporting title until FIFA and PES return. ...

The first Turtles game hit Live back in 2007 and became one of the biggest sellers on the Marketplace. It was, of course, rubbish. Ubisoft are gambling on the same nostalgia-fuelled sales for their 3D remake of its sequel, Turtles in Time. Which is, of course, also rubbish. Even the critics of the day were guarded in their praise for the Turtles games. ...

We expect puzzle games to challenge your brain, but at least initially, Droplitz may also test something else: your patience. While rotating dials to let drops of water flow from one area to the next is a simple enough premise -- sort of like Hexic meets the hacking mini-game from BioShock -- we kept finding ourselves running out of droplets within minutes, and not nearly approaching the high scores needed to unlock later modes. ...

Thanks to Marvel vs Capcom 2 we finally know who’d win in a fight between The Hulk and Jill Valentine (it was Jill, with her ability to summon a bloody great Tyrant). We’ve also managed to settle that age-old debate about the relative merits of pre- and post-adamantium Wolverine, and make Captain America beat up a small girl. ...

Ever since Greg LeMond and Lance Armstrong started winning races over the past couple of decades, the Tour de France has been viewed in America as the Super Bowl of pro cycling. We may not understand the idiosyncrasies of the sport, but we totally comprehend that someone gets to stand on a podium while hot girls in skimpy outfits clap for him. ...

When science goes wrong, things blow up. It’s all part of the cycle of life – at least for ‘Splosion Man. Accidentally spawned from the experimental tinkering of his fellow lab coat-adorned scientists, the titular protagonist of this inventive 2.5D platformer takes psychotic glee in his newfound ability to explode himself at will. His fiery enthusiasm is infectious. ...

Waffle irons, toasters and water coolers have gained self-awareness and a desperate desire to rip into human flesh, and it’s up to small group of typecast guinea pigs with jetpacks to save the day. So the story goes in G-force, a fuzzy-edged action game made to tie in to this summer’s blockbuster film. ...

College football’s toughest critics - the ones who agonize endlessly over the disaster that is the BCS or the unfair advantage that big-time conferences enjoy over their mid-major counterparts - are also its biggest fans. When it comes to EA’s annual collegiate gridiron efforts, we group ourselves in that mix. ...