Godwhacker

PixelJunk Eden is utterly tedious. You control a nondescript creature jumping around a nondescript landscape, against a soundtrack seemingly cribbed from the playlist of wine bar in 2006 If you're baked out of your skull you might find this excellent. Play it sober and you'll soon switch it off. The entire game seems to be based on trial and error, but there's no reward for getting things right- just more trial and error.

This is more a lightly interactive short film than a game. It's packed with fun ideas, it's relatively well executed, and there's nothing else like it. But it's also very, very brief, and not quite as clever or essential as the critics have made it out to be. It's not really worth £4, but neither is a pint of beer in Central London.

Criticising this game because it's a bare-bones port is absurd. The game is incredible on every level, and a lack of graphics options doesn't change that. And- this being the PC we're talking about- there's already a mod available to fix that. You will fall in love with this game.

Your mileage may vary. Do you like sliding block puzzles? The one where there's a grid of numbers placed out of order with one free space, and you have to get them in order by sliding them around one a time? Then you'll like Cogs. Do you hate sliding block puzzles? Then you'll probably tolerate Cogs for a bit before uninstalling it. I personally fall into the latter camp. The art and animation are wonderful, and the way the puzzles are couched is rather innovative, but unfortunately you're still just sliding blocks around, one at a time.

BIT.TRIP BEAT is almost exactly like playing Pong in time to music. The main difference is that playing Pong in time to music and losing won't break your stereo- which is more or less what happens in BIT.TRIP BEAT when you miss a few points. And guess what? It's very easy to miss a few points in BIT.TRIP BEAT, thanks to confusing graphics, unpleasant controls and some very silly design choices. It's not an awful game, but the focus seems to be on style instead of entertainment. Much like the game's name itself, in fact. Try typing out 'BIT.TRIP BEAT' a few times- looks pretty, is conceptually sound, but ultimately isn't much fun.

Utterly fantastic game. Shows Duke Nukem up for the charisma-free coke-head misogynist he is, and COD and Battlefield for just being boring. Warning: first couple of levels are a little bit dull, and then it picks up. Buy it NOW! Or Sam will have words with you. Very specific words. With a sledgehammer.

This game is very hard to love. The racing is as wonderful as ever, and the graphics truly are a leap forward, but everything else is a confused mess. Much seems to have been taken out since Trackmania United, with the community expected to fill it in later. The solo campaign is simply 'Race', with no 'Platform', 'Puzzle' and 'Stunt' mode any more. There's no in-game 'Explorer' to allow you to look for skins and tracks. There's no way of sharing your creations once they've been built- at least, as far as I can see. I can't understand why they've simply thrown all this stuff away, since Trackmania United Forever was so fully-featured. On top of that, there's no explanation as to what's going on, either. in fact, if you want to read the manual, you have to search for it on Google- and even then, you're not going to find it. It's here: ****/en/User_manual . It's also woefully incomplete. If you want any further explanation, you'll have to start mining the forums. This shouldn't be necessary. And there are bugs, and the interface is a mess, and there appear to be people who have hacked their way to the top of the rankings, and there's absolutely no communication from Nadeo as to what they're aware of and what they're going to be doing in the future. So, ultimately, this game has a very, very long way to go, and there's a very good chance Ubisoft are going to make you pay extra for all the things your missing. Probably best to avoid it for a few months until everything gets sorted out. Until then, buy Trackmania United on Steam. It's the same price and it'll last you for much longer.

Not quite sure why this is getting an unqualified 10 / 10- it's not a bad game, but it's hardly going to set the world on fire. The graphics are good, it plays well enough, but full marks? No. The game is overwhelmingly brown, the plot is generic beyond words (i.e. there are bad aliens, and you must stop them), and you don't really get to do that much. On the other hand, it's cheap, so if you need another disposable timewaster, go for it.