We were willing to forgive the first Pokmeon Ranger for being overly simplistic. After all, there was still an adventure there, and even though we weren’t participating in deeper-than-you’d-guess turn-based pokemon battles, at least we were exploring the world and befriending one cuddly critter after another. ...

Last time we saw him, in Crash of the Titans, Crash Bandicoot was a brainless chump, lacking both charisma and charm. The game wasn’t much better either. But things are definitely better for both parties this time around. Everything here says ‘Saturday morning’, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Judging by the fully animated cartoon cutscenes, fast-talking bad guys and pop-culture references, that’s exactly what the game intended to mimic and it's done well. ...

This latest in EA’s undying street racing series teaches us that there’s nothing that can’t be solved by high-speed racing. This is a crass game – which would be fine if it would admit it. It shares much with EA’s other recent star-studded sequel, Red Alert 3, in that it stuffs HD FMV between missions in order to add a story to its formulaic challenges. ...

Launching an MMO expansion pack in the same month as Blizzard may seem like madness, but Lord of the Rings Online has a huge user base, well-defined and even innovative MMO mechanics, and the world’s best known fantasy world. There are vast swathes of people living in the Shire and loving it. ...

Were we a sniffy historical type, we might point out that it wasn’t Pandora’s Box at all, but rather a jar. Are jars more or less dramatic than boxes? Either way the mislabeled box in Legendary is one that contains not all the evils of the world, but generic monsters and one awesome rubble-golem the size of a block of apartments. ...

Another Christmas, another quiz game. Scene It?’s 2007 leap from board game to virtual toy wasn’t quite up to Buzz’s often lofty standards, but marked a promising foray into the genre for Microsoft nonetheless. Now that it’s backed up by casual titles Lips and You’re in the Movies the movie quiz’s second outing is a much stronger prospect than before. ...

An interesting one, this. At first glance it all looks a little too Animal Crossing - cute green fields, clear blue streams and cozy little houses. You’ll soon begin to wonder where all the monsters are at, this being a dungeon-crawler and all. Have patience. ...

Out of the box you’d be forgiven for thinking that there isn’t much to separate Lips from Sony’s SingStar series. But buying a karaoke game is a long-term investment, one that only comes to fruition once there’s a wealth of downloadable content available. For this reason it seems unfair to review Microsoft’s casual music game so soon, but there are at least two features that make it stand out. ...

There was a time, perhaps a year ago, when we were seriously excited about Sonic Unleashed’s retro-platform action. The sense of sheer velocity was breathtaking as Sonic blasted through admirably detailed levels so quickly that the soles of his shoes should have melted off. ...

The first time publisher Ubisoft spoke to us about the new Prince of Persia game, we’ll admit we feared it was going to stink so badly we’d staple week-old roadkill to our faces to try to mask its smell. The super-macho Prince, always the center of this platform adventure series, is being hobbled with a new sidekick character whose help you require for basically everything? ...