In theory, you can always choose not to use the touch screen controls at all, concentrating on the classic FIFA play. However, in practice, this is almost impossible for anyone with fingers as, eh, chunky or clumsy as State’s: no matter how hard we try, at least one of our fingers always lands on the rear screen with the result that as soon as Luis Suarez or Andy Carroll get into the final third of the pitch, they shoot on sight, which is extremely frustrating and takes some getting used to (i.e. at least once every game we hit a wild effort that flies high, wide and not so handsome or runs harmlessly into the keeper’s arms). The controls do, however, make set-pieces a little easier to control. Overall, though, the touch controls feel like they get in the way, rather than accentuating the action.

Other than that, this game oozes class, even without the tactical dribbling system that revolutionised defending in FIFA 12: it’s more like the previous year’s incarnation of the beautiful game. The graphics are superb, the sound near-perfect, with cracking commentary and real crowd chants, and the gameplay has the usual mixture of career, tournament, player/manager etc, which offers outstanding longevity for a handheld game. In other words, it’s exactly what you’d expect from FIFA: one hell of a handheld adventure.

That said, as a pick-up-and-play golfing game, it’s up there with the best of them. The control system is the usual press to swing, again for power and a third time for accuracy: too soon and you’ll slice off to the right, too slow and you’ll hook left. As you get better at the basics, you can add topspin, backspin and sidespin to your shots, while also getting to grips with Power Mode, which gets you added distance but less control.

While its undoubtedly cute and cheerful, the heart of Everybody’s Golf beats with a love of golf that is pretty infectious, especially as you begin to win tournaments and move up the rankings, improving your skill set all the time.

This time around Rayman and his buddies, like Globox and the Teensies (with four playable characters to choose from), have to fight off the armies of the Livid Dead, while saving Betilla and the Bodacious Nymphs of the Glade from captivity, and being rewarded with superpowers. Sporting lovely, colourful cartoony graphics and more than 60 levels of classic platforming action, as well as some delicious side-scrolling shooter levels and big boss fights, Rayman Origins is reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally hard to put down.

It all sounds suitably Orwellian, and the graphics and feel of the game are realistically grey enough to give Blade Runner a run for its money, but for State‘s cash, there’s not enough invested into the game’s storyline to make us really care about any of its characters except in a perfunctory way. However, when it comes to shooters, plot and reason can go and defenestrate themselves: it’s the action that matters, and once you get through the first couple of humdrum levels, Syndicate starts to get under your skin, just like the experimental chip they’ve embedded in your brain.

You are the first of a new level of agent, with the ability to add apps to your chip, seriously upgrading your skill-set with some downright nasty abilities. There’s ‘Suicide’, which does exactly what it says on the tin: convincing an enemy that shooting themselves in the head is their only option; ‘Backfire’, which causes an enemy weapon to do just that, giving you valuable seconds to fill them full of holes; and, my favourite, ‘Persuade’, whereby an enemy agent shoots all of his allies in range before turning his gun on himself. Morally questionable? Undoubtedly. Fun? For sure. You can also earn other, more mundane, abilities, such as Emergency Resuscitation or Killing Spree, as you progress up the EuroCorp-erate ladder, but it’s these early apps that really get the pulse racing.

While the single player campaign sometimes delves into the realm of shooter cliché, from our hero’s moral dilemma to the fighting-enemies-on-a-train level, there is enough real quality here to hold your attention, while the cracking co-op mode, whereby four people can fight together online, is worth the price of admission alone. Not the best shooter we’ve ever played, but there’s enough innovation and action to keep you interested.

Set before the events of the original Uncharted, Golden Abyss begins with Nate on the run from an army of heavily armed Central American guerrillas, led by his one-time ally Jason Dante. Once the preliminaries are out of the way – helping newbies to familiarise themselves with the controls, which are pretty similar to those of the PS3, thanks to the dual analog sticks – we’re flashed back to a time just weeks before, when Drake and Dante were friends, happily traversing jungles in a bid to uncover the treasures of the Kuna, the ancient indigenous people of the region. It’s not long, however, before we’re trying to solve the mystery of centuries-dead conquistadors, trading insults with ‘El Generale’ Guerro and discovering clues about an ancient, outlawed sect. Of course, it wouldn’t be Uncharted without a love interest, this time in the shape of Marisa Chase, another supposed amigo of Dante’s, whose father disappeared without a trace from the same dig site our heroes are sneaking around.

The gameplay is the usual mixture of combat and puzzle solving, with the touch-screen integrated into the regular control system, whether you’re dusting off archaeological finds, tracing charcoal drawings of important symbols or going knuckle-to-knuckle to the bad guys. Thankfully, the mixture of analog and touch-screen controls works reasonably seamlessly, when it could have felt clunky.

The graphics throughout are gorgeous, to the point where some of the stunning scenery wouldn’t seem out of place on a bigger console, and the voice acting is similarly impressive. The plot, while not the most original in the series to date, is diverting enough to keep you climbing and shooting your way to the next chapter. Unfortunately, there is no online play, but that’s about the only negative for Golden Abyss, a game which should prove to be the Vita’s classy calling card.

OK, so the graphics are extremely good, with excellent player likenesses, realistic movements and quality TV-style replays – the game very deliberately looks and feels like a high end ESPN TV show in what is either product placement gone mad or a genius marketing strategy. The sound too is top notch, from the dream team in the commentary box of Pat Cash and John McEnroe, to the ultra-realistic thwack when you catch a volley just right. But it’s the addictive nature of the gameplay that will keep you coming back, set after set after set, whether you’re bidding to work your way up the world rankings in career mode, seeing how one of the veterans of yesteryear would fare against the Nadals, Federers and Williamses of today (hearing McEnroe commentate on a game he’s actually playing in is bizarre in the extreme) or reliving a legendary tennis games from seasons past in ESPN Classics. This is thanks to the Total Racket Control system, whereby you either manage all shots via the dual analog sticks (left stick to move player, right stick to swing) or PlayStation Move, making for a much more realistic, streamlined and intuitive playing system.

Highly recommended.

Having spent the last seven days surfing, gaming, photographing and creating our own weird sound mixes with the PS Vita, State is pretty much impressed with Sony’s follow-up to the PSP.

At first look, the Vita looks like a slightly beefier PSP, but closer inspection reveals a whole lot more going on, the most obvious difference being the second touch-pad on the rear of the machine, which complements the five-inch touch screen at the front. Basically, some games require you to use the regular front touch-screen, as you would with a smart-phone, as well as using the touch-pad at the back, giving you a real 3D sense of movement.

The Vita also has dual analog sticks, like the regular PS3 controller, making gameplay much more immersive than that of the PSP and, when combined with touch-screen controls, allows a lot of variety in the gameplay.

One of the Vita’s big selling points is its connectivity, with WiFi only and 3G/WiFi models available, and it’s here that State believes the Vita will really carve out its market, thanks to the development of exclusive apps like ‘Party’ and ‘Near’, which allow users to instantly connect with their friends (the former through voice chat and texting, the latter to find players in your vicinity), somewhat bridging the gap between gaming and social networking. This, at least, is the theory: since State has no friends we haven’t really been able to test these Apps to their full potential. Indeed, like all new devices, the Vita will probably only show its real potential in the months to come as more users and developers come on board. The launch apps, however, prove that the potential is there for some real innovation.

The Remote Play app lets you connect to your PS3 from afar; The Maps app is just like its equivalent on smart-phones, while the Music app allows you to use the Vita as an MP3/MP4/WAV player. The Videos app allows you to download from the PS Store, which brings us neatly to the Vita’s online characteristics.

The web browser is OK, although it does seem a little ponderous, even over a super-fast WiFi connection, but the ability to download games and videos direct to the Vita is a definite bonus, which will come in very handy for travelling.

The operating system across all apps and games is pretty intuitive, and easy to navigate (you close open applications by turning the virtual page), particularly for anyone who has spent time with a smartphone.

‘But what about the games?’ we hear you ask. We’ve been working our way though the launch titles and you can expect to see reviews hitting the site on a regular basis over the coming weeks. For the moment though, we’ll let you know that we’re remarkably impressed by the quality of the graphics and sound capabilities, which are powerful enough to allow Nathan Drake, one of the heroes of the PS3, to make a very effective debut on Vita, while other launch titles (Rayman and ModNation Racers, we’re looking at you) seem to have found their perfect home on the Vita.

Our favourite thing about the Vita, however, is the Sound Loop mini-game in Welcome Park, the app designed to familiarise users with the Vita and how it works. In teaching you how to use the microphone, you tap the screen to record short loops, which you can then layer to create your own minimalist masterpieces: class.

The action begins two years after the events of the first game. Our anti-hero, Jackie Estacado, a 21-year-old mobster whose body happens to be the host for the ancient and powerful evil of the title, is the target in a mob-style hit, while hanging out at his favourite restaurant. It transpires that Jackie has managed to keep The Darkness under control since he used it to take out the bad guys who murdered his true love, Jenny, but no sooner have we rejoined Jackie’s story, than he has to let the lid off and release his demonic ally (voiced by Faith No More’s Mike Patton) once more. What this means, for anyone who hasn’t played the original, is that alongside the ability to dual-wield pistols or aim a shotgun, Jackie also has a series of demonic tentacles with which to grab enemies, before ripping them apart in a number of gruesome execution styles (the 18s rating is there for a reason) and devouring their hearts to replenish energy: family friendly, this is most certainly not.

The unique weapon system, allowing you to combine shooter and demon attacks, is what made the first game such a welcome surprise, and the combo works extremely well again in this second run-out. It’s also refreshing to play a real bad-ass, like a hybrid of Tony Soprano and Freddy Krueger, instead of the usual saintly hero. The ability to upgrade your weapons and talents is also welcome, and some of the special moves are tremendous fun to try out.

The story itself is pretty gripping, as Jackie is beset by flashbacks and hallucinations which lead him to believe that Jenny could be still alive, and the voice-acting, while a little hammy, is good fun, aside from the ridiculous Cockney accent sported by the Darkling, Jackie’s monkey-like flunkey who provides assistance as you shoot and munch your way through legions of bad guys. However, for a game that took five years to create, the campaign mode is surprisingly short, and the graphics are a little disappointing on the cut-scenes.

Devilishly good fun, but all too brief.

Constantinople, the seat of the powerful Ottoman empire, is beautifully reproduced, with many of Istanbul’s most famous sites, like the Topkapi Palace, stunningly rendered. Indeed, the graphics throughout are exemplary, with the opening cut-scenes amongst the most jaw-droppingly impressive State has ever seen.

Graphics alone do not make for a good game, however, but Revelations is probably the most complete and truly immersive AC game to date, thanks to the variety in the gameplay, the twists and turns of the (literally) Byzantine plot, and not least the plethora of complex characters with which you interact, from Yusuf, the leader of Constantinople’s Assassins, to Suleiman, the nephew of the all-powerful Sultan.

The gameplay will be instantly familiar to anyone who has spent time with the first two titles, from scanning the city skyline at view points to reclaiming Templar territories, following targets around the city and, of course, taking out bad guys. You’ll also find yourself recruiting novice assassins, who you can then deploy around the Mediterranean to gain experience or keep close at hand to help you out in battle.

So what’s really different this time around? Well, there’s Ezio’s newest gadget, the hook blade, which allows him to perform ever more outlandish manoeuvres in dark, as it extends his reach by about two feet – particularly great fun when you’re swooshing along zip-lines. There’s also the den defence missions, where victory depends on your tactical deployment of resources – in other words, it’s a mini-strategy game inside the main action adventure. Then there’s bomb-making, with a whole armoury of explosives at your disposal, from trip wires to impact shells, smoke screens to stink bombs, providing you know how to combine the elements that make them work.

It’s not flawless, however: the parts where you play as modern day Desmond (Ezio’s great, great, great, great etc etc grandson), who’s stuck in the Animus machine, are yawnsome, while some of the mini-games, like the early chariot race, are frustrating in the extreme. But there is more than enough great to easily outweigh the bad.

Revelations is absolutely huge, as Ezio (along with Desmond and Altair, the bartender and the thief) endeavours to finally get to the bottom of his Creed’s and his ancestor’s darkest secrets, with more killing, treachery and downright skulduggery than the Eastenders Christmas Special. Highly recommended.

You take on the role of Jack Rourke, who begins the game strapped to the wheel of car that’s about to be crushed on the outskirts of San Francisco. Rourke owes the mob, who have decided to call in their debt in blood rather than dollars. One quick escape later, and our hard-nosed anti-hero is signing up for The Run, an epic road-race over more than 3,000 miles from San Francisco to New York, competing against more than 200 other drivers for a top prize of 25 million dollars.

Unlike recent games in the series, this isn’t about amassing cash to buy cars (although gaining XP does allow you to upgrade your motor at the various garages en route), but gaining places in the field is your goal. For example, you have to be in the top 150 racers by the time you hit Vegas, and the top 50 when you reach Chicago. The race is split into relatively short levels (most, in and around the five minute mark), and variety is provided by the type of challenge – some require you to overtake a set amount of cars within a set distance, others are time trials, while the more interesting levels see you going head-to-head with rival drivers to a set finish line (with limited re-starts for each level, depending on your skill set).

The graphics are terrific, the sound top notch and the voice-acting is comparable to a B-movie (which is all you want from a racing title), but it’s the frantic racing, the spectacular crashes and the real feeling of serious mileage that will keep you coming back for more. Add in some cracking online game modes and you have a serious contender for arcade racer of the year: like Out Run meets the 21st century, which can only be a good thing.

With the usual mix of wacky weapons, Orwellian robot armies and uber-villains, with some pell-mell vehicular levels added in for good measure, this is at once familiar and new. The madcap humour remains the same; the graphics are still big, bold and cartoony; and the action is a familiar blend of combat, platforming, puzzle-solving and adventure; all of which has served to make this one of the longest running series on any console. But it’s the fact that up to four human players can drop in and out at any time, either on- or off-line, that really makes this a winner, as the ability to team up with your mates adds to the game’s inherent playability.

In a manner beloved of game developers in recent years, you’ve no sooner negotiated the action-packed first level, when you’re whisked back in time to when the story actually begins, in Iraqi Kurdistan, nine months earlier. Playing as Sergeant Henry Blackburn, you and your fellow US Marines are battling a terrorist organisation called the PLR, who have staged a coup in Iran. Indeed, it’s not long before you uncover a nefarious plot for large scale attacks on the West, involving actual weapons of mass destruction, Russian arms dealers and more double-crosses than an average John Le Carré novel.

Like previous Battlefield games, you change characters as the action progresses, commanding jet fighters, tanks and even stepping into the shoes of a Russian agent trying to stop a nuclear attack in Paris. The fact that the developers manage to fit these very different viewpoints together seamlessly, while varying the action greatly, is to the game’s credit. When you add in a co-op mode and a wealth of multi-player options online, Battlefield 3 really starts to represent a worthwhile long-term investment. Add in stunning graphics, incredibly immersive environments (such as the foul-mouthed Marines listening to Biblical Johnny Cash tunes on their way to the front), top notch voice acting and a plot that’s terrifyingly believable, and you have probably the most intense and best shooter since Halo 3.

Well, he’s also exploring ancient passages beneath London City Centre, surviving a veritable army of would-be assassins in a rural French chateau and flashing back to his childhood in Cartagena, but the majority of the action sees our fleet-footed hero going eastern, as he bids to unlock the secrets of an ancient, and very dangerous, Hermetic Society.

He’s aided and abetted in his exploits by a host of characters, some familiar (like good old partner-in-crime Sully) and some new, like Cutter (a cross between Phil Mitchell and Ray Winstone), while the chief villain this time is the extremely nasty Kate Marlowe, an ice queen that makes Cruella DaVille look cuddly by comparison.

The plot has more twists and turns than the road between Tralee and Dingle, and the action is relentless: one minute you’re embroiled in a full-on bar-fight in east London, the next you’re diving from a burning mansion in rural France or taking out heavily armed bad guys in an ancient Syrian palace. The graphics are top notch, the voice-acting and cinematic score are stirring, and the frantic gameplay rarely lets you stop to catch your breath, apart from the plot-enabling cut-scenes and semi-frequent puzzles.

The addition of a co-op mode is most welcome, and great fun, but it’s the online multiplayer modes that will see players coming back to Drake’s Deception time and again, even when they’ve completed the single player campaign. The variety of game types is impressive, including three-team deathmatch, co-op adventures and the co-op arena, where survival is your only goal. Highly recommended.

Basically, there are two full games here, Chains Of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta. The former sees our bald avenger trying to rescue Helios, the sun god, and restore him to his rightful place in the sky, while the latter gets a little more personal, as Kratos finds out that his brother Deimos, who he thought long-dead, is actually alive.

When it comes to GOW, however, plot is merely a device which leads to bloodshed, lots and lots of bloodshed, as Kratos slaughters armies of mythical beasties, from minotaurs to gorgons, as well as some familiar names from Greek legend (the episode with Midas is particularly memorable) en route to his goal. Cue lots of suitably godly pronouncements, some light puzzle solving, and more double-crosses than State’s attempt to do the cryptic crossword, thanks to the vagaries of the inhabitants of Olympus, as the bodycount inevitably reaches epic proportions.

While the visuals aren’t as multi-layered as GOW titles developed on the PS3, they hold up pretty well against most rivals, and the stirring score and voice acting is suitably godly. But it’s the combination of combat, exploration, platforming and puzzle solving that ensures any GOW title a special place in State’s heart. Bloody good fun.

Ico is a surreal, magical adventure, starring our eponymous hero, a small boy with a horned helmet who’s abandoned to his fate in a huge castle. Pretty early on in the game, he rescues Yorda, a willowy, ethereal girl, whom he tries to lead to salvation by escaping the castle and its nasty, ghostly witchy inhabitant, who also happens to be Yorda’s mother. The gameplay is a mixture of combat, as Ico uses his stick to beat the hordes of flying smoky shadow creatures who try to spirit Yorda away, and exploration, as our intrepid duo make their way through the stunningly created castle. Simple in concept, yet stunning in delivery, Ico remains a weird and wonderful game that may just steal your heart.

Shadow… came four years later, and, if anything, looks even more impressive than its predecessor, as our hero, the boringly monikered Wander, sets out to slay a host of colossi (giant, hairy monsters, like Greek gods come to life), by seeking them out with his magical sword and then locating their weak spots. In practice, this invariably involves climbing said beasts, while hanging on for dear life, before thrusting your trusty blade into various parts of their anatomy until they keel over. It all sounds humdrum, but the game looks so downright beautiful, you can’t shake the feeling that you’re interacting with a work of art rather than simply playing a video game.

Both games’ enjoy similar, strange and eerie atmospherics, which seem a world away from the majority of mainstream titles, but are more memorable for it. While they may be getting on in years and not as flashy as more modern adventures, these are games to truly lose yourself in.

While this bodes well for the game’s longevity, even in single player mode, it will make for some seriously frustrating matches, as you try to tackle your opponent, only to have your player shield him, without actually putting a foot in to nick the ball. Indeed, timing your tackle is a crucial part of getting to grips with FIFA 12. The good news is that even if you mistime your approach and the opposing player skips past your outstretched leg, you have the option to try to pull him back, but beware the wrath of the referee if you’re caught. There’s also the option of calling one of your team-mates to track the ball-carrier, while you get up close and personal with another attacker in the box – a crucial improvement, though one that’ll take a while to get the hang of. All in all, it may be tough to master but the new defensive system adds to the game’s realism, which can only be a good thing.

There’s also a new player impact system, which basically means that rarely will two tackles look the same, as the game takes into account individual player sizes, speeds etc to simulate what might actually happen were the two real-world players in question to collide. Again, more realism added.

Indeed, the only bad thing with the general gameplay seems to be a lack of precision in the passing sometimes, with the game’s mechanics seemingly determined to try to slide the ball to your centre forward, who’s being double-marked, instead of the midfielder making a late run into the box. Frustrating? Just ask my frequently thrown controller.

The single player modes are pretty much identical to FIFA 11, including career mode (where you can progress as a manager, player or both) as well as competing in more club competitions that you could ever need. The addition of the Head-to-Head leagues in online play is ingenious, allowing you to move up and down through online leagues, depending on results, while even online friendlies take on another dimension, as the computer tracks results over a 10-game series, presenting a trophy to the winner.

The graphics, as we’ve come to expect from FIFA, are outstanding; the commentary and crowd sounds are as realistic as you’d expect (although many of Martin Tyler’s catchphrases seem to be the same as last year’s), and the gameplay, although tougher, is probably the most realistic yet. A top notch football sim.

The action begins in 1957 Oklahoma, with Capelli and his family part of an underground compound of human survivors, eking out their existence in perpetual fear of the Chimera. This being Resistance, it isn’t long before Capelli’s relatively benign lifestyle, comprised mainly of hunting and sentry duty, is turned upside down by the arrival of a Chimeran raiding party and his old frenemy, Dr Malokov, who developed the vaccine for the Chimeran virus from a unique protein found in the blood of the now deceased Hale. No sooner has Capelli’s home-town of Haven been evacuated than our anti-hero is traipsing through a sizable proportion of the United States, on a madcap mission to New York City to destroy a wormhole, which could mean the end of the bloodthirsty Chimera once and for all.

The plot may be 1950s’ b-movie, but the action is as relentless as you’d expect from a 21st Century shooter, as Capelli gets to handle a huge variety of weapon types, both human and Chimeran, in some of the most ferocious firefights ever witnessed on the PS3. Getting to grips with the firepower at your disposal is key to your survival – use the alien Auger to take down enemies from behind cover or get up close and personal with the Hedgehog, a Chimeran anti-personnel grenade. The weapons’ secondary features are just as impressive – the Marksman sniper rifle also allows you to deploy automated mini-turrets, taking down multiple bad guys in the vicinity.

The graphics are impressive, without being outrageous, the sound is more than adequate (some players will still get the shivers when they hear the all-too-familiar feral grunts of the Chimera) but it’s the never-dissipating sense of menace and non-stop action that makes Resistance 3 a worthy adversary. The ability to play the entire single player campaign in co-op mode is a major plus, while the online play includes massive multi-player battles. Recommended.

It’s not all bad: there is something gratifying about seeing Brian O’Driscoll lifting the Webb Ellis Trophy, particularly after the Irish team’s recent run of form.
The graphics are OK in-game, although the close-ups aren’t exactly jaw-dropping, and the sound is passable, with pretty decent commentary. All this could be forgiven, however, if the gameplay was out of this world. Unfortunately, it’s not. The pass, using the shoulder buttons, is pretty intuitive (especially for those used to the aforementioned Lomu), although the ability to fire a missed-pass, changing the line of attack, would have been welcome. That said, at the easy and medium settings, you won’t really need to skip any passes – once you get the ball to one of your centres or wings, a burst of speed should take you clear of the entire opposition’s team, with a clear run to their try-line. And at the hard setting, getting your hands on the ball in the first place could be a problem – winning the ball at rucks (by button-mashing) seems arbitrary at best, despite how many men you commit, while your players seem to wander offside at will. The addition of a couple of tutorials would have been very welcome on this score.

Indeed, aside from the pass, the controls feel clunky (although, watching my house-mate continually punt the ball when he’s within site of my line is almost worth it), while licensing issues mean that some of the biggest names in world rugby are missing. Allied to the lack of playing options (no Six Nations, Tri-Nations etc), you can’t shake the feeling that gamers are being sold a little short. While it’s fun to play with your mates in a head-to-head capacity or online, the single player game falls far shy of the standards set by other sporting titles. The end result is that what should have been a cracking sports game, and possibly the beginning of a new dynasty to rival soccer sims, is a frustrating, disappointing affair.

The plot may be as hackneyed as a love triangle in a soap opera, and yet under the guidance of Suda 51 (No More Heroes), Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil 4) and Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill), Shadows Of The Damned manages to make this irrelevant, thanks to rip-roaring gameplay, genuinely creepy audio and visual treats and the toughest boss fights in aeons.

Our heavily tattooed demon destroyer has finished off too many bad guys for Fleming (who bears a striking resemblance to Kano from 2000AD’s Bad Company, for nerds of a certain age), who decides to take his revenge by grabbing his girl and scurrying back to hell. Like a modern version of Dante (from the game, mind you) or Kratos, our leather-clad killer follows him to the gothic city of the damned, with his trusty sidekick Johnson (part guide, part gun, part flaming skull on a stick) offering clues as to how best to beat the darkness – shooting golden goats’ heads illuminates the immediate vicinity, sending the demons running, for some bizarre reason, or feeding the crying imp-like gate guards strawberries allows you to gain admittance.

Yes it’s weird, wacky and often pretty disturbing, but Shadows Of The Damned is also a pretty diverting shooter. While it doesn’t have the same outright addictability as the likes of Resident Evil, Halo or even those other hell-raisers, God Of War and Dante’s Inferno, there’s more than enough visceral combat to keep even hardened gamers happy, with the shooting, bashing and general slaying coming thick and fast.

You play the part of Alice Liddell, a disturbed orphan, undergoing years of therapy since her family were killed in a fire, for which she may or may not bear some responsibility. Imprisoned by an array of decidedly nasty memories, Alice spends her time either in the suitably grim alleys of Victorian Whitechapel or in the even danker recesses of her imagination, which is anything but a Wonderland, a gothic nightmare filled with weird and wacky creatures, from shipwreck sharks to Machiavellian rodents.

The game is a typical action adventure, with a fine mixture of exploration, combat, platforming and puzzle-solving (although a little more of the latter would have been welcome), as our heroine makes her way through the game’s labyrinthine levels – one particularly enjoyable scene involves a good old-fashioned side-scrolling shooter.

Graphically stunning, the various areas of this not-so-wonderland are brought to life with beautiful visuals, while the character models too are exquisite, including characters familiar to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the books. The voice-acting too is top notch, and the sound effects suitably creepy. All of this would count for nought if the gameplay weren’t up to scratchy, but thankfully it is, with some tough platforming to get your head around (involving switching between normal and miniature Alice ), while the combat is up there with the finest examples of the genre, as our heroine gets to grips with a hobby horse (for bashing through doors and enemies), the Vorpal Blade (for slicing and dicing) and, State’s favourite, a pepper grinder which works as a ranged weapon like a culinary Gatling gun. It looks great, sounds amazing and will hook you in to its great big gothic embrace. God Of War for girls, anyone?

However, and it’s a big concern, with a total playing time of less than four hours (including the super-long cut-scenes), you don’t get much bang for your buck, or much stupefy for your wand. It’s a shame that there isn’t more to the game, because what is there is actually very good, as Harry and his wizardly chums fight their way through a veritable army of Death Eaters en route to finding and destroying the horcruxes, entities which contain the blood of the dark lord himself.

It’s pretty much a mixture of combat and exploration, with most of your time taken up with the former, as you learn a heap of new, more powerful spells, the further you progress. You also get to step into the robes of a number of familiar characters, from Ron to Seamus, as you bid to defy Voldemort and his minions. Generally, switching between spells at speed is the key to success: some spells take longer than others to regenerate, leaving you vulnerable unless you quickly change to another offensive casting. Nowhere is this more important than in the game’s toughest level, as you (playing Maggie Smith’s Minerva McGonnagall) defend the bridge to Hogwarts from marauding rock-throwing giants – it’s during this period that you notice how clunky the targeting mechanism is.

The graphics are pretty impressive, with the characters instantly recognisable as their big-screen counterparts, the voice-acting good and the gameplay just the right side of repetitive. The trouble is there just isn’t enough of it: you feel like you’re only really getting the hang of the spell-casting when you’re at the end. OK, so the game is targeted at a younger audience than State, and comes with a 12 rating, but we reckon even younger teenagers won’t have too much trouble taking the bespectacled Potter all the way to his final reckoning with Voldemort.

His destination is New Marais, a once beautiful southern city, now over-run with gangs and crime, controlled by a particularly unwelcoming militia. It’s here that Cole must carry out a host of missions, in search of the blast cores that will help his powers to grow. OK, so the storyline won’t have Hollywood knocking down the developers’ doors, but the gameplay is fun, and varied enough, to make up for it, as our super-charged superhero takes out mortar emplacements, freeing captives, saving citizens and blowing lots of stuff up across the city, from old plantations to eerie cemetaries. All the time, he has the option to make moral choices, which affect how he is viewed by the ordinary citizens of New Marais: although this ethical element is a bit too simple to really engage.

The gameplay is a mixture of action and exploration, as Cole negotiates the rooftops and alleyways of the city, often coming across like a Marvel version of Assassins’ Creed (without that game’s all-enveloping plot). The ability to create and customise your own missions is a novel and welcome addition.To be honest, inFAMOUS 2 doesn’t take itself too seriously, and neither should you: once you get over the limitations of the story, the game is actually a lot of fun.

That said, the game is still more than worthy of attention, with much to recommend it: the same gentle, yet ironic, humour, with hilarious cut-scenes; a variety of stunning locations, from Singapore to London; some superb set-pieces (one involving rolling around hillsides in circular cages) and enough puzzle solving to keep most gamers happy. The sight of a noseless LEGO Jack Sparrow swaying and hallucinating his way across a LEGO desert is worth the admission price alone!

It is unquestionably fun, with generally excellent graphics, a host of familiar characters and four playable chapters, each dedicated to one of the movies (including the latest, On Stranger Tides), and the pick-up-and-play nature of the co-op mode, whereby you can join in or drop out as the mood takes you, adds immeasurably to the enjoyment: these games are so damn playable that even your non-gaming other half will probably end up having a go and getting mildly addicted.

Set at the same time as the first game in the series, the action begins with your character (a human warrior, mage or rigue) guiding your family through a Darkspawn-infested wasteland, as you bid to avoid the evil Orc-like creatures and escape to the town of Kirkwall, where the game proper begins. It’s here that you bid to make a name for yourself among the populace. This generally involves getting involved in all sorts of nefarious activities, as you make some tough moral choices in order to progress through the game. Indeed, this is the game’s hallmark, as it’s very much up to you what direction the game takes, with a vast, sprawling landscape to explore on a myriad of mini-quests. The lack of a central goal, such as a particularly evil warlord to execute or treasure to amass, does take away a little from what is an otherwise excellent game, but if you allow yourself to be drawn into its shady politics and labyrinthine plots, you will soon find yourself losing weeks, not hours, to this truly epic game. Highly recommended.