Everyone 10+

Why so serious?

HIGH Getting to be The Joker is probably a dream most comic fans have—Lego Batman allows you to cross it off your list of life goals.

LOW Being stuck in an area for half an hour, unsure of how to progress because the game's awful platforming mechanics had me convinced that the jump I knew I needed to make (and failed at multiple times) wasn't the correct one—and it turns out it was.

WTF Killer Moth? The Mad Hatter? They really scraped the bottom of the barrel for some of these villains.

You Dug Your Hole, Now Be Bored in It

HIGH Some of the writing elicits genuine chuckles.

LOW The vast amount of surprise-free grinding.

WTF Since when did cooking replace leveling up?

Game Description: The quiet town of South Arc is about to have some monster trouble. Foul creatures with serious attitude problems have infested nearby forests and are now slowly moving into the village. The townsfolk, fearful for their safety, do not even dare to leave their homes. Calls for help have gone unanswered, likely because every other town in the Kingdom is similarly troubled. As a young lad off in search of your calling, you stumble across a talking shovel. The verbose tool forcibly binds you to the task of digging a dungeon on the outskirts of South Arc, hoping to bait and trap the scrounging monsters. Looks like you found your calling, Master of the Monster Lair. Now start digging!

The Universe is Yours...And Everyone Else's

HIGH You can make any creature you want, do anything you want, and affect the environment in any way you want.

LOW The first four stages combined are much shorter and simpler than the last one, which is a little strange.

WTF Planet Buster, baby.

Game Description: The creators of The Sims present the next big bang - SPORE. Create your unique creature and guide it on an epic journey through a universe of your own creations. Play any way you choose in the five evolutionary phases of Spore: Cell, Creature, Tribe, Civilization, and Space. How you play and what you do with your universe is entirely up to you. Spore gives you a variety of powerful yet easy-to-use creation tools so you can create every aspect of your universe: creatures, vehicles, buildings, and even starships.

Calling something ‘hardcore' doesn't prevent it from sucking

HIGH Having a robot for a main character is always a perk.

LOW Everything else.

WTF The utter lack of a difficulty curve: it's all just this side of infuriating.

Game Description: In this DS remake of the classic Bangai-O, you take the roles of Riki and Mami and strap into the powerful Bangai-O suit to undertake the task of catching criminals red-handed. Bangai-O Spirits provides gamers with shooter gameplay and punishing supermoves, along with strategic and tactical elements. The game also offers co-op, competitive multiplayerfor 1-4 players via local wireless, and a powerful level editor tool which allows players to edit in-game levels or create new ones from scratch.