A console launch can cover a multitude of sins. At any other stage in a machines life, games that are blatantly a bit crap receive no attention, and head straight for Bargain Bucket Hell. And rightly so. But when a console is preparing to launch, every game that is heading it's way receives a slice of the spotlight - especially if a recognisable video game character is involved. Games journalists chart the progress of the game, stores put up posters, full-page advertisements reach the magazines....

Out of all the classic cartoon characters, The Tasmanian Devil is arguably one of the more forgettable. The fact that you could never understand what the lil' bugger was saying meant that he didn't convey quite as much character as old favourites like Bugs or Daffy. That isn't to say that people haven't heard of, or wouldn't recognise, Taz, just that as a cartoon character, he's slightly more pants than many others. Still, as I'm sure most games developers have written on their wall as a mantra ...

Cosmic Spacehead... with a name like that the hero of this game from Codemasters was born to be an intergalactic explorer. So it's no surprise to see that that's exactly what he's up to here, although what is reasonably surprising is the manner in which he's going about it. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you an example of that rare breed.... the console point 'n' click game.

It's always nice when game developers try to do something just that little bit different with a licensed game. It shows that a bit of effort has been put into things, which is nice. The temptation to stick cartoon characters into simple platformers is obviously great, looking at the sheer quantity of such games to have popped their head round the gaming door in the last ten years. So it's always nice when game developers try to do something just that little bit different with a licensed game. Sh...

OK, a quick lesson for all the less-British people out there. Here in the UK David Beckham is a bit of a legend. He is captain of the England football team, he married a Spice Girl (the ugly one), he gives his children daft names (step forward Brooklyn and Romeo), he lives in a castle, he owns half of Devon, and he breathes fire. I made the last two up, by the way.

Everybody loves Zelda. I'm fairly sure that it's a scientific fact or something. From the very first time young Link set out across Hyrule to rescue the titular princess back in the early days of the NES (has it really been that long??) gamers have marvelled over it's fantastic depth and gameplay. So it was no surprise when Zelda: Link's Awakening (the fourth installment in the franchise) arrived on the original Game Boy. What did surprise people was the fact that it was almost universally haile...

When the first Super Mario Land appeared alongside Nintendo's Game Boy, it was quite successful, due in large to it being a really rather good platformer. As such, it can't have surprised anyone when Ninty announced a sequel called, in a shock move, Super Mario Land 2. What probably would have surprised all the portable gamers out there - had they known at the time - was that this game is still to this day the last original Mario platform game to come out on a Nintendo handheld system - everythi...

I guess this game is a puzzler, although it really is touch and go in classing it in one genre. For those not 'in the know', Bubble Ghost involves you guiding a ghost around the mansion that he haunts. To pass the time the ghost blows a bubble around, and it is your goal to get the bubble through each room in the mansion unharmed. The ghost can, of course, go through walls etc., and the only way he can interact with his environment is by exhaling. Simple concept, but fiendishly difficult in the ...

Plumbing looks like a top career. You can let your weight go as much as you like. You can proudly wear the worst facial fuzz since David Bellamy. You can have dodgy dress sense. And still you not only manage to pull, but you unfailingly land members of the monarchy!!! It's genius I tell you..... Plus, if the Mario games are anything to go by (and I'm sure that they are) the whole 'having to stick your arm down someone else's toilet? Lies. I've never once seen Mazza go near a U-Bend. Hell, he has...

A few years ago a film called Small Soldiers assaulted the worlds cinemas. Telling the tale of the Gorgonite's struggle against the evil Commando Elite, led by Chip Hazzard (voiced by the brilliant Tommy Lee Jones in the movie), the movie blended live action and computer generated effects. It was a marginal success, so the obligatory spin-off games emerged. However, the film was, in retrospect, pants, and nobody really mentions it any more, so what we are left with here is a film-license game wh...