PDC World Championship Darts 2009 is this years official entry into the catalogue. It features the full roster of PDC players and a vast array of game modes.

On paper it sounds like a darts game would be the perfect fit for Nintendos motion sensing console. You could throw the darts 'for real' (hopefully not breaking tvs in the process), and the more casual darts fan heavy audience are exactly the sort of people who would have a Wii in the first place.

Whilst I am sure it will do well with darts enthusiasts for novices (such as myself) it's less rosey - unfortunately when playing there were a few niggling issues that made it less fun than it could have been.

When you first insert the disc you're given a whole host of menu options which mean little. The obvious starting point was 'practice' as I don't know much about the sport - so that's where I headed. You're asked to pick a player and get a brief tutorial. You're then given a shot of the board, and your chosen character split screen stylee. Now whilst this is the same as when watching it on the tv, I think this is the first mistake the game makes. The board should fill much more of the screen. All of it in fact.

I realise they want to make use of the licensed players but from a novices point of view it's hard to see where you're meant to be aiming those pointy arrows and it essentially reduces the size of the actual gameplay area.

You then have to aim you dart with the pointer before 'throwing' the dart using a real dart throwing motion (make sure to tighten the Wiimote strap!). Unfortunately this is made slightly awkward since the Wiimote is considerably larger than the average dart, and the requirement to hold the 'A' button whilst swinging, then letting go to throw, makes it even more cumbersome.

The need to split aiming and throwing is totally understandable, and works great in games like Boom Blox, but I did find the throwing rather woolly. There seemed to be no correlation between where you aim, the throw and where the dart ends up in the board (invariably not where I aimed). Also I found it hard to distinguish the board from the darts making it difficult to see what I had done once I had thrown.

The other small problem I had was the variety of game modes. Giving people loads of ways to play the game is fantastic but if, like me, they don't play the chosen sport then they will need clear instructions of what all the different modes mean. I played a few games not realising my score was not changing - and then not understanding the rules when I did find where they were.

All that said there are some nice features hidden away. The create a player mode is quite cool and gives players a way to make themselves feel even more involved with the game.

If I had made the game I would have put more focus on the Career mode and locked off many of the game modes using them as as rewards unlocking the game types as the players proceed. This would give people more involvement with the games and make them feel more attached to the character, in turn encouraging them to play more.

Visually speaking the game is surprisingly good. The menus bland but all of the real world players likenesses have been created. As I mentioned above minus marks go to the dart board display - some extra time tweaking would have made a lot of difference.

I am convinced that a darts game could work well on the Wii. Boom Blox shows that the aiming and throwing thing can be made fun. Unfortunately as it stands there's not enough to keep the non darts fans entertained. With some tweaking of the interface and input mechanisms I think PDC Darts 2009 could be quite an enjoyable experience.

Much of the fault lies with me, since I am not a Darts fan I found everything generally a bit confusing, however I think that it's the game developers job to remove the confusion and create and enjoyable experience. Unfortunately this didn't work for me, but I suspect Darts fans are bound to love it. The licensed characters and wealth of game modes are great - they just need to spend some time enhancing the actual gameplay experience to open the game up to less experienced darts enthusiasts.

Of course I'm not the target market for PDC World Championship Darts 2009 and seeing it at number two in the games chart in my local games store last weekend shows how little I know!

The game initially starts with four game modes to choose from - Classic mode is your standard, match-3 mode removing gems by matching three or more horizontally or vertically and to progress to the next level you have to fill up a bar by matching and removing gems, you keep playing until you cannot perform anymore moves.

Action where you are against the clock, so you have to keep matching gems to keep the timer going, if the timer runs out then it is game over, this can get frantic as the timer starts to get gradually quicker, great fun.

Endless mode, is exactly what it says, unlimited moves, no time, nothing special, just ongoing fun.

My favourite, however, was Puzzle mode, where you have to remove gems which are placed in a specific way, this adds a bit more thinking to the game and gets quite challenging, there are many puzzles in this mode, and they get tricky as you progress, I spent many hours just playing this mode alone. You can get hints if you are stuck but you do lose points for this.

There are also a few secret modes to unlock as you progress through the game, which adds to the longevity of the game, but to be honest if they were not there, you will always come back to the original modes.

The visuals are crisp and clean and although in HD, they are nothing to shout about, but then it really doesn't need to look overly amazing as the gameplay gets you hooked early on. The voiceover guy sounds like he should be doing the voiceovers in a Mortal Kombat game, which is very amusing. There are leaderboards for all the modes so you can compare your score to your friends and other players around the world, and trophies are also available to collect.

If you know of Bejeweled then you will like this a lot, if you haven't it's worth downloading the demo to try it out. Basically this is an addictive little game you will dip into for 5 minutes, then realise you have been playing for hours!

At it's core Boom Blox is a physics based puzzle game. It's split up into a couple hundred levels of challenging puzzles each of which is based around the same basic gameplay mechanic.

Essentially the game revolves around stacks of blocks that need interacting with to complete whatever challenge has beenset for you.

The tasks are the interesting part - in fact I am amazed at how much variety there is in something which should be so simple. There are levels that play like Jenga, where you have to remove bricks without toppling the structure - and there are levels where you HAVE to knock everything down. There are more levels that play like light gun games (clay pigeon shooting stylee) and there are others where you have to clear a path for cute boxy animals to get from one point to another... and that's not the end of it

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The controls are one of the most impressive parts of the game. The interaction is very simple and literally anybody can get playing almost instantly. Most of the game types boil down to pointing the wiimote at something and pressing a button - but there's a physicality to proceedings that make you feel like you're actually throwing the bowling ball at the tower of randomly placed blocks - and not just pointing and flicking a remote at the tv.

Boom Blox is a party game through and through. Due to the straight forward controls it's perfect for families to get together and play. Unfortunately, much like Mario Party, it's the sort of game that is most fun when you're playing with others. There are single player levels but if you don't have friends to play with then you will miss out on many of the best elements.

As well as the standard "play the levels" gameplay there is an integrated level editor which gives you the opportunity to generate any environment you could wish for. This has given rise to some epic creativity with people doing the standard gamer thing of recreating old games within new ones.

I don't know how many people realise this but Boom Blox is actually a game developed by Stephen Spielberg (or rather produced by him). This makes a change from his normal historically driven war games (Medal of Honor) and his story based adventure games (The Dig) but it seems he wanted to make a game more suitable for his kids to enjoy.

This review is actually a touch late - the sequel has now been announced and it sounds like it will improve in a variety of areas adding many more levels and some new blocks to the mix - but being late also means the game is now cheaper than ever and you can pick it up to get some practice in before the new one is released. Hopefully the sequel will be a bigger commercial success as I think there's a lot of potential in the series... a Nintendo DS version would be good too!

All you have to do is match 3 or more of each tile by drawing a line between the tiles - and in the process turn all the tiles from gold to blue. So far, the same as many others in the genre.

Where Azkend is different is in its implementation on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Using your fingers to join the tiles adds an immediacy and sense of connection that can be lost in mouse based PC equivalents. It also adds a simple pick up and play feel that I think could only really be matched by playing the game on the DS.

Aesthetically Azkend is similar to many similar games on the PC but I haven't seen games like it on Apples portable devices (but then I haven't played many iPod Touch games either..!). It has an Oriental theme and this is carried through in the basic story and artwork. The story itself is quite simple, and I didn't pay any real attention to it.

I said above that I haven't played many iPhone games, but those I have played have been very short - few offer more than 7/8 levels and most can be finished very quickly. I guess that's what you get for charging so little for electronic entertainment but this felt less of a problem with Azkend. The final game statistics said I completed the story mode in just short of 4 hours, and it felt like it ended at the right time. There's still another game mode for me to play through so I am rather pleased with what I got for my money.

As iPhone and iPod Touch games go Azkend is quite surprisingly good. I am not a fan of the platform for games but in this case it works very well and I would have no problem recommending it to anyone who enjoys similar colour matchers (such as Bejewelled and Chuzzle).

Namco have used the touch screen for shooting and the iPhone's tilt mechanism for duck and cover to replace these features. In the arcades when you used the duck and cover you could see some of the enemies and plan your next shot or which enemy to hit first, the tilting of the iPhone screen means you lose sight of the play area briefly which makes it difficult to see what's going on. and you really only end up using the tilt feature for reloading and not bother about taking cover.

Game play is solid and the on the rails gameplay is intact as you would expect, it looks and feels like Time Crisis of old. Tapping the enemies on screen to shoot them work as you would expect although some distant enemies are hard to hit but that is not really a big deal, saying that there is not really much strategy to it, and the game would be far too easy if it was not for the sheer rate of fire you come under as you play through the game.

There are 3 game play modes, Arcade (story mode) which there are only three levels, One Stage Trial, which lets you play either of the three levels once you have unlocked them and Crisis Mission which are mini missions which you complete one to unlock the next.

Overall the game is ok, even with the shortness of the game I don't think it will grab your attention for a great deal of time, saying that I think fans of the original Time Crisis may like it but nothing can replace the arcade experience which made these games popular in the first place.

Street Fighter 4 aims to bring back the popularity of the series most popular game and it does so very well, it feels natural to play and is great fun. There are plenty of characters, a good selection of regular characters and a few new ones to boot, however you have to unlock many of them by playing through the story mode of the game using certain characters. There are also plenty of other items such as videos, artwork, costumes colours to unlock by completing the game with various fighters.

The game is easy to get into for both beginners and experienced Street Fighter players, although some of the combos can be a little tricky to work out, however once you work them out they are relatively easy to pull off. Some of the moves look amazing, especially the Ultra and Super Combos, these consist of 7 to 15+ hit combinations which damage your opponent quite considerably.

When you start a game with a character you see a short anime to set up the characters story for the game, and when you complete the game you see another anime to conclude that characters storyline. All the characters stories intertwine somehow along the way which encourages you to play as all of them. One downside of the game is difficulty of the characters varies; some characters are not as well balanced as others and are constantly harder to beat while others are very easy regardless of where you encounter them in the game.

Visually the game looks amazing, the characters are rendered in 3D despite the 2D game play, the visual style is very artistic and differs greatly from what we have we seen before from a fighting game. Fans of the Street Fighter series will love the game as it is a return to form, gamers who have not played any of the Street Fighter series should give it a go, just for the experience, the most fun of this game come in the two player mode. Single player is fun but once you have unlocked the majority of the characters the computer opponents just don't provide as much fun as playing the multiplayer mode.

If you are looking for a fun, challenging and visually impressive fighting game then I certainly recommend this over other fighting games, it is easier to get into than others but just as difficult to master, so this makes it an ideal choice for beginners and veterans alike.

The gun battles are solid, action packed events with some great weapons, weapons that can be unforgivably brutal, especially the first time you hit an enemy with a shotgun at very close range. Explosive to say the least. The enemy AI is very clever, moving items in the environment to create somewhere for cover as you try to shoot them, you can also use the tables, chairs or even vending machines as cover, a press of the "A" button sees you tip the item over so you have somewhere to duck when coming under enemy fire. The enemy will also run around finding good spots to take some pot-shots at you, and they will even run away from grenades that you have thrown at them.

The controls are pretty standard for a first person shooter so you'll get to grips with it right away if you are a fan of the genre. After a while you also acquire a slow-motion ability and it works really well; allowing you to pick off enemies before they have time to react.

There are a variety of enemies as you progress; there are regular soldiers, which you will encounter early on who are also joined by mutants which are fast and more difficult to dispose of, as well as ninja soldiers, which have some sort of camouflage and can sneak up on you.

As probably given away by the title the horror element of the game is quite high, there are many jumpy moments in between the gun battles and there is a lot of tension as you are walking through abandoned blood stained hallways of the various environments. Occasionally you get visions of Alma, either as a little girl or grown woman, she is the main cause of the chaos and destruction you are witnessing, some of the scariest moments are when you walk down a corridor satisfied it is clear and then you come to a dead end, so you turn around only to see Alma in front of you for a split second, it really makes you jump and keeps you on your toes, peaking around every corner wondering if you really did you see something up ahead. After a while you do get used to these visions and it becomes a little less unnerving but it still builds the tension well.

The other thing that helps is the sound, the surround sound works well, footsteps, distant screams, doors slamming, and general cluttering about all occur and it really adds a 'something could happen any second now' feel to the game.

F.E.A.R 2 is a solid, fun, action packed title, and at times, scary, so if you like your frights, as well as some good old fashioned first person action then I would recommend this game.

The series has been around for many years starting in the arcade and then visiting pretty much every major console format. You play the part of one of a selection of marines, each with marginally different abilities, as you run and jump and shoot the hell out of a 6 sizeable levels.

The game has changed little from it's arcade roots. It makes little use of the DS's dual screens, opting for a simple map on the bottom screen, and the action and enemies are relentless - in some stages overwhelming.

I must admit I found the lives and restarts system a little archaic. The system is copied almost directly from the arcade. the game has one hit kills. 2 deaths and you use a credit (continue). 9 credits and you have to start again. Unfortunately this is all rendered pointless by a level unlocking system that let's you pick the level you start from which means the only thing that's really effected is your score.

Personally I would have liked to have seen a proper health bar and lives system. If they remove the credits and add health and life pickups it would make the game a lot more accessible to the more casual game buying public (DS users?) - and would also give less advanced users the opportunity to complete the game on a single credit.

Because of the saves system the easy difficulty can be finished quite quickly - but there are two more to go. There is also the "Combat School" mode which gets you to replay the levels using different objectives (eg complete stage 1 without dieing and kill everyone). With the credits/ restarts removed I found this to be a lot more challenging than the main game and can see it appealing to hardcore gamers and fans of the series.

Visually the game captures the spirit of the Metal Slug series very nicely. I may not have played the games before but I have admired the artwork for some time. Being on the DS things have been scaled down but everything is clear and easy to understand and the sprites are still surprisingly detailed.

The variety in the levels is good. Spread around are 5 "Metal Slugs" which are actually vehicles for you to travel in. They are most often robots but there are a couple of others as well. These vehicles give you some protection from the enemies and some additional fire power. They also stop the game from being the same thing with different backgrounds. There are also other interactions you can have such as a parachute level later on.

The bosses clearly deserve a mention as well - they're big. Very big! They're as creative as you would expect from a game such as Metal Slug and they serve to bookend the levels very nicely.

I think Metal Slug is a really nice game, but I am slightly concerned that the majority of DS users will not understand or appreciate it as they should. This is definitely a more hardcore game than the average DS fare - however as a middlecore gamer (between casual and hardcore) I found it a pleasant change of pace from the games I have been playing recently.

From the start things are non-stop. Load the game and you're given a movie trailer style intro. Start a new game and you're hit with an action filled cut scene. In fact cutscenes are one thing Disaster: Day of Crisis isn't short of - there are loads of them... However unlike many videogame cutscenes these ones are interesting (apart from one or two exceptions).

Something else Disaster: Day of Crisis isn't short of is gameplay modes. There are three main gameplay types - with about 20 smaller ones scattered around. The main modes are a slightly old fashioned platform game, where you have to rescue people; a rather challenging, and unforgiving, driving mode; and a time crisis style shooting section. Then there's the other modes which are generally used as different methods of saving people; washing and binding wounds, performing cpr, lifting heavy objects off of people, frantically running away from stuff... the list goes on and on.

Disaster: Day of Crisis really wants to be an early 90's action movie. The cut scenes and dialogue (including cheesy 1 liners) all remind me of the time when Stallone, Willis, and Schwarzenegger were the number 1 movie stars.

At the same time though it revels in the fact that it's a game. There are crates and barrels spread liberally around the world and within them you will often find crazy oversized burgers and water melons - used to boost the heroes health and stamina.

The story in Disaster: Day of Crisis is an insane combination of every disaster movie from the last 20 years. Straight away you're dropped into a rescue at a volcanic eruption, and later have to survive tsunamis (2 of them), earthquakes, and even an attack by a bear!

Visually speaking Disaster: Day of Crisis has is clearly not an XBox 360, or PS3 game - but at the same time it's no slouch. There are a lot of particle, fire, and water effects being thrown around and they all give exactly the right atmospheric feeling. On top of that there's clearly been a lot of care and attention lavished on the cut scenes, in my opinion they are some of the best I've seen in this sort of game - and some are even interactive.

As long as you can get past the first couple of slightly dodgy tutorial levels, and as long as you can take everything as a light hearted adventure then you will find that there's a lot to enjoy. I certainly enjoyed playing through it, and now I have to play it again to try and unlock some of the many many collectable items.

Jasper's Journey is a retro-style cute-looking downloadable platformer game for PC and Mac. Other games from Lexaloffe include the well received Chocolate Castle and also Zen Puzzle Garden.

You play as Jasper, a kind of purple haired imp-like creature, who is ferried from level to level by a cute purple dragon in search of your stolen cat. Along the way you've venture through several different lovely landscapes with plenty of secrets to explore whilst battling various small creates and big bosses. The blurb on the site says "frantic monster pummelling action" and you wouldn't guess it at first but it's definitely true later.

I downloaded the demo for this quite a while ago and straight away I enjoyed the well-made retro graphics and the strange atmosphere (which I'm sure is made stronger by the lack of in-game music and the 8-bit sounding sound effects) all tied together with a good solid platform game engine. The first few levels were pretty easy and my boys watched me breeze through them. We became addicted and played it constantly and then it started to get hard... like really hard.

The save game points weren't frequent enough and some of the enemies were just crazy hard to kill and some of the platforming was pretty tough - so it did become very frustrating at times. You don't get much health (just up to 3 shields and a single hit will remove one) and it's possible to run out of ammo (which is replenished by collecting fruit, or buying more in the shop with the treasure you collect). We actually stopped playing it for months until I got a newsletter from Lexaloffle which mentioned an update. The update had more saved game points! This was enough to get me playing again and I managed to get to the end but discovered that I really didn't have enough firepower to take out the final boss. So I went back a couple of saves and really carefully collected every piece of treasure I could in order to buy the triple shot potion to beat the boss but I was 5 gold short, ARG! But I bought the butterfly potion instead which actually proved pretty handy and I was able to beat the boss after many tries.

After I finished it my boys wanted to play it and I let my 5-year-old try Easy mode (I completed it on Medium. I wouldn't try hard unless I wanted to punish myself for some ultimate sin). Easy mode gives you infinite ammo (makes fruit collecting pointless though), and when you get hit and are shieldless you loose your treasure Sonic style and can pick it up again. However, it will still too hard for him, he got to level 2 but couldn't really progress.

So to conclude, this game has a great vibe (charming in fact) and is well made. I totally recommend it for adults who are experienced players, but not for young kids (kids beyond about 8 will probably consider it too poofy). If it was considerably easier and had more levels that you could just breeze through then I'd have given it a higher score.

I'll be keeping an eye out for the next Lexaloffle game for sure.