Def Jam Rapstar, Nintendo Wii, PS3 & Xbox 360
The SingStar series has made karaoke into a videogame genre standard and turned an entire generation of non-gamers into PlayStation lovers. For those less keen on sugarcoated pop, there's Def Jam Rapstar, a tour of the last 30 years of rap from Public Enemy and Run DMC via 2Pac to Soulja Boy and Twitter-loving Kanye West. Words appear under the video with a bouncing ball to help you time your lyrical assassinations as you are scored both on timing and also the accuracy with which you say the words, rejecting the humming adopted by cheating SingStar players. Graphically, things are resolutely old school and the game's design means you'll have to rap and get good at songs you've never heard before, a process that's every bit as toe-curling as it sounds. It also features an online community area to help you become an actual rap star.
4mm Games, £39.99-£54.999
Gran Turismo 5, PS3
Gran Turismo 5.
After an excruciating five-year wait, Gran Turismo is back with thousands of cars, familiar tracks, and enough to tinker with to keep you busy for months. Again, winning races is as much about modifying cars until they're supercharged, engine-rebored, fire-breathing beasts as it is about driving skill. This is underlined by the game's leaning towards roleplaying game-style levelling up, gradually giving you access to faster cars, harder races, and more varied events. It's never less than overwhelming, with magnificent special events from go-karting to rally to Nascar competing for your attention with conventional races, car tuning, an HD photo mode, a race course creator, and a huge range of collectibles. Looking surprisingly glitchy, with cars' shadows dancing about as you wait for races to start and a painfully retrograde multiplayer mode, it's still the world's most fully-featured racing game, but one that is starting to look a touch creaky.
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, £49.99
Splatterhouse Xbox 360, PS3
Splatterhouse.
Splatterhouse sees hipster Rick go looking for his kidnapped girlfriend by donning a satanic mask that turns him into a Hulk-scale, muscle-bound monster. As in previous instalments of the series (all of which are available to be unlocked as bonuses), you then set about the inhabitants of the game with anything that comes to hand, from lengths of 2x4 to the still-warm severed limbs of opponents. The resulting mess sees the floor, walls and screen so soused in gore that you regularly find 70% of your TV screen has turned red, with additionally lurid finishing moves becoming available on weakened enemies. The silliness, comic-book brutality and surreal asides from Rick would all be solidly amusing if there were a decent game under all that blood. Sadly, the action is as limited and artless as its characterisation, with battles won simply by furiously mashing two buttons.
Namco Bandai, £44.99
