The great thing about Christmas is that you get some free time to fill with gaming delights, and probably some new games into the bargain. The downside is that a big chunk of that free time inevitably has to be spent with your family, unless you can persuade them all to go to Switzerland over Christmas, but that’s not always possible. But there is a solution. You can combine gaming time and family time – it is possible. However, you have to choose the right games. No matter how many times you drunkenly tell her she’s a ‘wonder woman’, your mum just won’t want to play Mortal Kombat Vs DC Universe. But with the right kind of persuasion (sherry, probably) you might be able to get her to play something… anything. Anyway, I’ve compiled a list of games to try to get your family to play as an alternative to passing out in front of the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special. Good luck, and if this doesn’t work, just sneak out and go down the pub. By the way, you don’t need me to tell you to play SingStar or Buzz! or any of those really obvious party games with your family, do you? This list is all games that you might not immediately have thought of…

I'd like to think I've played almost every essential game on the PS2, being the direction-deprived teenager that I was in the early half of this decade. From burning dinner through trying to win a game of Blitzball in Final Fantasy X to falling asleep, while rattling through Jet Li's Rise To Honor, I've sampled more than a mere microcosm of the PS2's back catalogue. It's a way of life, in its own sad little way.

Through skilful and knowing marketing tactics, Sega had the whole world (including me) thinking that Sonic Unleashed would restore the reputation of a franchise that very few still hold in high esteem. The company fed us glimpses of the 2D, Genesis/Mega Drive-esque sections, with nary a hint of any Werehog gameplay until E3 of this year, at which point doubts started to settle in – now that we know 90 per cent of the game is sub-Devil May Cry action trash, however, the ...

Play and Bond games have a slightly amusing history. Agent Under Fire on the PS2 earned a monstrous 94%, Nightfire 90% and Everything Or Nothing garnered 63%, despite the latter being hailed as one of the best Bond tie-ins since GoldenEye (a phrase used relentlessly over the past ten years). Now that we're all a little older and wiser, though, we realise that all of the Bond games are shamelessly flawed, to some extent, and Treyarch's Quantum Of Solace continues this trend valiantly. The ...