So, I have this stack of games borrowed from Derek's stall.

I've given each game about 30 minutes playtime, here are my first impressions.

X-Men III: The Official Game - The game kicks off with Wolverine fighting Sabretooth in order to familiarize the player with the controls. This is fairly straightforward; weak and strong attacks which can be chained into combos, jump and block/dodge. Nothing particularly inspiring. Sabertooth was easily beaten; if I got hurt I wasn't really aware of it.

The first level starts proper. No time to examine the underdetailed level design, there are faceless gun-wielding baddies to dispatch. Again, beaten pretty easily and if I got shot I wasn't aware of any kind of health reduction. I notice that dead bodies immediately fade away and my comment was "Uh, I thought this was supposed to be a 360 game?" I also notice that the camera always points in a fixed direction in order to shuttle me around the level. The right thumbstick allows some camera movement, but with only a small leeway, so if you've run past an enemy and are being shot at from behind, it's impossible to look back to see what's going off.

Eventually, I've clawed my way around the base of the Statue of Liberty (possibly I got hurt? who knows?) and Sabretooth appears ahead. The fixed camera automatically switches to a high birds-eye persepective, causing immediate disorientation. The programmers have obviously come from special movie-tie-in-license school, passing their learn-nothing-from-previous-games course with flying colours.

Again, the big hairy one is defeated, this time with the help of Wolverine's anticlimaxical rage meter doo-wah.

A cut scene comprising of still images in motion (if you see what I mean), which worked well in the Thief games, but here is just embarrasing. When I see Hugh Jackman's snarling mugshot on the level-up screen, I lose the will to continue playing, and I certainly won't be back.

The Lord of the Rings(tm), The Battle for Middle-earth II - I would've thought that the 'e' in Middle-earth would be capitalized as well, but there you go. The opening cut-scenes get me in a Tolkien mood, with designs taken straight from the films. The first level starts and my heart sinks when I see my RTS squad of elves. This is exactly the kind of game I'm drawn to and then immediately regret. Only a few movement orders in and I've had enough, here's why: a) "Your orders sir?", "Acknowledged!", but elf-like. Perhaps there's an option to turn it off, but nevermind because, b) action confirmation and unit selection are on the same A button, so if the cursor isn't quite on my tiny single-person commander unit, I've just ordered by first squad to march all the way back again.

Perhaps there's some alternative control system, but I don't feel I can give it a chance; I'm underwhelmed by the graphics, style and feel of this thing.

Saints Row - Slightly amused by the character creator, although disappointed I couldn't immediately give him glasses. Fairly fun intro that gets me into the mood. The game starts and... uh... I don't appear to be able to move and the graphics look funny... I can sort of jump, but the animation cuts out and drops me onto the floor as though I've hit a wall and... ah... goddamit, the game has started me inside an object! I mean, what the hell? Maybe it's a million-in-one glich that the playtesters missed. I reset the game and start again.

My second attempt starts better, I can run about, the graphics look okay, shooting is fun, driving is fun, here I'm on a mission to drive a whore around to her various customers. I'm just cutting across a pavement to narrowly avoid an OAP and... WUH? eh? MY FRICKING CAR HAS JUST VANISHED?! Leaving me suspended in mid-air, still in sat-down-at-the-wheel position, completely unable to move or exit my non-existant vehicle. The only thing I can do is shoot my pistol out of my non-existant window, so I gun down some pedestrians before turning the Xbox off in disgust.

I've formulated a score for Saints Row, which I think fairly takes into consideration the quality of the game, adjusted for the glitches I've encountered. Would you like to hear it? It's 0 out of 10. That's right, fucking zero out of fucking ten. THQ, hire some staff for your bloody quality assurance department.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent - I actually played this game first, as I've been looking forwards to it for some time. So far it looks great and plays as it should, with much sneakiness and darkness and cutting people across the throat. A more thorough review will be coming soon as I'm sure I'll really get into this.

Update: So far the levels have been disappointingly linear; I mean, the Splinter Cell games have always been pretty linear, but each iteration of graphical improvement seems to suck up level complexity like a sponge. Like Deus Ex: Invisible War compared to the original. In previous games, the linearity was mitigated by having varied tactical choices but that isn't the case here.

The levels set in the JBA headquarters are a little more interesting, and makes me wish for a La Femme Nikita video game.

Perhaps playing a little further will reveal more exciting maps, and there's the whole non-linear plot thing, but it's back at Derek's stall now.

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter - Another one I'm going to play more extensively. The controls took some getting used to, but fortunately the training missions gives plenty of room for experimentation and pretty soon I was ordering my squad to do this that and the other quite intuitively. I also shot dead the gunner in a friendly infantry fighting vehicle, as I thought he looked a bit muslim. Don't blame me! Blame all these goddamn tactical shooters set in the middle-east! The fact that this game is set in Mexico is no excuse! Muslim-looking-gunner, I'm really sorry, okay.