In at number 5 is Professor Layton & Pandoras Box. The successor to Professor Layton & the Curious Village, this game brings you more mind bending puzzles than you can flick a baked bean at and is recommended for all ages although may be quite hard for younger gamers.

RRP £34.99

At 4 is Singstar Volume 2 on PS3. Old and young there are songs to sing for everyone.  The bundle comes complete with two microphones so you can further deafen your deaf great grandma.

RRP £49.99

In at 3 is the Xbox 360 Messenger Kit. An unusual gift maybe, this pack is a mini keyboard and headset which attaches to an Xbox 360 controller. Today Microsoft released an update which allows for Twitter and Facebook on the 360 so this mini keyboard can be a thumb-saver for typing messages over Xbox live.

RRP £24.99

Number 2 is Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City. This standalone disc contains the two downloadable add-on packs which were released for the original game on Xbox marketplace – The Ballad of Gay Tony and The Lost and the Damned.. The great thing about this is if your boyfriend/wife/husband has sold/traded/lost their original disc, they do not need the original to play this game. Available on Xbox 360.

RRP £34.99

At Number 1 slot I do recommend an Xbox 360 4200 points card for the marketplace.  On the face of it, it looks like a boring pressie but believe me this will give hours of fun to the internet connected Xbox 360 gamer.  For those not in the know and are shopping for others, a points card is like a voucher which a person can spend online via their xbox 360 to buy games, movies and additional content for games.  Games range typically between 800-1200 points each so they can choose for themselves what games they wish to download. This is very useful when buying for someone when you know they have an Xbox 360 but you have no idea what to buy them.  Ultimately they get a valuable gift for them but they can choose the real prize

RRP £34.99

If you decide any of these products might be a good gift or even want to browse for other products, www.vouchercodes.co.uk can offer you some money saving vouchers to try and help ease the Christmas spending burden, every penny saved is an extra tot of brandy or nibble of a mince pie (with cream)! Go directly to the link above or below are some handy links direct to a few video game retailers discounts.

Game – www.vouchercodes.co.uk/game.co.uk

Play.com – www.vouchercodes.co.uk/play.com

Amazon – www.vouchercodes.co.uk/amazon.co.uk

These are just a few of the stores who offer discount vouchers from free delivery to money off, bogoffs and so on.

Merry Christmas!

Mini Ninjas is a fun game and has some replayability when you want to go back and repeat a level to find the items you missed.  Lots to collect and great fun.  GOOD/10

“UP” is a new game from Disney Pixar which follows in the adventures of Russell and Carl – an elderly gentleman and a young boy – from the upcoming film UP due soon. Russell and Carl are tied by a very long piece of ribbon to a floating house.  You have to navigate through the levels and you can choose to play either of them at any time.  They follow each other so you can easily switch between them to do different tasks.  Some tasks require a certain character to play so you can switch when necessary.  It all seems an okay platforming game at first but you soon realise that the game is very broken and not very well programmed. Voice acting can be out of sync with what is happening and also voices get repeated a lot. The other problem is that when the computer controls your other character it is doing a terrible job and may miss jumps and die.  The game is very slow, cumbersome and and glitchy.  I do not recommend anybody buy this game full price.  Accept it gracefully as a gift or wait until it is in the bargain bin.  TERRIBLE/10

Ice Age 3 is another movie which has been transformed into a game. Ice Age 3 was actually released a few months ago but I have only just got around to playing it.  This game is incredibly fun and is the best of the 3 in this issue. In fact it is the best platformer released  this year.  You play as various characters from the film in various locations from the snow of the Ice Age to the jungles riddled with dinosaurs.  The game starts off feeling a little bit generic but soon it blows open and the levels become insanely fun.  To go with a fun game, the script is also quite funny. There are fruits to collect to spend in the Ice Age store on upgrades and you can collect weapons as you go, including a rocket launcher made of a giant bamboo cane!

Ice Age 3 has everything you can want from a platformer including typical platforming styles taken from the likes of Crash Bandicoot. The only downside is that it is quite short and I completed it in around the 5 hour mark.  So it is a short game but well worth playing.  It is probably not worth the full high street asking price at the moment, but try and get it second hand or wait until the price drops, it is definitely not one to be missed. GREAT/10