Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Most formats; £30-£50. Age 12+

In this new game, heralding the next Harry Potter film, players can roam Hogwarts school as freely as Harry himself. It greatly improves on the last Potter game, with more carefully thought-out action, and although you’re still dragged between events, there’s more fun along the way. Nearly Headless Nick, the ghostly character played by John Cleese in the films, acts as a spectral sat nav to help guide you, and familiar Potter activities include magical duels in which you blast, levitate or disarm opponents with a wave of your wand. Another is to carefully brew complex potions in a cauldron. There are a few bats in the belfry, though: not every character is voiced by the original actor, camerawork is quirky, and the complex broomstick-based sport of Quidditch is reduced to flying through hoops. The rich atmosphere magically hides these cracks, though, and it’s an entertaining take on the Potter series. Despite inferior graphics, the Wii version is probably the most fun, as the remote doubles as a magic wand to be waved around. If you dream of a place at Hogwarts, this is as close as a muggle will get. Stuart Andrews

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Most formats; £30-£50. Age 12+

In the heavyweight battles between Transformer robots that morph into various vehicles, players choose to be either goody-goody Autobots or nefarious Decepticons. Well-animated characters change swiftly into, say, a racing car or a jet by pressing the right trigger, so it’s a shame so little care has been applied to backdrops, gameplay, or the intelligence of computer-controlled enemies. You trundle through drab levels, endlessly shooting enemy robots and occasionally accepting missions. Each Transformer has specific weapons that you upgrade by collecting energy from fallen opponents. It’s hardly difficult, as the lumpen-headed enemies often stand in the line of fire. The single-player game is relentlessly repetitive, with no cohesive plot or any of the cinematic scenes you’d expect of a movie spin-off. Taking part in online multiplayer games against human opponents adds a little strategic gameplay and modestly redeems an otherwise mediocre shoot-’em-up that lacks the visual “wow” of its cinematic source. Steve O’Rourke

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

Xbox 360, PS3, PC; £30-£50. Age 16+

The western setting of the original Call of Juarez title made a refreshing change from standard shoot-’em-ups. Bound in Blood is set in a time before that game, and again features Ray McCall, the psychopathic preacher anti-hero. This time, though, his outlaw brother Thomas rides alongside. You can play most levels as either brother with the computer controlling your sibling. Ray is a brutal, close-up gunslinger, while Thomas is a more agile marksman. Both have a variation of the game’s signature quick-draw power, which slows down the action around them so you can clear a whole street of hombres before their guns even clear leather. This new title is more epic and its badland settings look great, but while it should be a bonanza of gaming, poor level-design often funnels you from one gang of no-good varmints to the next with little sense of pace or escalation. At its best — a raid on a frontier town, say — Bound in Blood is dynamite. Too often, though, its fuse fizzles and refuses to ignite. Stuart Andrews