It’s also rather refreshing, since Mini Ninjas looks to be shaping up into a rich and rewarding adventure game, perfect for young boys reared on a diet of Cartoon Network and Jetix. Indeed, according to their website, the game came about because so many of the development team had become parents and wanted to work on a game they could play with their families.

At first glance, the game looks like a typical mash-the-buttons combat game. You guide Hiro, a young ninja, through lush scenery and demolish legions of samurai enemy in bloodless slapstick fights.

Mini Ninjas: a deceptively deep little game.

Play a little longer, however, and pay attention to the hints that pop up as you progress, and a charming and varied adventure starts to unfold. You can pick flowers to mix potions. Turn your hat into a boat and you can brave river rapids and even go fishing for sushi. You can even transform into any animal you see. While the path ahead seems very linear, there are loads of little diversions to be found with a little exploration. Just as Hitman offered lots of ways to assassinate targets in grisly ways, so IO seem to have stuffed Mini Ninjas with oodles of ways to approach its more gentle challenges.

The demo barely seems to scratch the surface of what Mini Ninjas will offer, but based on what we do get to see, it’s been constructed in such a way that younger players won’t be overwhelmed by the choices the gameworld offers. With new Zelda games now few and far between, this could well fill that whimsical fantasy gap and provide a rewarding game for parents and kids to play together.

Dillon’s been fascinated by this game ever since we saw a pre-order box in a shop, and the enthusiasm he’s shown for digging out all the different bits of the demo, and discussing the different characters, suggests that IO are as adept at crafting games for kids as they are for adults.

The demo for Mini Ninjas is out now on Xbox 360′s Games Marketplace and the PlayStation Store. The full game reaches UK shelves on 11th September for Wii, 360, PS3 and PC.

And, ooh look, you can pre-order Mini Ninjas now at Amazon.co.uk

Be warned though: as fun as it seems, it’s quite expensive, and doesn’t have much long-term appeal.

If you look at what the gaming press has been saying about G-Force you’ll see lots of surprise at what a polished game it is, as well as lots of conclusions that it’s ideal for kids.

In practice, that’s sadly not the case.

First, the good news. G-Force really is a robustly constructed title. When so many movie tie-ins are still half-hearted lazy efforts, there’s a sheen and a polish to this that deserves praise.

Players control Darwin, the leader of a team of espionage-trained guinea pigs, and Mooch, his fly assistant. Other characters from the movie appear in the story, but gameplay wisely focuses on these two.

These flying enemies attack from a distance with lasers, while the little bug robots hold you in place. Not much fun for younger kids.

Your task is to stop a world domination plot that involves turning electronic household gadgets into mechanised monsters. You do this by making your way through over-sized human locations, achieving objectives along the way.

Darwin has a jet pack and an expanding arsenal of gadgets and weapons to help him in this quest, and he’s also able to interact with computers and switches. Mooch, meanwhile, can buzz up to areas that Darwin can’t reach, and can also use his insect time perception to slow things down, enabling him to dart past fast-moving obstacles.

Everything looks crisp and colourful, and the level of detail is commendable. Few kids games look this good, and any fan of the movie will be thrilled at how successfully it’s been transferred to consoles.

Traversing this room is hard enough, but you also have tough enemies trying to knock you off the platforms. Frustration abounds.

Where the game slips up is in its unforgiving structure. It sounds strange, but it’s almost too good at being a “proper” 3D shooting game.

I found that when left to his own devices, Dillon (aged 7) could only make it a limited way into the game. With unrelenting enemy attacks, progress was held up by near constant combat, and the control system – while perfect for a more mature title – was just too complex for him to grasp under the pressure.

Enemies take the form of mutated appliances, and each has their own weakness. Water coolers, for example, spin manically towards you, and can only be defeated by shooting the water bottle off the top when it stops moving.

Doing this, however, requires the player to target their weapon by holding down the left trigger, shoot the weapon with the right trigger, while moving with the left thumbstick and aiming with the right. Factor in the need to change weapons, as well as additional enemies attacking from all sides, and you’ve got something that’s better suited to far more experienced players.

Somewhat bizarrely, the difficulty settings don’t actually change how hard the game is. The easiest setting gives players ten lives rather than three when playing on “hard”, and also has on-screen prompts to point the player in the right direction, but the combat remains as tough as before. The extra lives, therefore, are simply there to allow kids to progress past tough sections through bloody-minded persistence. What it doesn’t do is address the frustration inherent is such an unbalanced situtation.

There are curious decisions elsewhere as well. It’s a very long game, with levels that run into one another. Since you’re infiltrating the same location from one stage to the next, there’s precious little variety in the environments and it becomes very easy to get muddled about which rooms you’ve already seen.

There are also no multiplayer or co-operative options – just the story mode for a single player – and there’s no option to go back and replay completed sections. This is a particularly silly omission, given that kids love being able to dip back into favourite sections of a game. It also means that the collectable data discs hidden throughout the game are essentially lost for good once you finish a level. Since these upgrade your health and weapons, making your task easier, it’s a baffling oversight.

All of which leaves G-Force in a curious position. If it featured a human secret agent, and was aimed at older children, it would be highly recommended. It’s a very good action game, and it looks lovely. But how many kids of that age want to play a game about talking guinea pigs?

For a film based on a movie aimed at Under 10s, it’s simply too frustrating – there were parts near the end that drove me nuts, with three decades of gaming under my belt. It’s a step forward in production quality for children’s gaming, but it misses the mark as far as accessibility is concerned.

The first screens from LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues have made their way online and…well, it looks like LEGO Indiana Jones, obviously. What we do get to see are some key scenes from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as well as a mysterious diagonal split-screen. Whether this heralds the arrival of some crazy new multiplayer mode, or is just a fancy screenshot for no apparent reason, we’ll just have to wait and see.

What we do know is that the game will reprise the three movies which already formed the first LEGO Indy game, with the addition of Crystal Skull. This may mean that the game is more in line with LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, which combined two separate games into one tweaked compilation, than an entirely new game in its own right.

LEGO Indiana Jones 2 is due to whipcrack its way into shops in “Fall 2009″, on Wii, DS, 360, PS3 and PSP.

Click more to see the new screens.

These key action elements were sorely missing from the previous game. Order of the Phoenix was also tripped up by gameplay that sent players running to and fro around Hogwarts, accumulating tasks by the dozen but with little guidance as to which were essential and which were optional. Add in a confusing map which did little to make the labyrinthine Hogwarts layout accessible.

Half-Blood Prince is, by comparison, a much more streamlined affair. The story now moves forward in a strictly linear fashion, propelling impatient players through the important parts without the need for tiresome wandering around.

Navigation has also been fixed. The magical footprints that were supposed to guide you in Order of the Phoenix have been ditched in favour of Gryffindor house ghost, Nearly Headless Nick. A prod of a button and he pops up and leads the way to whichever destination you need. Not only will he help you find objectives, but he’ll also point out collectible school crests along the way and wait around if you decide to dash off to pick them up.

It’s typical of the game’s attention to detail that they’ve hired a John Cleese impersonator to voice Nick. It’s a role that Cleese only played briefly, back in the very first film, but fans value continuity and it’s a nice touch.

The meat of the game revolves around three different disciplines: flying, duelling and potion making. Each is essentially a mini-game, but they’re deployed in such a way that it’s never too repetitive.

Flying, and by extension Quidditch, takes the form of checkpoint races through glowing stars suspended in the air. Flying through these extends your time (shown by the colour of the rings – green means you’re OK, red means hurry up!) and there’s nothing too challenging about this part of the game. It looks spectacular, however, and its simplicity is therefore key to making the coolest bit of the game open to players of all skill levels. Swooping around the Quidditch stadium, and even out into the surrounding countryside, is an experience that Potter’s young fans will love.

Quidditch is simple to play, but looks spectacular. Ideal for younger players looking for a confidence boost.

Duelling is also simple, though requires more skill. You’re automatically locked onto your opponent, thus removing tricky thumbstick aiming from the equation, so it’s more a test of using the correct spells at the right time. Tapping up on the right stick sends a stream of Stupefy spells towards your foe, while more damaging attacks like Expelliarmus require both sticks tugged in different directions. The left and right triggers allow you to dodge incoming attacks.

Just like Quidditch, the game skews subtley towards gratifying the younger fan’s desire to take part in impressive action sequences without feeling out of their depth. They do get tougher as the story progresses, but the difficulty curve never feels unfair.

Potions, sadly, are the games weakest point. In theory it’s a great idea. A series of ingredients scroll up the right hand side of the screen, and you follow along by picking up the relevant bottle and pouring it in the cauldron. For instance, you may have to tip in enough to turn the potion yellow. Add to much and smoke fills the screen and must be cleared, wasting precious time. Having to shake ingredients, or bubble and stir the potion with the sticks, add complications and as the game progresses it’s this section that starts to feel most fiddly.

It’s not terribly precise and, once you’ve picked them up, it can be hard to gauge where your ingredients are in relation to the cauldron. That’s not a problem with pouring ingredients, but for items like rat spleen it’s easy to waste time dropping them on the table instead of in the pot. With strict time limits and harsh penalties, if there’s any part of the game that will cause frustration, it’s this.

It may not be filled with incident, but the sprawling world of Hogwarts is a delight to explore.

On the whole, though, Half-Blood Prince strikes just the right balance. At almost any time, players can wander away from their assigned task and explore the lavishly recreated Hogwarts. Movement can be a little clumsy, and aiming levitated objects to knock down secret crests is a bit of a fumble, but for the most part the game makes good on its promise.

Character-based games like this live or die on how well they allow fans to enter into their fantasy world, and in this regard Half-Blood Prince is perhaps the best Potter game yet. Although there’s less to do than in Order of the Phoenix, the environment looks and feels more impressive. Simply finding familiar locations will be enough to put a smile on many children’s faces.

Although most of the adult roles are performed by impersonators, the young stars of the film all lend their vocal talents to the dialogue and the likenesses are notably better than in previous games. They still have a slightly rigid quality, but they’re instantly recognisable and the moments when these digital mannequins are called upon to recreate comedic or romantic scenes are surprisingly successful.

There’s not much replay value beyond the main plot, but even when the story is completed the ability to keep earning badges in the three main disciplines, or track down those crests, will keep players coming back. To adults they may be simplistic mini-games, but kids don’t really care. They’re at Hogwarts, flying on broomsticks, waving wands and mixing potions! For those who value communal play, a two-player duelling mode also boosts the longevity.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince isn’t a complex game, and older kids may find it too straightforward, but as a companion piece to both book and film it delivers an engaging and polished experience.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is available on Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, PC and PSP. Click here to buy it now from Amazon.co.uk

That’s what happened as I began playing Bookworm Adventures 2 while my son, Dillon, was engrossed in Banjo Tooie on the 360. At first it was just over the shoulder glances to see what the funny noises were. Then he began wandering over to see what I was actually doing. Before long, I’d been ousted from my chair and he was clicking away, practising his literacy without even realising it.

Now, it certainly helps that Dillon loves reading and writing, but Bookworm Adventures 2 is constructed in such a way that even the most reluctant reader should be sucked in. It’s educational, but not overtly so, and its many pleasures come more from our natural desire to find patterns and meaning in clusters of letters.

As in the first game, our hero is Lex the bookworm. Once again he must journey through a series of worlds, drawn from literature, beating foes by spelling the biggest words possible. You have a grid of 16 letter tiles to draw from, so at its core the gameplay is Boggle by way of Scrabble. Letters don’t need to be connected to spell your word, but common letters like E score less than your Xs and Zs.

Lex tests his word power against the moon during the early Nursery Rhyme levels.

The longer and more complex the word, the more damage you do to your enemy. To assist you, some tiles also double as gems. Using these in a word might top up Lex’s health, or attack your enemy with fire or poison. You’ll also collect an inventory of objects to bring to the fight, along with companions. A bowl of porridge from Goldilocks makes Lex immune to stun attacks, for example, while the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland clears both Lex and his tiles of any ill effects every four turns.

Like all the best games, it’s incredibly simple. Literally anyone can sit down and have a go, and while you could scrape through the game using simple three or four letter words, it’s only when you start stretching your vocabulary that the rewards really kick in. Dillon’s pride at beating outlandish adversaries by spelling “various” and “quarters” was worth more than a dozen high scores on the latest platform game or shoot-em-up.

The presentation is bright, and the tone purposefully humorous. There’s always some little visual gag to savour, or a delicious bit of wordplay. The enemies are absolutely bonkers – you’ll fight everything from a gingerbread house to Chinese tiger demons – and progress is fast and satisfying. It’s a shame that the Adventure mode doesn’t let you revisit previous worlds, either to stock up on more potions or simply replay favourite enemies, but that’s really the only lingering structural weakness.

Frustration may set in during the Alice in Wonderland encounters, since many of the characters will steal the potions needed to refill your health, but I found that a little parental guidance was enough to keep things on course. Rather than pointing out better words, I’d drop clues as to what sort of word might be possible, or suggest when a word could be lengthened by using an S to make it plural, or sticked ED on the end.

It’s a great game to play together, but also the sort of game that you can leave them playing for a few hours. Bookworm Adventures 2 is educational, or at least a great revision guide for existing vocabulary, but it’s also a wonderfully fun game. It’s rare to find a game that delivers on both fronts so convincingly.Click here to download the free trial, or to purchase the game directly from PopCap for £14.95.

Speaking to Eurogamer, he said : “I look at LEGO as a language, as an idea. [My mother] understands it: she bought it for me when I was a kid. My son likes it, I like it. So even though she may not be playing LEGO Universe, I’ll be playing LEGO Universe, he’ll be playing LEGO Universe and there’s a relevant connection there.”

Jonathan Smith, head of TT Games, the developer of the recent blockbusting LEGO Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Batman games obviously agrees. “Online games and the online communications experience are very accessible and children are ready for that, immersed in that, and parents are not. So this is where the children can actually lead the parents by the hand and show them what to do and that can be a really powerful experience together.”

I’m an avowed fan of the LEGO series, and rarely miss the opportunity to call it the benchmark for current kids gaming, so I’ll be keeping a close eye on this one.

Based on the upcoming animated series, which is itself based on the long-running Spider-Man & Friends pre-school range of toys and comics, the game is an action-adventure which pits chunky, smiling versions of Marvel’s superheroes against mildly naughty cute versions of their evil villains. They’re all fighting over Infinity Fragments, powerful crystals that give the bearer awesome powers.

With twenty characters, a multiplayer arena and six story campaigns it should offer some longevity and replay value.

Marvel Super Hero Squad comes out on Wii, DS, PlayStation 2 and PSP later this year, aimed at a rather broad 4-10 age range.

Shorts is the upcoming kids movie from Robert Rodriguez, the multi-tasking Texan auteur who brought us Spy Kids and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl, along with more adult entertainments such as From Dusk Til Dawn and Planet Terror.

The film, in which magical rocks bring surreal chaos to a suburban neighbourhood, will be accompanied by a Nintendo DS game which looks to be taking inspiration from classic platformers of yesteryear. Players can expect to face “booger monsters, bomb shooting crocodiles, poison spitting snakes, bats, sparking robots and the evil Mr. Black”.

The gameplay trailer shows the film’s heroine, Helvetica Black, as she battles with the aid of giant wasps that she wished into existence to stop her evil father from abusing the power of the magic stones and I’m sure it’ll all make sense when the film comes out. Right?