It's not just that it's frustrating to fail but, knowing there's no satisfaction in overcoming that frustration. It says a lot that after stepping away from this game we reinstall the original Super Meat Boy to blow off steam. The real Bob-Omb Battlefield is surely next. [Issue#423, p.112]

Control is also stodgy and unreliable. [Issue#422, p.123]

Every element of I Hate This Place is perfectly functional but nothing stands out, and it ends up feeling like a slasher with no blood, a haunted house with no ghosts, a zombie with no teeth. [Issue#421, p.122]

There are bold ideas floating around Unbeatable's ether, but for the most part it feels like an underpowered B-side. [Issue#420, p.102]

If we're at a point where one way to make COD feel "new" is to revive ideas from more than a decade ago, that is perhaps a sign that the series needs a break, or at least a hard reset. [Issue#419, p.112]

With that, a largely flat Metroid is further degraded, from disappointing to a little bit embarrassing. Nintendo games have tested our patience before, but rarely in so many ways at once, and not without a core brilliance that makes such transgressions forgivable. Whatever ideas swirled in your mind back in 2017, you can't have been dreaming of this. [Issue#419, p.100]

This stylishly rendered open world displays little sense of fun or character. It's a series of beautifully drawn cardboard boxes populated by unthinking automata, one that commits its genre's gravest crime: inviting no curiosity to explore it. [Issue#418, p.118]

When it comes to paper, Tearaway has the aesthetic edge and Paper Trail boasts smarter puzzles, while for inventive transformations, Mario remains the origami king. Next to those three, Hirogami feels flimsy and flyaway. [Issue#416, p.120]

The games it apes work because they're easy to engage with and paced to banish boredom. Here, everything takes ages and is sprinkled with tiny irritations. Appropriately, given its title, the game can offer only a muted reverberation of its inspirations, with the exception of recreating their flaws quite capably. [Issue#415, p.102]

In short, Welcome Tour seems designed more to highlight USB ports and air intake vents than give us a game. The climax of our tour sees us trapped inside our new machine, running laps and poking into every corner, praying we'll find the last stamp to open the exit. At this point, one question about Switch 2 remains: Nintendo, how did it come to this? [Issue#413, p.123]

Its world feels considered. There are decent performances from its cast among the graphical artefacts, and zippy pacing that respects your time and conjures a sense of playing the Schwarzenegger role that never was. But it's been released in a technical state that makes it impossible to enjoy its ideas, with core components of its action left underdeveloped. For the player, that's frustrating. For those who made it, surely, it's heartbreaking. [Issue#413, p.112]

The Precinct may boil policing down to a numbers game, but they never add up to much. [Issue#412, p.116]

MercurySteam's worldbuilding adds clutter, not depth, obstructing a concept that's left feeling embryonic. [Issue#412, p.104]

Where Black Hawk Down bombards you with exasperating shootouts and tedious escort missions set against a background of jingoism, its competitive modes struggle for the refinements of a game made a decade ago. [Issue#409, p.112]

Peering through these layers of disguise, then, what we're left with is a hotchpotch of conflicting ideas, a rickety, if not entirely charmless, hack'n'slash that feels plucked from an alternate timeline. [Issue#406, p.118]

Behemoth seems frozen in time, unable to leave nearly as strong an impression as its predecessor by dint of scale alone, resulting in what feels like a colossal waste of potential. [Issue#406, p.114]

Now, the optimal experience is restricted to the privileged few. [Issue#406, p.112]

With no real way to accelerate victory on repeat encounters, the result is a metal slog. [Issue#405, p.123]

You could also call it derivative and crudely executed, and no transmedia offering can compensate for that. [Issue#404, p.112]

Its particular set of ideas and adornments prove unable to elevate the basic structural charms of this mode of game design. [Issue#402, p.110]

By turns astonishing and insufferable, there is as much here to make your eyes roll as widen. Even the moments when Hellblade II delivers nigh-unparalleled visual spectacle (see 'Giant steps') are soured by the fact that our involvement in these set-pieces so often feels incidental. For long stretches, it's akin to watching someone else play, only occasionally - and always unwillingly - handing back the controller. We can't help but return to that old chestnut about the interactive experience being a conversation between designer and player; there is an irony that in this, of all games, we're scarcely able to get a word in edgeways. [Issue#399, p.104]

This disappointing reboot is best left, well, alone. [Issue#397, p.118]

From its questionable (albeit largely ignorable) microtransactions to its inconsistent lore, Foamstars feels about as sturdy and enduring as the substance that powers it. [Issue#396, p.118]

This may not suffer the indignity of being delisted, but it's highly unlikely anyone will remember it in a decade's time. [Issue#395, p.122]

It's a pity, since there is the kernel of an engaging hack-and-slash here, but its best ideas are squandered, and eventually bludgeoned into submission by the relentless monotony of the action. With a campaign that barely stretches beyond six hours and minimal replay value here, there's only one person being robbed here, and it's not the Sheriff. [Issue#393, p.114]

There is, at least, a pleasing weight to impacts as you thump enemies into walls or slam them into the floor. Good job, too, since there's precious little else to enjoy here. [Issue#391, p.123]

As the credits roll, and we once again consider what Fort Solis is, the Steam blurb reminds us of another thing it isn't. A "riveting thriller", after all, requires thrills - and those, like the station's employees, are conspicuous by their absence. [Issue#389, p.110]

It's hard not to lament the potential wasted here. [Issue#386, p.120]