Its biggest problem is its length, and that its formula can’t quite endure its sequel-dose duration. Whether or not it’s overlong in terms of play hours may be a matter of preference, but it feels slightly stretched during its final third, exposing its shallowness a little in the process. [Apr 2007, p.80]

It’s a game that rewards the long-haul with deep, inventive missions which eschew the usual fetch and kill structure, ensuring that the many hours spent in Fallout 3’s wasteland aren’t wasted. [Christmas 2008, p.88]

Apart from minor graphical tweaks and two fresh characters, VF4E remains much the same game. [May 2003, p.102]

At the halfway mark, Chains is so tremendous, striking an almost perfect beat of difficulty spikes, weapon upgrades and stupendous visual reveals, that you have to question its endurance. And, sadly, it flounders right on cue. [Apr 2008, p.92]

But without the first game’s ambiguities,? ?a sense of humour or even an ounce of? ?intrigue,? ?its story stinks.? ?It’s so slight you could play the levels in random order to? ?little ill-effect,? ?and it assumes knowledge of everything and everyone,? ?not once recognising the real-world echoes of its premise:? ?an allied invasion of an enemy? ?the allies themselves created.?

Mass Effect is still enjoyable enough to warrant 24 hours of play (completion with sub-missions), and the stops it makes en route are visually stunning. It just doesn’t find what it goes looking for: the myth and exotica to accurately follow Star Wars. [Christmas 2007, p.86]

It’s a game that rewards the long-haul with deep, inventive missions which eschew the usual fetch and kill structure, ensuring that the many hours spent in Fallout 3’s wasteland aren’t wasted. [Christmas 2008, p.88]

Undersized and profoundly linear, but that cannot shake its solidity and the sheer intensity of the spectacle it creates. The most fun thing you'll get on the PC this side of Christmas. [Christmas 2003, p.108]

There's no denying that Project Gotham Racing 2 is one of the most aesthetically accomplished titles ever produced. Yet this doesn't stop PGR2 from feeling a little heartless. In terms of excitement PGR2 is found wanting. [Christmas 2003, p.113]

The fifth Tony Hawk's title doesn't just suffer because of its embarrassing attempts to be edgy and urban, it's poorer because it lacks the verve and imagination so prevalent in previous iterations. [Christmas 2003, p.122]

Ratchet & Clank 2 shows all the signs of a game that's been focus tested to death; at no point will you have to repeat a section more than three times. It's a frustration free journey but sometimes feels anodyne. [Dec 2003, p.97]

It's a game that rewards the long-haul with deep, inventive missions which eschew the usual fetch and kill structure, ensuring that the many hours spent in Fallout 3's wasteland aren't wasted. [Christmas 2008, p.88]

Masterful controls aside, Corruption sees Retro lost for a while, like Samus, down some mystifying and convoluted dead-end of its own making, populating a universe that should have stayed desolate and dead. [Nov 2007, p.84]

For those who can tolerate having their brain beaten numb by it, the game entails often enthralling, occasionally awe-inspiring sights and sounds. But little is there that’s new compared to much that needs renewal. [Christmas 2005, p.96]

Despite its paucity of detail, Jade Empire is still many, many things, some are fine and some poor, but for a game to contain so much is a testament to its breadth, and the reason why it'll remain a worthwhile expedition for many. [June 2005, p.80]

At its best only when the structure is there to support it. Find eight people to play with regularly, and invest in voice communications to streamline tactical discussions, and Guild Wars offers an intelligent and demanding thrill - bringing the best of the skill and strategy of FPS deathmatches to the grandeur of a role-playing world. [Aug 2005, p.88]

Core game play remains largely undeveloped from Symphony Of The Night, and, despite the additions, is aspirational rather than inspirational. It’s certainly the best handheld Castlevania game, but Igarashi’s team is too dedicated to the framework he masterminded for this to be anything innovatory. [Nov 2005, p.108]

This is a grand, unwieldy behemoth of a sequel, buckling under the weight of its features and bombast. In lacking a sense of direction, though, it sometimes delivers in unexpected ways. [Issue#413, p.102]

The sense of having travelled somewhere that games have never taken us before. [Issue#370, p.116]

It's not just a sense of humour and a flair for mayhem that Riddick shares with its star; it's a compact, muscular, single-minded piece of work, too. Flawed, yes, but so confident and independent that it's hard not to like. [Sept 2004, p.98]

Gran Turismo 4 is fundamentally unconcerned with furthering the art of the videogame. This titanic franchise, this critical, load-bearing pillar of PlayStation, is barely even a videogame at all. It’s a hobbyist software suite, a racetrack tutorial, an encyclopaedia you can get in and drive off. [March 2005, p.78]

Made in Wario confidently sticks two fingers up at an industry that seems to have lost its sense of humour … it displays a refreshing intertextuality that manages to poke fun at and celebrate videogames. [June 2003, p. 103]

It's accomplished in its execution, but threatens to segregate the platform just as Harmonix seemed to be opening it up to all-comers. [Nov 2009, p.103]

We can't shake the sense that we've trodden these paths before. [Issue#409, p.104]

Proportionally, far more casual players will finish this than ever finished Super Metroid or Contra III, and their enjoyment might even compare. Sat nobly between emulated coin-ops and overpriced turkeys on high street shelves, Shadow Complex is something of a Live Arcade landmark.

Plenty of games have flourished around the slaughter, scale and destruction of war, but few have managed to realise a soldier's role and worth - disposable, vulnerable, pivotal - as well as this. [Apr 2005, p.100]

Its moments of brilliance are worth experiencing, but they shouldn't blind anyone to the shortcomings of a sequel that, underneath that beautiful surface, is as frustratingly flawed as the first. [Issue#346, p.98]

A good all-round introduction to the tactical FPS. Glitzy and attractive, but ultimately a little empty, there’s also no doubt that it lives up to its name. [Christmas 2006, p.79]

The result is one of the sprightliest blockbusters since Insomniac's own Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and a lesson in pacing from which Sony's forthcoming PS5 big guns would do well to learn. Sure, you might find it starting to slip from memory even as the credits are rolling, but in the moment? For the most part, it's rather riveting. [Issue#360, p.104]

As you might expect, such breadth comes at the cost of a little finesse. [Issue#372, p.104]

It's in the great outdoors where Forbidden West comes to life - which is ironic given how often we're told it's dying. When the story's leash is off and we're free to luxuriate in its world and the wider cast's personal tales (one sidequest, involving a missing friend and an unrequited romance, is an exemplar of the form), it's not hard to understand why the first game was so popular. This is, then, more of the same in every sense, and your feelings towards the first will determine whether you see that as a recommendation. [Issue#369, p.100]

It feels more like a yearly update than a sequel, a new campaign with old multiplayer. The game isn't distinct from its predecessors in any important way, and fatigue sets in quicker than before. [Jan 2011, p.94]

Beyond its undoubted visual appeal, Ori doesn't quite have enough ideas of its own to set itself apart from the genre classics of which its developer is so clearly enamoured. [May 2015, p.118]

Over-dependence on legwork over the bulk of each world robs the game of its sparkle, making it feel more work-ethic sweatshop than well-paced sweetshop. [Dec 2005, p.111]

The series is so hemmed in by its own history - and the demands of fans - that it is largely unable to innovate. As such, the PSP version, while a solid iteration of an eminently playable formula, is able to grow only in width rather than concept. [Sept 2006, p.85]

As a series, Civilization is being quietly surpassed. [Christmas 2016, p.114]

Elements such as marching onto an island, or talking to a governor, seem flat and underdeveloped. Islands are sparse and awkward experiences, while their governors are often illogical and nonsensical in their responses. [Jan 2005, p.88]

For the first time in years, it's easy to meet up with other players, drawn together by enticing new stories. [December 2016, p.120]

Crimson Skies really comes to life online. Up to 16 players can duke it out in the skies and the dogfights are terrific. This is better than you'd ever have expected. [Christmas 2003, p.123]

With a smart, wry script, a warmly uplifting narrative and a likeable cast, this is a game with its heart in the right place, even if some of its other parts feel a little out of whack. [Jan 2017, p.123]

Rather than creating a character, you're stuck as the brooding, white-haired monster slayer Geralt. Anyone who enjoyed the role last time will be happy to bear with him while the game meanders to its point. Anyone else will need an extraordinary level of patience.

It's impossible for your heart not to race as you sweat out the fright of its peerless audio design, chattering voices and muffled sobs endlessly scraping at your senses. [Oct 2004, p.98]

It's entertaining, but if SOCOM II is the pinnacle of Sony's online achievement - and it is - then Microsoft has convincingly won the online battle. At least for this round. [Mar 2004, p.100]

Like the first game, it remains a competent but ultimately restrained title. [June 2004, p.111]

A breathtaking way to polish off the definitive videogame nostalgia project, certainly - padding aside, the first 30 hours of Remake suggest that this is change for the better. By the conclusion, though, you may feel like things are going off the rails in more ways than one. [Issue#346, p.80]

Heavy Rain pulls off its branching narrative by donning blinkers and sprinting down the chosen routes. Countless permutations of each scene are allowed, safe in the knowledge that they will never be addressed again.

The real surprise is that Pikmin 4 is mostly content to coast on its strengths. As sequels go, it could have used more dandori. [Issue#388, p.104]

The creative aims are clear and well-met: to create a Final Fantasy game with a more serious and grounded story, a more fashionable battle system and more mature world in which magic and monsters exist, and their effects on human ambitions and systems of power. On these counts, Final Fantasy XVI's gamble is a success. But whether this is a game to inspire passion among a new generation, in the way the high points of the series did, is debatable. [Issue#387, p.106]

The frenetic, bite-sized missions are perfect for PSP, bursting with combat and highly detailed. Not before time, Sony has proved that PSP can run and gun with the big boys. [May 2006, p.96]

A fine effort, then, but a new Chrono Trigger it is not - and directly inviting such a comparison only highlights the areas in which it falls short. [Issue#390, p.133]

All in all, the setting is perfect for a puzzle game built around existential despair...Its clever, creepy and macabre.

A brilliant fighting game for newcomers, and a wonderful one for genre fans, that somehow still manages to feel like a disappointment for so comprehensively failing to bring its two demographics together. [Apr 2018, p.112]

Despite what Naughty Dog's crack programmers might think, you can't encode fun-ness into a videogame. Yes, there's lots of 'fun' to be had here, but is it really more fun than the original? Probably not. [Nov 2003, p.96]

The game starts slow, a feeling exacerbated - or perhaps caused - by the easiness of the battles. But you'll play it and play it. Every time you try to stop you're just one battle away from mastering that skill, for earning that new job. [Dec 2003, p.105]

Despite the lack of ingenuity on display, NSMB Wii's thrash of four players does bring uproarious anarchy to the sofa for short periods of time. [Dec 2009, p.86]

It's the music that's important here, and Elite Beat Agents delivers. [Jan 2007, p.86]

It's an 'experience' as much as a game, meaning that it will leave as many people cold as it grabs by the right half of the brain. Beyond good, then, but not quite excellent. [Christmas 2003, p.104]

Mario Kart isn't a racing game any more. It is a party game, and anyone buying it for anything more than frantic, foolish, social fun will grow tired of being cheated very quickly indeed. [Christmas 2003, p.98]

Retro Studios has done a fine job with the Donkey Kong Country concept, ably translating its appeal for a modern platform, but it doesn't push it much further. [Christmas 2010, p.92]

It feels more like a yearly update than a sequel, a new campaign with old multiplayer. The game isn't distinct from its predecessors in any important way, and fatigue sets in quicker than before. [Jan 2011, p.94]

After that initial sugar rush, Shredder's Revenge inevitably feels a little thin. [Issue#374, p.121]

Extravagant and uncompromising, with its head high in the clouds and feed deep in the mud, Portable Ops manages to be both a true original and quintessential Metal Gear. [Feb 2007, p.74]

Plenty of games have flourished around the slaughter, scale and destruction of war, but few have managed to realise a soldier’s role and worth - disposable, vulnerable, pivotal - as well as this. [Apr 2005, p.100]

It's an 'experience' as much as a game, meaning that it will leave as many people cold as it grabs by the right half of the brain. Beyond good, then, but not quite excellent. [Christmas 2003, p.104]

Like its predecessor, The New Colossus is a stunning technical achievement and an unusually stylish act of videogame cinematography. Yet where the first game gleefully took a scalpel to what had come before, there's no old order for The New Colossus to overthrow: just a New Order that it struggles to live up to. [Christmas 2017, p.104]

In both its puzzle design and its storytelling, Return to Monkey Island plays it safe. [Issue#377, p.114]

Resistance 2 is every bit the product of Resistance: Fall Of Man’s mentality: it’s OK to do things by the numbers so long as those numbers are bigger than everyone else’s. [Christmas 2008, p.91]

If it is slight, then Flower compensates by being a very rare experience, both in terms of subject matter and the visual splendour with which it has been executed. [Mar 2009, p.94]

Europa Universalis IV is the game you graduate to when you’re tired of Civilization. That’s ultimately also why all those numbers are there, beneath the surface: because you never graduate away from Europa Universalis IV. It drops you in the deep end before you’re ready, but if you can swim back towards the shallows during those first five hours, you’ll unlock a game so rich, it’ll be helping you tell stories for years.

So why, despite jokes about this not being the golden age of comics any more, does Dispatch feel like a retrograde step? [Issue#419, p.118]

Settling into Hi-Fi Rush's groove might require a recalibration - in your head, if not the latency settings - and the rewards are more intermittent than we'd like, but when they come, they're considerably greater than the occasional cheer from a non-existent audience. [Issue#382, p.98]

In the original, full-sized LBP, creating more than a few seconds of playable level was a significant and time-consuming effort. Here, with slightly reduced options and at a near microscopic scale, it's much, much harder. [Jan 2010, p.93]

When the game eventually gets going, it's almost as much fun as it's predecessor. It's just that it takes several hours to kick off. Dark Cloud 2 still has merit, but it's simply not as enjoyable as the first game. [May 2003, p.95]

Were it not for the rich, recognisable and beloved settings that fall over themselves to get to the player, this would be a desperately bland game. But the power of those settings simply cannot be brushed aside. [June 2006, p.88]

The puzzles themselves can feel gimmicky and detached, as though inclusion was more important than integration. [Dec 2009, p.92]

Games with distinct souls are rare things, but Persona 3 succeeds in displaying a mesmerising personality that touches the many well-crafted aspects of its curious and singular approach. [Nov 2007, p.94]

While it is a little hampered by it’s scale and scope, Kirby remains imaginative, detailed and demanding... It’s exactly the kind of game that Nintendo promised the DS would deliver. [June 2005, p.90]

But what GDS ends up proving about game development is this: making simple, fun and, yes, casual games that can keep rewarding players after that first flush of fun is so much harder than it looks.

There’s nothing here to keep you away from the bigger brother versions, unless you’re always playing away from home. In such environments, however, it’s a solid tribute to a storming series. [Nov 2005, p.111]

For those who can tolerate having their brain beaten numb by it, the game entails often enthralling, occasionally awe-inspiring sights and sounds. But little is there that’s new compared to much that needs renewal. [Christmas 2005, p.96]

Simple and elegant, it takes influences such as Konami’s Ring Of Red and even Pandemic’s Full Spectrum Warrior and elaborates on them to create something unique and interesting. [Christmas 2008, p.100]

As a launch title, Resistance proves itself to be a crisp and powerful piece of software, but not quite as robust a videogame. [Jan 2007, p.68]

This game has not so much been created to advance the beloved series but to prepare the ground for its next generation. As sequels go, think more civil disturbance than raising hell. [Issue #386, p.104]

With a wealth of weapons, unlockable characters, hidden relics and buff-providing cards, Galante has adopted the kitchen-sink approach to fleshing out his game. [Issue#378, p.121]

An incredibly solid universe with barely a technical glitch to be found, but it's soulless and almost bereft of plot or character. This is a sandbox game that's begging for a purpose. [March 2005, p.80]

Whilst some of the novelty of seeing a stalwart RPG on GameBoy Advance has worn off, The Lost Age is still slick, practised and enjoyable. Fans will lap it up. [June 2003]

It is so often calamitous that its few charms are either squandered or obscured. [Christmas 2009, p.96]

Ignore the presentation, the much-talked-about comic book inspiration. Ignore the artwork, the ridiculous voiceovers and the magnificent origin stories. Pay it no attention. The really funny thing about Freedom Force is how little the funny stuff matters. [May 2005, p.89]

This is a good expansion, a solid foundation for the next year of updates, and a lousy place for newcomers to start. [Issue#370, p.108]

Too often, what's on offer feels like a succession of incomplete experiments - the shoulders of giants on which other VR games might build. [Issue#394, p.100]

Although Suikoden 3 is better than the average Japenese RPG, it's clear that with the move to 3D Konami has tried to freshen the formula. But by watering down the series' bastion gameplay elements it may have alienated all but the fanatics. [Sept 2003]

As clumsy as some elements feel, it's still difficult to vilify KOTOR II. Its strength is in its ability to make you care about your character's fate, and as an RPG package it's as comprehensive as they come. [Feb 2005, p.70]

For tenacious players and those inclined towards the genre, Fallblox could prove an irresistible draw, with clearing its parade of cryptic conundrums a delicious prospect. For others, the game's difficulty, and its visual and thematic linearity, will prove tiresome, their enthusiasm for its self-evident ingenuity petering out before each of its challenges has fallen.

Yotei is another breathtaking vision of Japan, then, which treads open-world paths familiar to Tsushima but explores a more captivating story, with characters you want to spend time with. [Issue#416, p.102]

It's an 'experience' as much as a game, meaning that it will leave as many people cold as it grabs by the right half of the brain. Beyond good, then, but not quite excellent. [Christmas 2003, p.104]

Often, it can be enough for a sequel to deliver more of the same, but in Superstar Saga’s case, when what the first game delivered was such a powerful sense of freshness, more of the same – which Partners In Time certainly delivers – inevitably feels like less. [Feb 2006, p.86]

Is this the most violent game of all time? Maybe. Its ragdoll physics may not match the flying limbs and broken faces of Soldier of Fortune, but its throwaway approach to life and death is genuinely shocking, leaving a bitter, metallic aftertaste. This is neither a fall nor an ascension. This is an update. [Jan 2004, p.105]

This is still a fine – and visually opulent – auto-runner, but it’s bloated, too; a little restraint would have gone a long way.