In taking away direct control Miniland Mayhem has intensified the appeal to players' protective instinct which exists at the heart of the series. [Jan 2011, p.103]

The single-player campaign is fast-paced if rather unforgiving on occasion, and the online community is refreshingly vibrant given the game's steep learning curve. Recollection's only real problems exist in the form of a handful of irritating crash bugs and server disconnects, along with an unwelcome over-eagerness to drive you towards in-app purchases as you seek to bolster your sickly starter deck.

Epic Mickey may not always be entirely satisfying to play, but it's still enormously interesting to wander around with an eye open for the detailing. [Jan 2011, p.92]

It's the tutorials that stick in the mind: Skullgirls' real win is via Zaimont grasping that fighting games needn't be easier to play, but should be easier to understand.

It hangs together because its distinct strands feed into one another just enough, even if that relationship is as crude as a dialogue tree leading to you gaining a stat-altering card that you can play during the campaign phase.

Conan is a genuine surprise. It’s not innovative in its entirety, but it does almost as much as it can with the central conceit, and thus proves one of the better examples of the hack’n’slash genre. [Dec 2007, p.93]

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]

For its dramatic and cinematic flair, its lovingly crafted chaotic destruction and above all its network of interconnected personalities, it's an adventure that shouldn't be missed. [JPN Import; June 2006, p.92]

What’s left is, while smartly streamlined, a thoroughly orthodox game within a well-established type, a niche within a niche that’s getting smaller all the time.

If some activities are variants on familiar parlour games, they’re enlivened by creative twists and side objectives, while others are brimming with invention.

Magic Pengel isn't, by any stretch of the imagination, a rounded and satisfying videogame. But it is, without question, a rounded and satisfying stretch of the imagination. [Nov 2003, p.92]

If you share director Ragnar Tornquist's view that being engaged in dialogue is a form of gameplay, then there's a richness here that few other titles have the ability or luxury to create. [June 2006, p.86]

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]

This is a game you'll complete, chuckle at and show off. [Sept 2010, p.98]

Its keen sense of drama is as authentic as it is exhilarating: arcing a 40-yard free-kick around the wall and into the top corner in the last-minute of a cup final is as thrilling a moment as you'll witness in any FIFA match. It's hardly the beautiful game – its visuals are perfunctory at best – but Simon Read's creation smartly captures the capitalism, the artistry and the sheer, glorious unpredictability of its subject.

It looks great, and the boosting system means that, as a time-trial game, it's fantastic. If your progress wasn't so easily sabotaged by a thoughtless collision, it would be a fantastic racer, too. [June 2004, p.104]

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]

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]

Zombie Gunship obviously has its influences, but it works them into something surprising: a slow-mo high-score shooter, a grainy panorama of survival horrors, and a greater sense of an undead horde than the rest of the App Store's zombie shooters put together.

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

It's undeniably a one-trick pony, then, but it's a good trick, performed with flair and polish. Those inclined to correct grammatical howlers in friends' Facebook missives will find this a far less confrontational way of sating their inner pedant.

While Snowblind never truly escapes the feeling of being a well-dressed, derivative run’n’gun shooter, it never fails to get the running and gunning right, and in that respect, at least, it’s a sound success. [March 2005, p.86]

The biggest narrative crime comes right at the close, where what feels like the approach to the conclusion turns out to be, in fact, the end - a sour taste that's hardly helped by the naked sequel set-up that follows. [May 2018, p.122]

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]

Rematch, especially with friends, is an immediate, exhilarating caricature of football. Its pared-down mechanics inject joy back into a sport that's been hollowed out, both in real life through surrender to capital and geopolitics, and as simulation, in the gears of service-game profit-making machines. [Issue#413, p.118]

We hate its impotence, its utter lack of a scare beyond an aversion to getting shot. And with its market-led features and Skinner-box mechanics, we hate that a series that began as a lesson in horror – of the B-movie kind, admittedly – now feels so afraid of the competition.

If Rock of Ages eventually runs out of variety, it never runs out of charm. The game has a magnificent sense of momentum throughout, tugging you downhill towards the enemy's gates and upwards through the strata of Western culture. It is an oddball offering in every sense.

Salt and Sacrifice shrewdly builds upon its forerunner's groundwork - offering enough depth to enthral the most ardent admirers of the Soulslike genre, while its robust 2D platformer fundamentals make it much more approachable than many of its peers. [Issue#372, p.108]

Opoona has enough character that, combined with its innovative combat and leisurely pace through an interesting world, it is comfortably its own experience. [June 2008, p.93]

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]

Fast, engrossing and perfectly attuned to the needs of a handheld, Lunar Knights addresses the previous games’ failings without feeling like a retreat, providing refinement without too much dilution. [Apr 2007, p.86]

The most satisfying stages give you a generous toolset with which to experiment, but one too many involves painstaking repositioning of a few items.

While you won't necessarily win without some loyal subjects from your friends list, there's a deceptive amount of fun you can have while trying. [Oct 2009, p.94]

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]

Yes, the ideas are simple and well-worn, but they're treated with care and elegance, with a shimmer of luxury sprinkled across the top. [Issue#414, p.110]

The revelatory finale will leave you winded, but also heartened by Krillbite’s assertion that firstperson horror needn’t be confined by crumbling walls and straitjackets.

A fine introduction to the pleasures of multiplayer VR, but ultimately there's not quite enough substance here to keep you coming back after your first few tours of duty. [Christmas 2016, p.119]

As a reinvention it's a resounding success, and there are no pretenders to its comprehensiveness [May 2004, p.107]

The result is restless and, in the context of Clank’s overalls story, incoherent. But it’s also vibrantly diverse. [Sept 2008, p.95]

The solution to the game's own internal puzzle, then, is to slot something else into the gap, to connect those disparate edges. [Issue#372, p.114]

Uprising may not break any new ground in a genre that is arguably an endangered species, but it does a good job of breathing life into the dying breed. It's a reminder that an artist's eye, when met by a designer's understanding of modern tastes, can revitalise a struggling brand and make the old feel new again.

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]

The compact nature of the game's arc means its narrative rhythm feels a little off and things clatter to an end well before you expect - or want - them to. [Christmas 2016, p.120]

For all its successes, the fact remains that even after significant delays, what's been delivered is far from finished. [Dec 2014, p.110]

It only betrays itself completely once – in a dismally conventional boss battle around halfway through – though at times Spartan threatens to become routine, it never does, thanks to its strong character, handsome looks and sheer, irrepressible verve. [Nov 2005, p.96]

Maddening moments are far enough between to be only a minor blemish on an otherwise fantastic portable action game. [Jan 2005, p.90]

Boss fights aside, Ubosoft's consideration for its subject matter throughout is striking. [Sept 2014, p.104]

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

It's a shame that Forza's much-vaunted AI tech proves an ill fit for open-world racing. [Dec 2014, p.112]

That scale is emphasised in two expertly staged boss fights that provide a much stronger climax, and a conclusion to Quill's story that seems definitive. [Issue#372, p.117]

In terms of distilling the core Civilization experience from PC to handheld, this is almost as victorious as the PC-to-console iterations. [Oct 2008, p.103]

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]

Blood Money feels only slightly closer to the series’ ideal of a gameworld that’s both complex and cogent, and is more accessible and entertaining with it. [July 2006, p.80]

In its still somehow unique blend of humour and heart, spectacle and introspection, that Like a Dragon roars loudest. It may be nine years late, but we're glad it got here in the end. [Issue#382, p.94]

No classic, then, but Smilegate has delivered a big, silly, characterful romp that's best experienced with friends. [Issue#370, p.118]

If you've come this far on Lee's journey, Around Every Corner's ending will make the final chapter a near essential purchase: not just to see how this supposedly reactive, in part player-authored story ends, but to see if Telltale really can pull it off.

It's a game that feels like bits of lots of other games you've played before, but not in this order, rarely with such a sure-footed framework and never presented with such a crisp gloss of cartoon-quality presentation; and it's all bunched up together more tightly and enjoyably than in Sly 2. [Dec 2005, p.105]

We find ourselves absorbed by Boulder's story, enough to witness all the grisly premature ends that meet him before he finally gets his hard-won feelgood finale. [Issue#393, p.120]

There's a great deal of satisfaction in finding the right combination of fighters and feeling the curve of a battle until you hit the tagging sweet spot. [Mar 2011, p.88]

While the overall blandness means Galactrix is unlikely to truly thrill many people, it also means that it won’t exclude anyone either, and the ever-reliable pattern-spotting blends with the steady trickle of meaningless rewards to exert a pull on its audience that is truly Pavlovian. [Apr 2009, p.125]

The picaresque form allows the levels to function as discreet puzzles rather than as parts of a story arc: the objective remains pure and always the same. The obstacles and methods open to you are what change, and it's in these areas that Contracts has both expanded and improved. [June 2004, p.103]

It doesn't always hang together perfectly, but its earnest affection for its subject proves an effective adhesive, and perhaps the best compliment we can pay Kaiju Wars is that it persuasively captures the thrilling, manic energy of the best monster movies. [Issue#372, p.121]

There's an unexpected clarity to solo play that's lost amid the tumult of human competition, but what's never obscured – and what stands as its great accomplishment – is its fond and intricate celebration of all things PlayStation.

One of the most artistically accomplished games to have emerged from an independent studio, Trine 2 has enough minor tweaks and new things to see to draw you back into its playground. It's a short, sweet, occasionally imperfect little treat.

Despite its futurist Wikipedia aspirations, Neurocracy today feels more like falling down the Wayback Machine. [Issue#393, p.121]

By juxtaposing a hero who retreats in denials against an antagonist who'll go to any lengths to change the past, The Drifter offers a poignant take on trauma, and the ways it keeps gnawing at the soul the longer we refuse to process it. [Issue#414, p.123]

Technical issues aside, it shows that a sci-fi action adventure can tell a dramatic, gripping tale by zeroing in on the minutia of the next giant leap, and the weight of uncertainty behind every small step. [Issue#382, p.106]

For all its delightful art and writing, the cold logic in its Gordian design is unrelenting. [Sept 2014, p.115]

Persistent players will find it to be one of the best multiplayer experiences on PSP. [Dec 2007, p.95]

There's little, then, in the way of meaningful deduction; rather, you're rewarded more for being thorough. [Issue#372, p.123]

Even in such a tired genre, Turnfollow's capacity for emotional storytelling is remarkable indeed. [Issue#393, p.122]

With the FPS realm being crushingly overpopulated, and its upper class becoming so terrifyingly demanding and particular, Pariah’s solidity isn’t enough to allow it entry into the genre’s gentry. [June 2005, p.82]

It is wonderfully written, its world lived-in and vivid. It meets our expectations of a Fullbright game, but sadly leaves it at that. [Issue#310, p.114]

The action is so fast, and the time to kill so low, that anyone outside of the hardcore COD audience is in for a rough ride. [Jan 2017, p.110]

The slower, more deliberate pace and the hefty fine levied by missed throws and counters may initially confuse those expecting Guilty Fear in a new set of clothes, but ultimately provides a smoother learning curve and a more welcoming experience for new players. [Sept 2008, p.94]

Outbursts of light and colour and shape, simple enough that they have the potential to become iconic. [Issue#379, p.104]

It's less a trip to another world than a slice of this one, warts and all, carefully preserved in the middle of a bewitching, inaccessible wilderness. [Issue#310, p.116]

The Hellfighters' story is one worth hearing - even if Valiant Hearts hits a few bum notes in its telling. [Issue#382, p.112]

It's a shame that the terrain you wander through as you do all this is so visually substandard. [Dec 2014, p.116]

It's a generous package, and even more so given that a purchase of the Vita version nets you a PS3 copy as well, your progress persistent between the two versions. Other launch games may better sell Vita's touch, tilt or AR capabilities, but there is no better advertisement for its connectivity.

Though a perfectly engrossing horror game (and a timely reminder that an over-the-shoulder view isn't the only way of looking at an awful place) at times it can feel like a waste of promising concepts. [Issue#347, p.98]

Given a new lease of life by those whip-smart changes, in the moment-to-moment Overwatch 2 sings. [Issue#378, p.108]

It’s a game built with focus and one that’s going in a truly worthwhile direction, but that falls short of greatness. [Apr 2006, p.7]

A few dramatic sequences do land. [Issue#370, p.121]

In short, it's sweet. [Dec 2014, p.118]

It's impossible not to feel disappointed with a title that, to judge by it's opening, ought to have competed on an even footing with "Super Mario Sunshine." Instead it's an uneasy compromise between the splendour of the early levels and the inadequacies of later missions. [Dec 2003, p.88]

The thrill of the chase is still present, then, even if we've come to expect something a little more subversive from Adult Swim.

If there's surprising strategic depth alongside the amusement of the premise, though, the package itself is on the miniature side. [Issue#420, p.107]

The astounding breadth of the missions is enough to distract from finicky systems and low-res textures. [Dec 2014, p.120]

At its most intense, Exoprimal is aakin to playing an EDF game without the accompanying performance issues. [Issue#388, p.100]

It can't have the same gobsmacking impact as its inspiration, but this is a simple, engaging and occasionally baffling journey in its own right, with plenty of hooks to snare the newcomer.

Magicka delivers splashy nonsense of a gleeful kind, and somehow its delight in chaos and willful stupidity buoys it some way above its faults. [Mar 2011, p.95]

More diversion than challenge, and never leads to stress. [Aug 2009, p.107]

It's a short game, too - we reached the end after hour hours of unhurried progress. But Robinson's focus is on exploration and discovery, and Crytek provides plenty of distractions for the particularly curious. [Jan 2017, p.119]

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]

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

Having moved up an entire notch from inaugural title "Racers," the PixelJunk brand is becoming one of PSN's most promising and confident niches. [Mar 2008, p.101]

It is, as a whole, smart stuff, and a refreshing new direction for McMillen's brand of twitch platforming. [Issue#310, p.118]