It's not taxing or provocative, it will leave you neither upset nor elated; it simply wants to give you a good time. Sometimes that's enough. [June 2016, p.114]

That initial feeling of being a tangible part of the inside of a videogame will forever be fantastic, even if much of the rest of the experience feels like it's been done before. [Tested with Oculus Rift; June 2016, p.112]

It's a great deal of fun for the first 20 minutes, but once you've mastered your ships and applied your favourite skull decals, there's little to keep you hooked. [Tested with Oculus Rift; June 2016, p.110]

Despite the familiarity of the characters and the story, this is strange, exotic territory, and quite like anything else. [June 2016, p.108]

Adrift is at its best when you're simply taking in the view and absorbing the gravity of your situation. [Tested with Oculus Rift; June 2016, p.104]

While it doesn't always gel in a way that feels genuinely new, there are enough successful unfamiliar concepts here to make Quantum Break feel like a step forward for Remedy. [June 2016, p.100]

This is still a game with a formula, then, but it has never been better, and there are few areas where it could be improved. [July 2016, p.104]

There's something to be said for a game that lets you elope with the final boss, but otherwise Moon Hunters' light wanes a little more quickly than we'd expected. [May 2016, p.123]

Movement is smooth and fast, recalling the fluidity of seminal arena shooters such as Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament 2004. [May 2016, p.122]

A bold, thoughtful experiment in accessibility, the fighting game's biggest, most enduring problem. [May 2016, p.120]

GW2 offers an alternative, lighthearted take on a genre that can often feel po-faced. [May 2016, p.118]

It's a victory for style over substance, in which style smashes substance's head into a million pieces. [May 2016, p.116]

The faults are present at the glamorous, high-stakes launch party and, as a result, Hitman is once again prevented from defining the genre. [May 2016, p.112]

That's the essential nature, and essential problem, of The Division's underlying structure. It's asking you to hunt gear with no tangible reward in terms of what you can do, how you do it, or what you look like doing it. [May 2016, p.108]

We can't wait to see what he comes up with next. [May 2016, p.104]

Fundamentally a curiously lovable game - one of long, lonely roads, of painstaking parking manoeuvres, and slapstick write-offs when simple turns are misjudged. There's nothing else quite like SCS's brand of cargo-hauling action. [April 2016, p.119]

A captivating follow-up. [April 2016, p.117]

What could've been a new high-water mark for horror is weighed down by a litany of clanging missteps, but while the game's many problems conspire to tarnish its innovations, the latter are so far ahead of other games' tricks that they dazzle nonetheless. [April 2016, p.115]

If it's judged only on its atmosphere, weapons, and the amount of killing it portrays from behind the wheel, this expansion hits the bullseye. If Techland can fill in all the bits missing in between, its next project could be something special indeed. [April 2016, p.114]

For all its faults, there's every chance The Town of Light could end up getting under your[ skin]. [April 2016, p.112]

Had Climax been able to condense the best parts of all three games - China's pared-down and accessible design, India's looks, Russia's two-character dynamic - into one, we might've had a valuable offshoot, but ultimately this is another Assassin's Creed that succumbs to inconsistency and bloat. [April 2016, p.110]

Like its enigmatic protagonist, Unravel is never anything less than charming, even during moments when it doesn't quite hold together. [April 2016, p.108]

Surviving isn't supposed to be easy, of course. But there's a line between challenging players and screwing them over, and The Flame In The Flood regularly crosses it. [April 2016, p.106]

The seeds of a decent survival game are here. [April 2016, p.102]

Mechanically, it's fantastic. Structurally, it's a mess and a missed opportunity, designed in direct contradiction to its developer's stated ambition. [April 2016, p.98]

The most successful episodes find ways to hold us captive. [March 2016, p.122]

Its pacing is hindered by slow movement speed, and nuance is lost as the incidents increase in frequency and topics of conversation shift from the social to the situational. [March 2016, p.120]

It's a surprise to find that this relentless numerical tangle of a dungeon crawler is a human story. [March 2016, p.118]

Even at its best, Heroes Reborn: Gemini can't hope to be one of those games that breaks out of licensed-game purgatory. [March 2016, p.116]

The story's the star, of course. [March 2016, p.114]

Ostensibly it's a game about overthrowing aliens, but really it's a war against the forces of probability. [March 2016, p.110]

The Witness conjures magic from the simplest of components, rustling up a sensational array of experiences without ever deviating from its core conceit. [March 2016, p.106]

Astonishingly, there's no replay function for your defensive performances. [Feb 2016, p.122]

Even at maximum velocity it fails to stir the blood like the games to which it's most indebted. [Feb 2016, p.120]

Missions are wonderfully compact and briskly-paced, sweeping you though a substantial campaign with style to match. [Feb 2016, p.119]

To enjoy EDF, you've always needed to be willing to compromise. Those days are gone. It's never felt so fluid. [Feb 2016, p.116]

Even completing a stage in the relatively tame classic Mini Cooper S will leave you feeling bothered and fatigued. [Feb 2016, p.114]

Nuclear Throne's hook is disarmingly simple but blisteringly effective. In short, it gets a move on. [Feb 2016, p.112]

It scales to your ability and makes you feel connected to the music in a way few other games can match. [Feb 2016, p.108]

Siege can feel cool and inhospitable, but when the conditions are right and you're playing with friends, the game's tense gameplay and measured pacing makes for a refreshing, cerebral contrast to the run-and-gun hyperactivity of most online shooters. [Feb 2016, p.104]

Not for everyone, Dancing All Night will suit players who love rhythm action enough to overlook a lack of content, or who love Persona 4 enough to forgive the length and leaden pace of its script. [Jan 2016, p.123]

This attempt to fuse two very different Mario worlds is more than the sum of its mismatched parts. [Jan 2016, p.122]

In spite of the odd stumble, it's a wonderful journey. [Jan 2016, p.120]

Where it goes wrong is the finale. Almost every major choice is proven irrelevant, and barely any plot threads resolve. [Jan 2016, p.118]

X is a triumph of art over design, the wonder of the world enough to make periods of drudgery worthwhile. [Jan 2016, p.116]

As a package, Black Ops III is a muddle. It is packed to the gills with things, certainly, but none of it joins up. [Jan 2016, p.114]

Any semblance of subtlety is abandoned entirely when it comes to the playable Hero and Villain characters. [Jan 2016, p.110]

It refines the core shooting and user interface, but otherwise adds only a clutch of enjoyable yet nonessential extras, such as settlements and armour pieces. [Jan 2016, p.106]

This is, after all, a game that goes out of its way to empower in a way few other games dare. [Jan 2016, p.102]

Like a fledgling with two broken wings, it would surely have been more humane to put the thing out of its misery than let it limp out in this pathetic state. [Christmas 2015, p.123]

It's strange that players aren't given more time to make decisions. [Christmas 2015, p.122]

One of the smartest dumb games since Super Time Force. [Christmas 2015, p.121]

Learn its quirks, however, and Prison Architect's sandbox permits a dizzying breadth of options for establishing for-profit penal facilities. [Christmas 2015, p.120]

Need for Speed is a disappointing follow-up to the flawed but big-hearted Rivals, and while it's billed as a fresh start for the series, it feels more like a false one. [Christmas 2015, p.118]

On its own terms, Tales from the Borderlands is one of Telltale's best works yet. [Christmas 2015, p.116]

A gaming of charming positive spirit that, three years late and a generation off the pace, sill stands out in a crowded, wantonly destructive field. [Christmas 2015, p.114]

A series that, for all its wanderlust, is never truly going anywhere. [Christmas 2015, p.112]

This is a gentle refinement, ironing out kinks, sewing on a few accouterments, and leaving everything else the way it was. [Christmas 2015, p.110]

As a snapshot of a moment in time, there's truth captured within the frame. [Christmas 2015, p.106]

FreeStyle's greatest achievement is that it's made the rhythm-action genre feel fresh again. [Christmas 2015, p.102]

Halo 5 is full of good decisions and fantastic multiplayer experiences, but in trying to catch up, it might have shown how far behind it really is. [Christmas 2015, p.98]

We've seen so many of these puzzles before. [Dec 2015, p.121]

This is a potent and upsetting work that leaves a deep impression, spreading and darkening like a bruise. [Dec 2015, p.120]

It all feels thoroughly pointless...The rumour mill has it that THPS5 has been shoved into stores so prematurely because Activision's Tony Hawk license expires at the end of the year; we suspect that had the Birdman known this would have offered up an extension for free. [Dec 2015, p.118]

Enemies hit like trucks - and not just the ones that ARE trucks. [Dec 2015, p.114]

Consistently astonishing. [Dec 2015, p.110]

It uses preexisting flaws as the foundations for something that is better in just about every single way: bigger, more coherent and, best of all, immeasurably more generous. With that comes, appropriately, a puzzle for Bungie to solve. How do you continue to build on a game that has so few chinks in its lustrous, gleaming exotic armour? [Dec 2015, p.106]

It's infectious, and it is difficult to imagine that anyone with any affection for rock music could fail to appreciate it. [Dec 2015, p.116]

The hope and expectation generated by a successful launch dissipates all too quickly, leaving these lovers floating aimlessly among the stars, a spaceship without a rudder. [Nov 2015, p.123]

A spinoff that works unexpectedly hard to win you over. [Nov 2015, p.122]

The best of the series yet, and has incredible potential, it's just that it's up to you what you'll make of it. [Nov 2015, p.120]

In every respect Forza 6 is an improvement over Forza 5, and yet the game feels oddly torn between two eras, its stodgy insistence on piecemeal progression undercutting a handful of fresh ideas. The series may have found a clear route back to its Maple Valley Raceway glory days, but Forza 6 is a shift in the right direction as it rediscovers the playful soul and personality it first introduced to the sim racer. [Nov 2015, p.118]

For all of its little stumbles on the journey from Vita to PS4, and its odd mix of new ideas and an old world, Unfolded retains one of its progenitor's most vital ingredients: buckets and buckets of charm. [Nov 2015, p.116]

As generous and beautiful a package as it is, it's not always as coherent or flexible as appearances might lead you to believe. [Nov 2015, p.112]

The game's highlights hint at a more interesting game that never quite materialises; in the end, Mad Max simply isn't crazy enough. [Nov 2015, p.108]

Super Mario Maker's greatest achievement isn't in the pleasing snappiness of its creation, but how it fosters a deeper understanding, and appreciation, of good level design. There can be few finer ways of marking the series' 30th birthday than that. [Nov 2015, p.104]

If Rocket League often feels like a sports game for people who don't really like sports games, that's no criticism. [Oct 2015, p.123]

A host of inchoate ideas served with a helping of self-importance, Submerged threatens to plumb the emotional depths, but there's little of value beneath its surface. [Oct 2015, p.121]

Something it achieves more successfully is the frustration of sensory impairment. [Oct 2015, p.120]

No characters stand out to give the game verve, and Dracogenics does nothing to inspire efforts to take it down. [Oct 2015, p.118]

Itagaki has brought a knife to a gunfight, and the result is a bloody mess. [Oct 2015, p.116]

Each gruesome death brings a sharp pang of regret and leaves you wondering if it might have been avoided. [Oct 2015, p.114]

The payoff is feeling like the Red Baron and Luke Skywalker rolled into one when you emerge from a tricky dogfight. [Oct 2015, p.112]

Unforgettable. [Oct 2015, p.108]

Its finest tactical espionage action yet. [Oct 2015, p.104]

One of the most ungainly platformers of recent years. [Sept 2015, p.123]

There's a single moment of joy in Fallout Shelter. It comes right at the beginning. [Sept 2015, p.122]

It might not be as easy on the eye as its 2015 contemporaries, but it's an awful lot more honest. [Sept 2015, p.120]

It is its maker's most successful free-to-play endeavour to date, even if that is to damn it with faint praise. [Sept 2015, p.118]

Rarely has something so uneven and intermittently frustrating stolen our hearts this brazenly. [Sept 2015, p.116]

A valiant modern parable that might also have been an exceptional puzzler, if only it had made its players a little less godlike. [Sept 2015, p.114]

Affecting and profoundly different, Her Story is a superlatively told work of crime fiction, and one that deserves to shift the conversation around interactive storytelling. [Sept 2015, p.110]

Beautiful and varied. [Aug 2015, p.122]

Uncharacteristically watered-down. [Aug 2015, p.121]

Only intermittently better than its predecessor, if still every bit as frenetic. [Aug 2015, p.120]

Puts Destiny's first expansion to shame. [Aug 2015, p.118]

Too much of it is cut from old cloth instead of woven from its own loom. [Aug 2015, p.116]

Heroes of the Storm's great success is that it works harder than any other game to date to open up the strengths of this genre. [Aug 2015, p.114]