An earnest attempt has been made to create a new identity for a series here, but the question of how to best frame Mass Effect's narrative strengths is, once again, left open. [June 2017, p.90]

The killing is enjoyable, but we'd have happily done much more of it. [Issue#333, p.122]

It’s a great idea but a flawed execution, and will need a sequel to achieve its potential. [Aug 2007, p.92]

Another slight VR release that serves as an excellent proof of concept but disappoints by not following through. [Feb 2017, p.120]

A surprisingly conservative game from Rockstar. Its absorption of cover mechanics makes Payne feel more familiar than he should, but even then his signature tricks are over a decade old. This is a game about a world-weary killer doing the only thing he knows how to, and for all its spectacular action beats there's something apt about Max's fatigue.

We need more games like this - ones that are confident and individual - but we need them to be less roughly hewn. The core of the game is solid, but the way it's applied throughout the levels just isn't interesting enough. [Mar 2004, p.98]

Deformable landscapes, multiple level routes, context sensitive controls, impeccable camera control, inventive boss level. Flipnic would be one hell of an adventure game. [Dec 2003, p.99]

Singleplayer is weak - despite well-worked tutorial and mission modes it always feels like target practice for combat with friends - and the lack of online support disappoints. But despite a potentially hazardous dimensional switch, it remains as appealing a way of antagonising your friends as ever. [Dec 2003, p.108]

Let all the vision-obscuring dust settle and it transpires that Battlefield 4 is a more conservative sequel than we were led to expect.

Sadly, the technical turbulence that has blighted previous episodes remains – the QTE-powered action beats, though well staged, are hobbled by pauses and awkward transitions, even on PC.

The synthesis of all The Sims Medieval's many personalities and inspirations creates something genuinely unique and compulsively entertaining. It's a funny and sweet time sink, and something that any Sims fan can wholeheartedly enjoy.

It's a testament to the strength of Pedro's core premise that you'll likely persevere through design fumbles, odd pacing and wonky writing in search of more bonkers ultraviolent combos and leaderboard glory [Issue#335, p.108]

Stellaris simply communicates its tangle of resources, currencies and modifiers with improbable elegance. [July 2016, p.112]

Crisp of cut-scene, blessed with a refreshingly light touch and low-key compared to the po-faced chest-beating of its peers, Second Sight could well be a high water mark in storytelling through games (as opposed to storytelling around them). [Oct 2004, p.104]

Combo timings can feel a little strict - and, like so many games in this genre, could be better explained to novice players - but that's easy to forgive in a game that strips away so many common fighting-game frustrations with such an easy elegance. [Issue#323, p.118]

The three marathon levels might have been better broken into a series of shorter sprints, and the four-person co-op is a stressful frustration, but as a single-player score-rush, Bit.Trip Beat is mercilessly targeted to the most masochistic part of your psyche. The result is by turns infectious, delightful, and entertainingly cruel.

It's not quite vintage Mario, but this long-awaited mobile debut demonstrates an ingenuity and a keen appreciation of format that is quintessentially Nintendo. [Feb 2017, p.123]

So well integrated is the card collection/reward mechanic that the traditional RPG exploration elements slip easily between the staccato rhythm of the battles. For this reason, the game takes on an invigorating freshness that overrides most of its generic frustrations. [Jan 2005, p.93]

As it is, his 3DS debut is too uneven to be essential, but too charming for fans to miss.

It may not be enough to rouse those with shooter fatigue, but this is a terrific genre piece: there’s a pleasing sense of weight and feedback in its gunplay, levels are snappy and replayable, while collectible cards offer an education in the real history of the era.

Next Encounter is one of the grandest and busiest console battlefields yet created. This is a spiritual update to Space Invaders, a one-trick pony that kicks harder than most FPS thoroughbreds, making the "Medal of Honour" series seem like a vain diva by comparison. [June 2004, p.109]

It's a vivid, rapid, entertaining strategy game, shot through with strikingly smart design decisions... It's problems are, inevitably, of balance. Developer EA Phenomic has accepted an impossible task - weighing all possible combinations of 200 units against one another. [May 2009, p.96]

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]

Though it occasionally goes pear-shaped as an adventure game due to the stinginess of its feedback, Botanicula is never less than a breath of fresh air.

Diverting and wonderfully weird as it may be, but Side Order doesn't supplant Octo Expansion as the series' singleplayer peak. [Issue#396, p.119]

Seeing the game from beginning to end reveals its true artistic merit: it never gets stale; every episode has been drawn with minute care and attention. It would have been an incredible achievement if the gameplay had matched the outstanding art direction. [Dec 2003, p.94]

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]

Beautifully detailed with impressive lighting, accurately modelled protagonists and a terrific sense of speed. A refreshing and captivating direction for the series. [Christmas 2003, p.115]

Titan Quest’s hyper-realism is, at least when above ground, dazzlingly picturesque, with lighting so natural you expect there to be an elemental resistance for sunburn. [Aug 2006, p.84]

Bad Company’s multiplayer happily checks off the expectations the series has created. [Aug 2008, p.90]

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]

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]

Underneath the mundane masculinity and grimy gun-toting clichés lies a heavily structured and well-considered score-attack game – one that’s worth excavating for all the short-lived interest it holds. [Feb 2008, p.88]

A revised, marginally stronger example of the virtual motorbike racing we’ve come to expect from the franchise. But owners of MotoGP ’06 may want to skip a year. [Oct 2007, p.96]

None of this matters too much when you're taking one gamble after another and they're all paying off. [Issue#376, p.108]

The springy physics are almost perfect, giving you just enough control even as you hurtle through the air at speed. [Nov 2016, p.118]

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

Fortunately, the backbone of strategy means that behind every chaotic disaster lies the digestible conclusion that, with better planning, it could have been avoided. [May 2005, p.87]

Squeak Squad overall is a polished, impeccably designed pushover. [Feb 2007, p.84]

Hard-bitten graduates of "GTR2" and "GT Legends" would be smart to approach RACE with few expectations, or perhaps leave it to the newcomes it has clearly been designed to attract. [Jan 2007, p.81]

Crisp of cut-scene, blessed with a refreshingly light touch and low-key compared to the po-faced chest-beating of its peers, Second Sight could well be a high water mark in storytelling through games (as opposed to storytelling around them). [Oct 2004, p.104]

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]

It's handsomely shot, produced and scored, solidly acted. [Issue#373, p.108]

Its fortunes rely on satisfying a burgeoning community of simulation racers, for whom authenticity is the top priority, and in that respect it’s a success. [Dec 2007, p.94]

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 draws you in after your first few taps of the screen, and it's smart enough to keep things brief, topping off a short campaign with an endless mode and a limited selection of unlockables.

Production values are high, with iPad providing the best canvas yet for Level-5′s animation and colouring. And though the puzzles and narrative take on a different rhythm to the core series, the delicate balance in their concoction and the demands of their solution – requiring equal amounts of logical and lateral thought – echo those of father Layton’s finest.

A charming jaunt. [Sept 2009, p.94]

It's testament to What The Car? that we're prepared to repeat the majority of challenges until we've earned a golden crown. [Issue#386, p.122]

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

This is a vision of immense craft and feeling. Should there be more behind the curtain? [Issue#410, p.110]

Persevere, however, and you’ll find the kind of charmingly intelligent design that makes us hope Ambient can eventually realise some of its grander ambitions.

We don't mind seeing behind the scenes, since in a way the whole game is just that storycrafting system on a larger canvas. [Issue#386, p.123]

Certainly, it provides exhilarating depths for those willing and sufficiently talented to reach them, but the game's narrow and unforgiving constraints will repel far more than it entices. [Issue#389, p.102]

Peggle’s secret is the way it makes you feel about these successes – and it’s here that this most feels like a true sequel. Clear out a level and the resulting Ultra Extreme Fever is a bigger festival of light and colour than ever, and Xbox One’s Game DVR popup serves as an extra pat on the back. The accompanying crescendo is no longer limited to Ode To Joy either – each Master has their own piece of classical music.

The effect is simple but potent: this feels like a real place, and you feel like a real person. [Issue#392, p.108]

At its best it's a game of tactics for even the most casual player. [Issue#314, p.112]

If Desert Storm 2 has one flaw, it's that there are only ten maps and these usually channel the player down avenues rather than provide ample playgrounds for strategic experimentation. [Nov 2003, p.100]

Dual Destinies is an Ace Attorney game, all right, and that’s perhaps the best result anyone could have hoped for.

Rebellion's not reinventing the wheel, then, but there's an admirable clarity of focus here from a studio clearly confident in its handiwork. [Issue#373, p.116]

While there isn't the sense of playing something that opens up a new era for a genre long written off as dying, there is a simple freshness and a delightful accessibility which might endear it to an even wider market. [July 2004, p.106]

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

And while it's really more a snack than a buffet, it's one that will leave you full and contented, the acidic tang of competition cutting through all that sugar. [Issue#376, p.120]

As easy to misunderstand as it is to break, it again turns the best and worse of PC gaming into something extraordinary. [Oct 2008, p.94]

SimCity 4 might sit down among the many footnotes in the history of gaming, but it fills its remit with skill, creating a game that genuinely demands something of our oft-neglected intellect. [March 2003, p.101]

This is easily the better sequel, a firm improvement on "Warrior Within." So why the long face? For the simple and saddest reason of all: ennui. [Christmas 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]

Only a sense of familiarity dogs an otherwise engaging diversion: the Minis cover a lot of ground in these 180 levels, but at times it’s well-worn territory they’re walking.

Yes, perhaps Gris is a little big in love with itself. Maybe we should take the hint. [Issue#328, p.114]

If it doesn't always satisfy the more animal parts of our brain, En Garde! keeps the higher functions entertained, and provides some solid laughs. [Issue#389, p.114]

It’s wildly exhilarating, and it’s wildly exhilarating because it works, but that’s not to say it works perfectly... Persevere to perfect the right lighting conditions and learn the game’s slightly idiosyncratic perception of your movements, and it is an unparalleled experience, if a slightly shallow sports game. [Jan 2005, p.86]

In terms of creating an atmosphere and playing with it, there’s nothing quite like it on a handheld system. [Christmas 2007, p.96]

Something as transcendent and overwhelming as the game we hoped for – the infinite, mind-boggling space odyssey suggested so early on – doesn’t sell expansion packs. It doesn’t fit on to iPhone. It doesn’t fill the vacuum left by The Sims. [Nov 2008, p.88]

It also commits a few of the same sins: in particular, the deluge of gar drops feels vaguely insulting, conditioning the player to lust after items exclusive to the in-game store. It's lifted, however, by the relative wit and intelligence of its quest design, and the delicate notes of uncertainty and curiosity introduced by Exploration mode. [Christmas 2018, p.108]

And while its camera and controls are a huge improvement over its predecessors, the odd hiccup still persists. But most of the time, with the soundtrack - a mix of laidback house, hip-hop, and funk - doing its thing in the background, and the world gradually opening up to you, it's easy to fall into a pleasant trance for long stretches. [Issue#389, p.118]

Rivals’ systems show potential, but it is considerably less than the game it might have been.

Alien Hominid is just about an essential title for anyone who’s caught themselves yearning for a forgotten past, or to any young blood wondering what people mean when they say they don’t make them like they used to. [Jan 2005, p.97]

Like the flesh-merging virus, which exponentially heaps meat onto meat onto meat, Bloober's better ideas can get lost in the pile. That it still feels worth playing to its conclusion is proof of the fundamental strengths at Cronos' core. [Issue#416, p.108]

At least no one can accuse Brace Yourself of staying in its lane, even if you sometimes wish its monsters would. [Issue#408, p.121]

Food Run may be unapologetically old-fashioned – right down to its use of impossibly jaunty stock music – but game design this smart never goes out of style.

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]

This isn't a deep game by any means, but it's colourful, noisy, and approaches iOS's limitations with cunning.

There’s little doubt that Sony has pulled out a plum – and given the PSP its first real mascot in the process. [Aug 2006, p.82]

Like an electrified baseball bat, The Beast is silly and perhaps disposable, but you can still have a great time swinging it. [Issue#416, p.110]

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]

For those willing to invest in all of the paraphernalia required to experience it, Phantasy Star Online remains a beguiling prospect. [May 2003, p.104]

Black Box’s sequel ultimately struggles to offer any single compelling justification for its own existence. [Feb 2009, p.93]

There are dozens of puzzles, with a Resident Evil-like fetishism for clicking locks and mechanisms. [Issue#416, p.112]

A limited, but well-honed, experience. There's craft evident everywhere, from the stylised environments and the vibrant characterisation to the well-rounded storyline. A beautiful, enchanting and unusual game. [March 2003, p.90]

There's substance, too. [Issue#408, p.123]

The lack of instruction here is telling: Lucky Frame wants people to discover the joy of making music for themselves, and this stylish and entertaining curio represents a fine place to do so.

The pleasure of launching into a panoramic, dolly-zoomed abyss and triggering an implausible series of aerial gymnastics is as primal a thrill as it ever was. [Nov 2008, p.102]

There's also a sneaking sense that Origins is stuck in the past. As a reimagining of the original game with modern visuals, it's a triumph, but it doesn't do much to move the realtime tactics genre forward, with little of the innovation seen in, say, Mimimi's Shaodow Gambit: The Cursed Crew. [Issue#410, p.116]

With a much better camera and less of a fondness for gratuitously fussy challenges - and a tendency not to combine the two - this could have been a minor classic. [June 2017, p.96]

Like so many recent releases, Borderlands 4 has a magnetic, engrossing experience at its core that's been built on a hundred smart design decisions, but its performance on PC keeps you at arm's length. [Issue#416, p.114]

Fun fan fodder, but hardly revelatory. [Christmas 2009, p.102]

Stripped by necessity to its basest form to allow for the limited inputs of the handheld, and this time greatly enhanced and personlaised by character artist Gez Fry's gorgeous anime-inspired designs, Rebelstar may be their most accessible title to date. [Dec 2005, p.112]

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]