For all Raven's efforts with temporal gimmicks, this is a game which is stuck in the FPS past – but, perversely, in its gun-metal and gore, in its most archaic respects, Raven proves it can just about stand the test of time.

Lego Harry Potter is a more focused experience than, say, Lego Indiana Jones 2, but proves ungainly in its own way. [Aug 2010, p.100]

Those who can overlook the rudimentary visuals, convoluted interface and overly forced dialogue may lose themselves in the vast mathematical playpen. [Aug 2010, p.95]

The fun is spread far too thin. [Sept 2010, p.94]

Glitchy. [Sept 2010, p.99]

Jett Rocket's mistakes remind us of the N64 days, when developers were feeling their way through Nintendo's brave new 3D world. [Aug 2010, p.99]

Sin And Punishment 2's real value lies in the (now online-enabled) hi-score tables and a brilliant risk/reward scoring system. [Christmas 2009, p.94]

This is a whisper of what the IP has to offer videogames rather than a realisation, and there's no disguise in the universe that can hide that. [Aug 2010, p.94]

The gems that this sequel is connecting - the RPG and match-three puzzler - still need one more to complete the chain: character. [Oct 2010, p.94]

The game could do with a more flexible camera. When the tentacle outgrows the screen in Snake you find yourself failing for collisions you can't even see. [Aug 2010, p.98]

Exquisitely presented. [Sept 2010, p.100]

Wrist ache is inevitable, but it's the imprecision of the strength gauge that ends up causing the most pain. [Sept 2010, p.103]

Its concept feels almost thrown together. [Sept 2010, p.103]

Thoughtfulness pulls Toy Story 3 form the Pixar game mire. [Sept 2010, p.101]

Peerlessly classy, funny and perverse in the same breath, Peace Walker is the most surprising Metal Gear Solid to date.

The game's frustrations are notable, but never spoil the appeal of controlling that indefatigable little guy. [July 2010, p.100]

The game is its own worst enemy, as its fully featured hands-on action never quite sits comfortably with roleplaying combat. [July 2010, p.99]

Not bad for the unlikely sequel to a game hardly anyone played. [Sept 2010, p.96]

Is 2010 about the show or the sport? It is, like the UFC itself, ready to be both. This confidence is what makes it such a complete and compelling package – a great MMA sim, a near flawless UFC sim. In a year, it’s made the kind of studious jump that took FIFA almost ten.

A triumphant toolset attached to a decent stab at the karting genre

Provides too little in the way of engaging structure behind its exemplary racing to make it more than a series of thrilling rides. [July 2010, p.96]

Light Trax continues to zip along the fine line between puzzler and racer neatly. [Aug 2010, p.98]

This isn't a game that redefines the genre: this is one that rolls it up and locks it away.

So much of Aqua, though, feels merely like the crude payoff to a tank rush, your fire moving from one stubborn target to the next until victory is declared. [Aug 2010, p.99]

Ultimately, Alan Wake is every bit as compulsive and satisfying as the fiction on which it riffs, but it also runs the risk of being equally forgettable. It’s a game that delivers the requisite number of twists, turns and thrills, but the only real revelations take place on those scattered manuscript pages.

GTAIV's modern weapons spit bullets like angry hornets until a health circle depletes; here, lives end in uncompromising fashion. For the western aficionado, it is viciously accurate; for the fan of wanton sandbox carnage, it is comically frank.

GTAIV’s modern weapons spit bullets like angry hornets until a health circle depletes; here, lives end in uncompromising fashion. For the western aficionado, it is viciously accurate; for the fan of wanton sandbox carnage, it is comically frank.

Much like a summer movie blockbuster, Split Second offers thrills galore, but there's a hint of glossy superficiality to it, too...Yet there are few games in the genre that create quite so many sharp intakes of breath and instances of unintentionally barked profanity as this one, and sometimes that's what racing gaming is all about. [June 2010, p.96]

Atlus's surgery sim is in rude health. [July 2010, p.103]

Continues the series' longstanding struggle with combat mechanics. [July 2010, p.98]

The game's major flaw, however, is its brevity. [July 2010, p.105]

Commander Video needs to be the bigger rectangle and step aside for the two final planned installments. [July 2010, p.103]

At its best it's an engaging spectacle, but when it falters Lost Planet 2 is a gamble that doesn't pay off. [June 2010, p.94]

While refinement might be the best way to make a good game better, it certainly isn't the best way to justify the cost of a second sequel in as many years. [June 2010, p.101]

A curiosity. An inferior imitation of a two-decade-old series, it's nevertheless delivered with obvious affection for its inspiration and considerable charm of its own. [June 2010, p.105]

The game, though, is the same enjoyable knockabout romp that it ever was, and Gameloft has thankfully made no attempt to shoehorn touch-screen controls in unnecessarily. If you feel a burning urge to spend 500 points to relive some small part of your lost youth, you won't be disappointed.

There's loads to do here. [June 2010, p.105]

It's simple, enjoyable, and in wisely steering clear of trying anything grand or complex, is an enjoyable if self-contained success. [May 2010, p.97]

It's simple, enjoyable, and in wisely steering clear of trying anything grand or complex, is an enjoyable if self-contained success. [May 2010, p.97]

You can call it feature creep or over-ambition, but it's the surfeit of content that almost buries the game's achievements. [June 2010, p.100]

You can call it feature creep or over-ambition, but it's the surfeit of content that almost buries the game's achievements. [June 2010, p.100]

This is brand new, yet it tastes vintage. Because it's nothing less than Capcom at its best in the genre it defines. [May 2010, p.101]

It's a shame the drama doesn't punch at the same weight (as the visuals). [June 2010, p.105]

What it does have is bundles of charm, a gorgeous art style, and enough bite-sized chunks to last many a journey. [July 2010, p.104]

It's just a shame that this unique combination of still-alivers didn't result in something truly innovative.

It's just a shame that this unique combination of still-alivers didn't result in something truly innovative.

It manages to be that rarest of things: a Wii game that you've just got to try online. [May 2010, p.98]

Its flaws stand out in the short singleplayer campaign, and its tail end relies too much on the gunplay that the game otherwise relegates to a begrudging last resort. But when it hits its stride, the environments unlock the player’s tactical ambitions in away that is truly empowering, launching you between shadow and light, discretion and aggression.

Plays unbearably clumsily. [June 2010, p.104]

There's wild west fun to be had within these simplistic charms, but it's unlikely to replace your favoured multiplayer shooter. [June 2010, p.103]

Our concern is that the game doesn't quite have the depth to sustain interest over a period of months, and an apparent uninterest in providing anything other than straight combat will compound the problem. And yet, at US$9.99, Plain Sight boasts a price that's as minimalist as its visual style. As such, a game this novel can only be a tempting prospect.

The premise may be wild-eyed, but the systems that fire it are robust... Deserves the small but vociferous following it will no doubt find. [Apr 2010, p.95]

The simple attack-defend volleyball games are the true beauty of Zack Island, frequently raising the pulse as you battle to deliver that killer blow. [May 2010, p.104]

For those of us with purer nail-hitting, dog-poking and badger-stomping in mind, the pleasure will have to remain in the doing.

A fizzing treat that refuses to ever dissolve away entirely, Alien Zombie Death is pacy, mean-spirited, and delightful.

Just Cause 2 can hardly be called an average game. It's a good one undermined by a selection of mediocre elements, and it's all the more frustrating this time around because Avalanche shows us glimpses of just how much fun two weeks on holiday with Rico should be. [Apr 2010, p.96]

Just Cause 2 can hardly be called an average game. It's a good one undermined by a selection of mediocre elements, and it's all the more frustrating this time around because Avalanche shows us glimpses of just how much fun two weeks on holiday with Rico should be. [Apr 2010, p.96]

Just Cause 2 can hardly be called an average game. It's a good one undermined by a selection of mediocre elements, and it's all the more frustrating this time around because Avalanche shows us glimpses of just how much fun two weeks on holiday with Rico should be. [Apr 2010, p.96]

After the first game, the series was in need of a rethink; now all it needs is refinement. [May 2010, p.94]

The darling of the indie scene for so many years, it's a pleasure to see the game proving itself all over again. [June 2010, p.98]

Fat with content, melodrama and fun, few DS games can match its ambitions. [Apr 2010, p.98]

Tiberian Twilight finds the series at a crossroads, with its glory days gone and its future uncertain. [May 2010, p.100]

Metro is at its best deep underground, away from the demands of a modern action game and engrossed in the cultures that cling to its tunnels, the atmosphere boosted by subtitled Russian and the writing and voice-acting creating fascinating windows into a struggling world. [May 2010, p.99]

The stuff of legend, then? Indeed. Although, perhaps fittingly, one with nothing new to say. [Apr 2010, p.88]

For all the spectacle of Resonance's gunfights, the game feels restrictive. It's a strategy game in which your tactical options are limited to one or two reliable strategies, and an RPG in which character development is chained to similar lines. [May 2010, p.96]

Without the brutal challenge, it's a game that will take mere hours to finish and even fewer to forget. [May 2010, p.101]

FFXIII takes brave risks with the series’ foundations, but they ultimately create trembling fractures throughout the entire edifice, that robust battle system unable to support the weight of an entire world. Final Fantasy games are always an investment. This time, the returns are questionable.

A functional, pared-down JRPG and a feisty but flawed translation of the side-scrolling beat 'em up into the third dimension. [Apr 2010, p.94]

A few hairy moments in, and any attempt to get back under your skin is redundant. Mostly this is because the game's resident evil is largely incapable of harming you, and any sense of jeopardy is lost. [Apr 2010, p.97]

Tight ink limitations force creative solutions, but once learnt, certain tricks undermine the action. [Feb 2010, p.94]

Whatever the oddities and missed opportunities of its singleplayer mode, Bad Company 2 delivers a fulsome online game that continues to hone a winning formula. [Apr 2010, p.90]

Whatever the oddities and missed opportunities of its singleplayer mode, Bad Company 2 delivers a fulsome online game that continues to hone a winning formula. [Apr 2010, p.90]

Whatever the oddities and missed opportunities of its singleplayer mode, Bad Company 2 delivers a fulsome online game that continues to hone a winning formula. [Apr 2010, p.90]

Compared to its Wii counterpart - as generic a movie-licensed collect 'em up as you'll see - the DS version is swollen with ideas. [Apr 2010, p.98]

Open about the toys you can play with in the final stages of research, strategy in Supreme Commander 2 is pure – worked out before the battle begins and maintained as a line under your tactical moves.

The battles, meanwhile, are engaging despite their simplicity, and it's beautiful to watch each turn play out. [May 2010, p.102]

While the more conventional controls make for a more satisfying experience, they also expose the painful ordinariness of the game. [May 2010, p.102]

When you do surrender to Echoshift's world of relaxation, time management, and jarring cruelty, however, time - like your many lives - files by. [May 2010, p.104]

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.

Napoleon ultimately feels like the more successful younger brother to Empire. It fundamentally shares its DNA, for better and worse, but has learned from its mistakes, and has stayed trim and buff.

It's the cutest game we've seen in a while, but not nearly as good as it looks. [July 2010, p.105]

The game is sumptuously constructed - its spindly and grotesque sense of caricature is a delight and the lively score is maddeningly hummable. [Apr 2010, p.97]

A hastily assembled three-in-one anachronism which proves just one thing: that terrifying and terrible are not mutually exclusive. [Apr 2010, p.93]

A hastily assembled three-in-one anachronism which proves just one thing: that terrifying and terrible are not mutually exclusive. [Apr 2010, p.93]

A hastily assembled three-in-one anachronism which proves just one thing: that terrifying and terrible are not mutually exclusive. [Apr 2010, p.93]

The plot lacks the slight unpleasantness that tinted Wright's best cases. There are still killers, but their motivations are more straightforward. [Mar 2010, p.98]

The details of each individual victory may fade with time, but you’ll never forget the fractal patchwork rippling beneath you, or the stormy static of the clouds that clash overhead.

Most of all, BioShock 2 has one quality that makes us much more hopeful for the future of the series and its inevitable onward growth as one of gaming’s big franchises: it shows the capacity of Rapture to utterly change itself for the telling of a new tale, while somehow remaining the same.

Dante’s Inferno fails to rise above its peers, the punishment for which is not damnation, merely a place in limbo.

It's not lazy and unworkable, then, merely pleasant, compromised, and irrelevant. [Mar 2010, p.98]

This is a game with ambitions that now outstrip the confines of an atrophying engine, but beneath the exterior lies a world rich in atmosphere - the credible and pervading horror of a landscape drawn with unusual finesse. [Mar 2010, p.95]

White Knight Chronicles is competent and solid without ever being beautiful or, you'll find yourself realising with a scratch of the head 15 hours in, particularly enjoyable. [Apr 2010, p.99]

With the first instalment, BioWare built a universe of words – a deeply convincing multicultural sprawl you could read about without ever quite getting to touch. Here, you’re inside it from the start – and the view is often dazzling

The original title won fans for its shocks and surprises; the second takes no risks. While its ultraviolence is slick and satisfying, its shtick has calcified. [Apr 2010, p.92]

With its robust clan support MAG still offers a cooperative experience on a rare scale for bands of dedicated players willing to weather the unnecessary confusions and ungenerous structure of the early game. For the rest, MAG rarely deals out the empowerment and clarity of purpose that other team shooters, like the forthcoming Battlefield: Bad Company 2, offer from the get go. It’s not quite ‘welcome to the suck’, but gamers may wonder if MAG’s a battle worth fighting.

It shows that this most predictable of genres is still capable of throwing out interesting surprises. [Mar 2010, p.97]

Somehow, Dark Void just about rises above its faults, but it's hardly at rick of flying too close to the sun. [Feb 2010, p.86]

This is as good as you'll find on DSiWare at the moment, and it'll likely stay that way until Q-Games comes up with another mini-marvel. [Feb 2010, p.95]