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

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]

The handling hasn’t evolved and a year on, with the masking novelty of the game’s tuning aspects worn off, it’s disappointingly limited and remote. And despite the increased choice and plot introduction the whole exercise can often feel soulless. [Christmas 2004, p.60]

It's a game that follows the steps of another while changing the rhythm - and in doing so, never settles into its own groove. [Issue#330, p.114]

Colourful, crafty, and cheerily free of ambitions, it's the perfect companion for a drowsy early morning commute.

Design flaws include a bizarre decision to cordon off most of the ship after completion, locking away any unique items you previously overlooked. Much of the game commendably favours stealth players but the rest can feel shambolic.

Eventually you come to feel less like you're changing the world so much as being given a half-finished jigsaw: there's a certain pleasure to slotting in the missing pieces, but completing the job can be a laborious process. [March 2018, p.114]

This is the kind of ornamental contraption that elicits oohs and aahs when examined from afar, but was never REALLY designed to be played with. [Issue#366, p.123]

It's an easy game to play, and even enjoy, but a tough one to love. [March 2018, p.116]

Though the setting is clichéd and you’ll have experienced all the tricks Frictional has pulled to construct Black Plague’s menacing atmosphere before (echoed voices, bestial groans, oppressive shadows, flickering lights), they’re highly effective. [Apr 2008, p.96]

It’s rarely elegant – a horde of zombie cosmonauts exited our ship as quickly as they entered after arriving next to a hull breach – but in battling back from the brink of obliteration there are moments you’ll feel like a surrogate Kirk. Crashes, glitches and repetition break the spell, but when it’s time for some thrilling heroics Star Command proves itself a worthwhile enterprise.

The comic hit rate is lower here than you might have hoped for, but Telltale shows a commendable knowledge of when to simply emulate the Sam & Max of old and when to move forward. [Dec 2006, p.89]

Regrets? Team Ninja may have a few. It's chartered course doesn't seem particularly well planned, nor its steps along the byway especially careful - and it certainly bites off more than it can chew. Yet while this curious, distinctive spin-off may not be close to the finest hour for its developer nor this storied series, its' makers can stand tall knowing that, to paraphrase Ol' Blue Eyes, they did it their way. [Issue#371, p.108]

As an example of unabashed, often exuberant Britsoft that pulls out the SRPG's staples and rebinds it in approachable ease, Future Tactics is remarkable, deserving of cult status. [Aug 2004, p.99]

Eastshade may not be the game it could be, but it paints a picture many others could learn from. [Issue#330, p.122]

Indeed, Tactica is very much a Persona 5 game, with all that entails: conceptually sound, visually stylish, lovingly assembled - and needlessly drawn out. [Issue#392, p.116]

Rad is another great Lee Petty idea, then - though in its current form, it's a few mutations away from reaching its full potential. [Issue#337, p.114]

Those seeking strategic depth may find Bulwark wanting, but if you're happy to kitbash without consequence then Sala's atmospheric world is worth a return visit. [Issue#397, p.112]

For the time being, Exordium represents a kind of success, even if it’s tempered by the evident struggle to achieve an objective that may, in the end, prove to be a fool’s errand.

You can't just mine your inspirations; ideally, you should build on them. [Issue#392, p.120]

Sonic Unleashed isn’t quite the spectacular return to form promised, but it’s a hell of a lot closer than Sega’s other recent efforts. [Jan 2009, p.89]

It still has much to do. But for the first time in a while, Destiny 2 players have finally been given something to be positive about. [Issue#315, p.116]

It's a detour into new territory that will satisfy co-op players as it maintains, rather than distills, the essence of its ancestry. [Dec 2011, p.122]

You'll find a number of technical issues plaguing the game, from scenery clipping to inconsistent collision and some hideously low resolution textures. But the game's relentless dedication to giving you violent bangs for your bucks goes some way to compensating for them. Because Twisted Metal at its best delivers exactly what it sets out to: a messy, manic and tasteless treat.

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]

Rather than developing the original’s ideas, it’s content to simply reuse them. Zipping around via a network of boost tiles no longer carries the same thrill, and though squeezing the shoulder button as a monster passes by a translucent platform remains one of the most deliciously cruel ways to dispose of an enemy, repeating the trick diminishes its impact.

Area 51 is entirely without inspiration, an exercise in slick, crowd-pleasing cookie-cutter cliché from the Jerry Bruckheimer school of entertainment manufacture. It is absolutely not bad, almost never broken, and usually a good deal of fun. [July 2005, p.92]

It's like watching penguins in an Attenborough documentary turning from ungainly waddlers into torpedoes. [Issue#397, p.114]

Like so many of its class of 2019 contemporaries, The Blackout Club attempts to turn a traditionally solitary genre into a shared world of sorts. Also, like so many contemporaries, it doesn't find a compelling reason for doing so. [Issue#337, p.118]

It's good to see Inman opting for something other than a straight sequel, but this is one space odyssey that won't last you much longer than a pleasant hour or so.

More intelligent than your average online shooter, ... this quirky concept deserves recognition. [May 2004, p.108]

There's nothing to stop a dedicated RPG fan from having a thoroughly good time but the Arc the Lad games have always had a derivative heritage and this is competent but sadly no different. [Sept 2003]

A thrilling ride, but with so little strategic variety, and without the benefit of multiplayer, a certain sameness takes hold and unfortunately cuts short what could have been a fantastic portable shooter resurgence. [Christmas 2005, p.111]

Here's hoping we have bigger and deeper globe-trotting adventures with them in the future (provided we live to see it). [Issue#371, p.118]

A game this difficult, with everything to lose from permadeath, should at the very least feel fair; without any balancing of enemies against your character's progress (something that Upstream Arcade has seemingly done none of) West of Dead does not. [Issue#348, p.100]

Something of a quirky offshoot than a bold new puzzling dawn. [Jan 2007, p.83]

An acceptable game rising from the foundations of a great one. Hutch has proved it can do amazing things with Apple's touchscreen but, this time at least, it's provided dubious implementation of almost everything else.

With its extravagant art direction, Samurai Warriors was the obvious franchise for Koei to debut on Nintendo's new platform. The surprise is how well the simple combat and new ideas work as a portable experience. [May 2011, p.105]

One supposedly shocking reveal is so transparent a five-year-old could guess it. [Nov 2018, p.112]

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

It's more sopping than soppy, then - despite and abundance of salt water, a game we had pegged as a surefire tearjerker never really comes close to making us well up. [Issue#371, p.122]

Multiplayer’s not much better, and is a rare area in which Shadow Fall suffers technically, the action slowing to a crawl when things get busy thanks to an unlocked framerate.

Though still unique, Patapon's crisp, minimalist art design and central mechanic is no longer a strong enough draw to excuse its repetitiveness and price tag. [May 2011, p.99]

This is a deeply flawed game, but a fascinating one which makes you think as much as wince. [Christmas 2008, p.99]

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

Puzzles are too child-friendly, their solutions more fiddly than mentally taxing. The pleasure earned from cracking Miymoto’s designs is instead targeted by flashy 2.5D level design – snaking sights that admittedly look wonderfully crisp on Wii – and set-pieces for the impatient. [Mar 2009, p.95]

The eventful, minute-long matches and frantic to-and-fro make Mario Strikers a suitable curtain-raiser for online gaming on the Wii, but a balanced and deep extreme sports game this is not. [June 2007, p.87]

Taken in isolation, there's no denying Cold Fear's panache - RenderWare has rarely been used to such strong visual effect - and there is a fair helping of survival horror entertainment to be had here, it's just that you have to dig through several layers of frustration to get at it. [Apr 2005, p.96]

At once expanded yet stripped back (or focused, if you're feeling generous), Luminous might not quite be Endless Ocean as we knew it, but it retains enough of the series' distinctive signature that it's worth taking the plunge. [Issue#398, p.120]

The handling hasn’t evolved and a year on, with the masking novelty of the game’s tuning aspects worn off, it’s disappointingly limited and remote. And despite the increased choice and plot introduction the whole exercise can often feel soulless. [Christmas 2004, p.60]

Ultimately, Urban Chaos doesn't have the reach to deliver what it promises, and ends up retreating into cliché. A few months more, a few dollars more and this could have made a much more defiant stand. [June 2006, p.93]

Western is an old-fashioned game about an old-fashioned time, and although it may not possess the swaggering production values or wit of "Red Dead Revolver," it’s a thoroughly guilty pleasure. [March 2005, p.90]

Likeable despite its flaws. [March 2015, p.106]

It gains points for plot and the audacity of simulating an online world, and could have scored higher, but its simplicity and inflexible save system drag it down. [Apr 2004, p.108]

Where the game really succeeds, however, beyond providing a robust and solid, if unassuming model of explorative stealth and attack, is in fulfilling that old and oft-forgotten criterion - putting the gamer inside the movie. [Aug 2005, p.95]

While these new ingredients can be magical, they’re not enough to produce a truly golden successor. Nevertheless, it’s still an RPG that contains some precious properties. [July 2006, p.90]

Even though Situation: Comedy zealously aims for the easiest of targets – cheap television – its satire can feel obvious at times and its parodies fall flat a little more frequently than they should. [Feb 2007, p.85]

Modern Warfare is precariously balanced. On a straightforward level, its multiplayer is admirable in its reform and a touch undercooked in its execution, while the inventiveness in its six hours of campaign remind players why this became such a juggernaut name in the industry. But underneath that, there's an unease about the way Modern Warfare pushes the player's buttons without demonstrating respect for or responsibility to its source material. [Issue#340, p.110]

Juiced 2’s driving dynamic couldn’t be more easygoing without offering an autopilot option... The exception are the drift events, where the game may actually lead its genre. [Dec 2007, p.94]

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.

Tekken 7 feels cynically put together, a solid but ultimately 20-year-old fighting system freshened up with mechanical twists and bulked out with gimmicks rather than gilded with the series' signature personality. [Aug 2017, p.114]

With your monster ally at your side, it offers glimpses of something more intriguing, but its most interesting idea is the one that feels frustratingly underexplored. [June 2011, p.101]

So, then: the best expansion so far and the game at its worst. Such a contradiction could only be made by Bethesda.

The relentless thrill of one half of it dragged down by the barren, boring needless sprawl of the other. [Issue#334, p.110]

It all makes it an even greater shame that you'll sometimes feel compelled to jump off and end it all. [Tested with Oculus Rift; Aug 2016, p.116]

Fatal Inertia promised so much in its early showings (which claimed to represent in-game footage), but has turned out as a decent but thoroughly predictable racer. [Oct 2007, p.95]

Vega$ pushes the stagnant tycoon genre as far as it can go, and is currently the best looking management sim available. But how far can you flog a dead Elvis? [Dec 2003, p.103]

After some hit-and-miss experimentation, SOCOM needs refreshing, and this more aggressive approach is aiming in the right direction, even if it isn't a direct hit. [June 2011, p.93]

For all Zoo Tycoon’s charms, it’s ultimately too shallow; there’s only so much cooing at identikit baby animals you can do before the inevitable fatigue sets in.

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]

It’s a unique offering for 360 owners – as it would have been for Xbox – certainly, but one who’s highlights can’t match those of the RPGs currently burning brightly on PS2. [Apr 2006, p.87]

While fans will revel in the HD sheen of its signature gore, long-standing cynics and newcomers alike will find a game that, just as it did 19 years ago, pales in comparison to its more fluid, graceful peers. [June 2011, p.95]

An unforgiving experience … but Nightshade still has enough chutzpah to give those weaned on games without saves a stern and nostalgic challenge. Those afraid of tough bosses need not apply. [Mar 2004, p.103]

The engagements of Red River are a nuanced and precise art, one entirely at odds with the hollow cockiness of the cast and one that underscores the real war going on between Operation Flashpoint's essence and its new macho attitude. [June 2011, p.90]

As a follow-up to Section 8, it delivers much the same experience as its predecessor, albeit repackaged in a more wallet-friendly, downloadable form. [June 2011, p.94]

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]

Unfortunately, the solution it has landed on is missing some essential thing that has always made Doom work, another concept you wouldn't necessarily associate with this series: elegance. [Issue#412, p.104]

Treyarch has taken just enough from COD4 to make World At War a broad success, but it remains firmly in its shadow. [Christmas 2008, p.90]

A slightly muddled gimmick and dilute sense of identity mean Sonic is unlikely to outpace the competition. [Issue#334, p.114]

Outerlight will patch out the inconsistencies and interface issues, and the community around it will settle. The final delight: this game will get better. The last frustration: we're being made to wait. [Sept 2006, p.83]

One thing is certain: Concrete Genie's identity crisis proves its creators still have some maturing left to do. [Issue#340, p.106]

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

Popcap’s latest digital narcotic is a particularly potent concoction, building on a game we’ve all idly wasted quiet working hours on with an adorable aquatic theme and a ticking clock to make it extra moreish. Be prepared to spend, however, if you don’t want the hit to wear off quickly.

Reus is a god game, but not one that makes you feel particularly omnipotent. That’s partly because all the divine heavy lifting and occasional smiting is performed indirectly, by a set of elemental colossi, but also because Reus’ complex simulation can be rather daunting. God is in the details, it’s true, but he didn’t have to think quite so hard about them.

For its fights alone Knights In The Knightmare is a worthy effort, another semi-successful attempt to find the sweet spot for stylus-driven roleplay. [July 2009, p.101]

The player is required to reap their principle enjoyment from the narrative and the cinematic rather than the interactive. The traditional flow of play has been turned on its head: cut-scenes are the new king, gameplay elements little more than lines to link the drama. [Apr 2005, p.104]

Despite its shortcomings, then, Revenge Of The Savage Planet turns out to be a game that was worth saving. [Issue#412, p.110]

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]

Gearbox has made a game that is stable and complete, if hugely unrefined in places, with an under-exploited but sound core of tactical squad combat. [Nov 2008, p.93]

It's a bloated, often incoherent game, but the most frustrating thing about Resident Evil 6 is that (Chris's focus on cover shooting aside) it's not an unimaginative one. It might feel padded at times, but Capcom always has something new to show you after the filler, such as a fresh campaign, another repellent boss form, a surprising enemy type, a co-op vehicle section, or an odd location to explore.

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

The ingredients might sound tasty in isolation, but the recipe isn't quite right, leaving us with a dish best described as an attractive hotchpotch. [Issue#356, p.100]

There's no doubting that Circadia's ingenious, of course: at heart it's a clever idea expressed with stylish economy. In the teasing out of that idea, however, it arguably turns into a game where it's the designer, and not the player, who's truly having most of the fun.

Above all, there's something fortifying in the game's message, however awkwardly it's delivered: keep walking; there's always a way out of the darkness. [Issue#412, p.114]

It's not bad at all, but it's not different. It might add to Skyrim, but it doesn't enrich it in doing so.

Viking’s shortfalls just seem so peculiar when compared to the surging competency of its strengths. [May 2008, p.90]

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

Evoland’s short length means the conceit never tires, and it does provide a rather brilliant excuse for the game beneath being rather unoriginal. Sadly, Evoland’s barebones take on turn-based battles leads to some other unnecessary padding – but this is still a pleasant walk down memory lane.