For better and worse, they conjure fond reminiscences of the originals and the developer that made them. [Issue#394, p.102]

Go Mecha Ball can be as frustrating as it is exhilarating. [Issue#394, p.104]

With only the graphical layer receiving much attention it lacks the necessary breadth and depth to elevate itself far beyond the status of nostalgic curio. [Jan 2009, p.97]

As it stands, for all the words you cycle through, Until Then does its best work when it focuses on the visual and the novel. [Issue#400, p.123]

Slitterhead remains a curio worth examining - original and, yes, full-blooded in its approach. Lacking the subtleties of more psychological horror, Bokeh Game Studio justifies its flood of plasma and mountains body count both mechancially and thematically. In the end, though, it's the same anarchic roughness and lack of restraint that drags it down. [Issue#405, p.114]

A game of canny, and often quite annoying, design. [June 2018, p.120]

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]

Its lead's epiphanies - or 'bolts of brilliance' - are his most underwhelming moments. [June 2018, p.122]

Despite a fair few moments of awe, the governing and familiar impression here is of compromise. The vivid aesthetic and precise audio of the console versions have respectively been mellowed and overplayed, the design beaten into handheld shape and accordingly bruised. [Apr 2006, p.93]

Comparisons with "Halo" are inevitable. Unfortunately, Fire Warrior shows how developers can steal elements from superior games, while fundamentally misunderstanding why they worked so well in the first place. [Nov 2003, p.101]

Underneath these niggles and inconsistencies lies the kernel of a solid and interesting game that could blossom if pursued in a future release. [June 2008, p.96]

The variety of the controls is overdone, making the game complex and confusing, and there's no customisable multiplayer. Nonetheless, this is a welcoming, capable and entertaining take on what gaming used to mean. [Aug 2004, p.106]

The result is competent and complex, but not convincing enough to raise any significant emotion other than impatience. It feels like a clockwork approximation of football, lacking the grace, variety and scope of FIFA.

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]

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]

To appreciate the game's dilemma, look no further than its multiplayer modes, which have so little room for manoeuvre that they needn't have existed at all. [May 2007, p.94]

It's entertaining, but if SOCOM II is the pinnacle of Sony's online achievement - and it is - then Microsoft has convincingly won the online battle. At least for this round. [Mar 2004, p.100]

This is a game whose best moments are diluted by a torrent of filler, whose beauty is obscured by its technical shortcomings, and whose obvious potential is squandered by a lack of polish. That weird orange sky is, alas, the least of its problems. [Christmas 2016, p.110]

We can't help wondering if a narrowing of scope, instead of crowbarred-in construction mechanics or a baffling option to interact with NPCs that function like in-world AI chatbots, may have given this fiction real room to breathe. For now, there are too many winds blowing in different directions. [Issue#418, p.108]

Solo players are likely to be left wondering what happened over all those years. [Issue#403, p.112]

A game with energy and personality in abundance, but it fizzles out too easily [Issue#358, p.114]

There's enough vim and vinegar to Sunday Gold's central gimmick that we wouldn't mind playing a sequel. [Issue#377, p.118]

Without a greater degree of authorship - a few lightly scripted cases in predesigned cities to complement the sandbox mode - Shadows of Doubt is too prone to be bewildering or illogical red herrings, shrouding the experience in uncertainty. [Issue#403, p.113]

As a series, Civilization is being quietly surpassed. [Christmas 2016, p.114]

Pikuniku's got legs, even if it lacks the stamina to fully get over the finish line. [March 2019, p.122]

Shadowrun has too many cooks: it’s a heady broth initially, and the possibilities might seem unmatched, but ultimately it turns out to be limited fun. [Aug 2007, p.88]

Like its titular star, the game tends to transform, flipping from triumphant to frustrating, and back again.

Look at it one way, and it's a choking journey with unprecedented attention to unease and psychological horror, a game framed with unparalleled sophistication. From another angle, it's just a clunky PSone throwback, with all the design wit of a dodo. [Aug 2004, p.92]

The whole production’s chintzy Hollywood feel is just right, and there’s plenty to keep its target audience entertained. [Jan 2009, p.90]

Burn, Zombie, Burn’s serving of arcade chaos is instantly gratifying, if a tad trivial, and its nods to deadsploitation flicks should tickle those not yet tiring of Crypt Keeper chic. [Feb 2009, p.97]

While it doesn't reach the upper echelon of 3D platformers, the fact that it bolsters a genre so starved these days, as many indies stay in their two-dimenstional lane, while 3D games take a more serious tone, is worth celebrating, especially when its overt cultural charms are so endearing. [Issue#403, p.118]

It's both startling and amusing to see a rival expressing annoyance, befuddlement or smugness. [Issue#387, p.110]

As efficiently and proficiently designed as Logan’s Shadow is, it’s unavoidably tied to the problems associated with action games of this type on PSP. [Feb 2008, p.96]

Wideload has placed a welcome knee in the groin of the status quo, but by taking its subject too lightly it's also failed to turn an adventurous prototype into a durable production. [Christmas 2005, p.102]

Alluringly lurid, but ultimately disposable. [Dec 2009, p.92]

If the narrative wrapper hardly registers while you're playing, the incidental dialogue can be quite witty. [Issue#377, p.121]

Guitar Hero has one of the most intuitive and subtle control systems of any game, but here it becomes increasingly subservient to making the game – yes – rock hard, and for the average player will often descend into button-mashing. [Christmas 2007, p.98]

If the Crew's ultimate fate is to be a kind of racing game variety pack, the role seems to suit it. [Issue#390, p.126]

A music game, like a DJ, is only as good as the contents of its record crate. Fuser hasn't done enough digging. [Issue#353, p.119]

Despite the absence of punishing deadlines, though, maybe this escape is a little too much like work after all. [Issue#403, p.122]

Playing against AI can throw up a challenge, but requires patience. Higher difficulties give the AI more time to think, but DTOL's real problem is its interface. It's simple to the point of crudity, but functionally it can be opaque and cluttered, making a reasonably complex game seem even more so while you're figuring out the rules. Get past that, and there's an acute psychological game to be played in DTOL, but it'll require time – and an extra player – to find it.

As far as plot-twist clichés go, Downpour trots out all of the usual suspects.

It is pleasantly diverting, the kind of game it's easy to gobble up in a couple of long sittings - but equally there's little to really stir the blood. It may have gorgeous particle effects in abundance, but what it's really missing is a spark. [Issue#364, p.110]

No one thing ruins Cavorite, but its pile of minor faults eventually overshadow its charisma. The levels can be ingenious, and Dr Cavor's quirky animations and great gimmick feel fresh, but the experience soon devolves into attrition rather than a challenge.

As much as it's captivating to soak in the atmosphere Selfloss creates, you should prepare for some choppy waters. [Issue#403, p.123]

This sense of verite is the game's greatest strength. [Issue#377, p.123]

Sir, You Are Being Hunted needs something more – a change in objective, focus or challenge to sustain engagement beyond the point when snatching teleporter pieces from robots on the coast loses its sense of mystery. As it is, it’s caught in an awkward hinterland of its own.

Too often in Forestrike, you lose because you do what the game invites you to do. [Issue#418, p.122]

The Occupation's design could take a few cues from its world when it comes to balancing the analogue and the digital. [Issue#331, p.112]

Nintendo is famed for sprinkling around mechanics other developers would build entire games on, but here the effect is quite irritating. [Oct 2008, p.97]

This is a game of contradictions, then. It's an impressive exercise in mystery construction that often cringes at its own geeky strengths, masking its intelligence behind juvenile posturing. But at the same time its technical shortcomings rob it of that swagger, its anime stylings lacking the gloss you'd expect from the cocksure tone. Much can be forgiven when you're submerged in its waterlogged crimes, but you never quite shake the sense that Master Detective Archives is raining on its own parade. [Issue#387, p.118]

Performance issues, some ugly world assets and the story's pacing issues undermine the entertaining combat. [Issue#361, p.104]

It remains an early PS Move highlight, but one that can't boast the charm or accessibility of its Wii rivals, despite the improved tech. [Nov 2010, p.92]

But there's no denying that this feels like straightforward filler, granting rewards without ever feeling rewarding. Much like the brainwashed metahumans the game asks us to put down, we expect the highs of this reluctant forever game are already behind it. [Issue#395, p.104]

Undemanding kids will have a whale of a time, but from an innovator like Sackboy, we've come to expect a little more. [Issue#353, p.121]

The solid presentation and well-adjusted linear flow of the game make it simple, if mindless, fun. [Jan 2008, p.85]

Spider-Man 2 presents players with a city ripe for action and exploration, but once you swing down out of the clouds and take a closer look at the grubby streets and roads strewn with vehicles, you'll find little to pique your interest. [Sept 2004, p.100]

The whole is far greater than the subtraction of its failures would suggest, and will attract many put off by the wonderfully absurd complexities of Nippon Ichi’s brazen coup. [July 2005, p.90]

New Dawn is a clearing of the air after Far Cry 5, but calling it a "new dawn" is preposterous. What we have here is a sideways hop, a purgatory of a sequel in a series that has no idea what to do with itself, beyond giving you another mapful of nodes to flip. [Issue#331, p.116]

It’s a brave game that dares to weaken players in one way as it empowers them in another. Comcept may be wrong in thinking Monster Hunter would be better if it was just about hunting monsters, but Soul Sacrifice is courageous and thematically bold enough to distinguish itself from the clones that have followed in the wake of Capcom’s phenomenon. As with Inafune’s recurring criticisms of Japan, however, it proves repetition isn’t always the best way to make a point.

Tactics lacks what it needs the most, which is the seemingly limitless potential achieved by its predecessor. [Feb 2008, p.94]

Dangerous Driving simply isn't suited to a mode that won't let you crash. Patched out, or left optional, these wouldn't be enough to stop most from happily reliving Burnout's heyday; currently, however, it would be reckless to recommend. [Issue#332, p.118]

What began as a celebration ends with nostalgia’s bubble being cruelly pricked.

Crisis Core gets arguably the most important thing right: its story is often expertly engineered and delivered, and despite the odd misstep (Genesis becomes especially tiresome as the game wears on) is some achievement in itself. [June 2008, p.86]

For all Team Ninja's talk of keeping it more real, DOA5 is mostly business as usual. There are tweaks to the formula and aesthetic, but nothing too sacrilegious or enticing. It's disappointing, then, that this has little to offer over its forebear.

Argonaut's latest platformer is certainly a curious brew. You get the impression that loads of ideas have been thrown into the pot but, unfortunately, none of the weaker ones have been rejected. [Feb 2004, p.101]

Look at it one way, and it's a choking journey with unprecedented attention to unease and psychological horror, a game framed with unparalleled sophistication. From another angle, it's just a clunky PSone throwback, with all the design wit of a dodo. [Aug 2004, p.92]

It's an enjoyably twisted and often satisfying piece of fantasy, then, even though the reality of its more generic aspects poses a serious threat to its achievements. [JPN Import; Oct 2006, p.92]

The concept at the core of Yosumin Live is robust, but it fails to hold up under extended play. Either Square Enix has happened upon a brilliant mechanic that has yet to fully bloom or one that it has been unable to sustain. The scant progression Yosumin has made in its transition from webgame to XBLA release indicates that perhaps it is the latter.

Sadly, the early learning curve is far too shallow, while creative freedom is often illusory, with a single solution to many stages. Rovio does eventually loosen the reins, but the combination of rickety vehicles and unforgiving level design only heightens the frustration.

The game's great strength is the well-judged escalation of pace and scale. From your humble dungarees-and-pistol beginnings, the expansion of your squad means missions intensify from hit-and-run raids to large-scale onslaughts. And it is this, ultimately, which induces a sensation of swaggering brawn that allows the game's hiccups to be forgiven. [Oct 2003, p.99]

There’s no question that DUB Edition can be pleasurable, especially in the multiplayer games, but the Career mode too often feels like graft. There are tournaments, one-off street races and ‘special’ events, but each individual race feels much the same as the last. [June 2005, p.92]

Naturally, it isn’t as attractive as its console cousin, though zoom down to eye level during its majestic sunsets and the shanties belted out by your crew make for a reasonable facsimile of the console game.

More broadly, it's let down by how it treats its brutal subject matter, all the way through to a dramatic but glib conclusion. [Issue#401, p.110]

Yet this game lingers somehow when you're not playing. [Issue#332, p.123]

Were it not for its creative direction's admirable job of filling in its patchy mechanics' gaps it would be entirely skippable. With those gaps filled it's a charming, if flawed, achievement. [June 2006, p.96]

The game's second half descends into a fiasco...One thing's for certain: if there's a great action game in Infamous 2, no one's actually built it yet.

Dungeons of Hinterberg is more like those all-inclusive package tours that blend together in a mind-collage of cocktails by the pool and the dine of the breakfast buffet: pleasant enough to pass the time but too safe to leave a lasting mark. [Issue#401, p.112]

Aged environments and models are wheeled out and the interface is surprisingly clunky and obtrusive. There is a solid game here to prop it up, but it's indicative of the no-frills production that even the robotic announcer seems to be phoning in its performance. [May 2004, p.103]

That becomes a bigger problem late in the game, where it resorts to the cheapest method of raising the difficulty by simply throwing high-level enemies at you in increasing numbers. In one battle, you're tasked with holding a position for a given amount of time, before being told that isn't enough; you must now finish off all the remaining enemies. At which point it has become clear that no matter how effective the synergy of our augs, mods and weapons may be, our survival hinges upon us grinding side-quests to raise our level. What a shame The Ascent should make the final steps of its climb so arduous - even if there is evidence here that its maker could yet go all the way to the top. [Issue#362, p.110]

The overriding sensation is that, 18 years of waiting later, this is not the game we had dreamed of... And despite the areas in which it clearly struggles, Shenmue III does ultimately leave us wanting to see how those plot developments are resolved, and to take our virtual tourism to a new frontier. Whether we, and Hazuki, will get that opportunity... we'll see. [Issue#341, p.98]

Resistance Retribution might be shallow, but its good looks and refined controls lend a certain mesmerising pleasure to it nonetheless. [Apr 2009, p.124]

Despite its reheated fantasy trappings and formulaic design principles, it also remains surprisingly easy to get hooked on the steady dopamine hit of each fresh loot acquisition and the rhythm of the game's combat pulse.

It feels best when you're making snap decisions, the action moving along with a satisfying pop, pop, pop rhythm that echoes the films. [Issue#133, p.104]

The experience certainly isn’t awful, but nor is it in any way exceptional – and up against the accomplished competition, that simply won’t be good enough. [June 2007, p.93]

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

The illusion of epic-scale warfare remains a powerful and entertaining one, broken most significantly by the player’s need to avoid overexposing themselves to its fundamentally tedious nature. [Feb 2007, p.85]

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]

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.

There’s a lot of charm to Fetch, and this is as charmingly produced as anything on iOS, but there’s little adventure or arcade substance beneath its surface.

Though its essential concept is well worn, Ninjatown is sturdily designed and offers a commendably flexible set of strategies for survival against the hordes. [Christmas 2008, p.97]

There are nice touches – cockroaches that scatter under your flashlight, the occasional puzzle, effective cutscenes – but there is little that you won’t have found implemented in a vastly more satisfactory form elsewhere. [May 2008, p.99]

The pacing, thanks to a combination of necessary haste and the weakness of your divided squad members, feels more akin to a corridor shooter; there's a constant sensation of feeling harried and hemmed in. [Oct 2004, p.107]

It's not so much that less could have been more here, but rather that it fails to replicate what made those classic JRPGs so beloved. [Issue#362, p.118]

It's perhaps because the title benefits from such a high production spend, in fact, that the average design and execution becomes more pronounced. [Mar 2004]

Once the novelty of the new setting and storylines has worn off - there's little genuine inovation to hold your interest. [July 2004, p.104]

Did a purse-holder at Activision one day grapple fruitlessly with the last game's control system and scrawl in their subsequent notes "Make the next one so that I can play it"? Speculation aside, someone sure messed-up Spider-Man. [Dec 2005, p.108]

While Neversoft's course design holds up, its objectives sadly don't; setting high scores is as thrilling and rewarding as ever, but we're less forgiving of being asked to collect five objects dotted around a level without a right-stick camera than we were at the turn of the millennium.