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]

This is a soothing lullaby of a game: a leisurely bit of counter-programming that, contrary to forecasts, doesn't disgrace the series' good name. [Issue#310, p.120]

Ghosthunter is from the same studio that brought us "Primal," and it shows. With so many adventure games on the market, this is an interesting, but ultimately staid example. Like "Primal," Ghosthunter struggles to be fun. [Jan 2004, p.101]

With its best ideas exhausted long before the developer tires of them, some moments of real ingenuity are swamped by busywork. At times, you’ll admire the craftsmanship, but Sky Tourist is often too busy trying to be clever to remember to be fun.

There are neat touches: you've got infinite ammo, brilliantly, and inhaling gas leaves you with a temporary cough that ruins your aim … but it needs a few more tactics to make it more than the sum of its admittedly solid parts. [Christmas 2003, p.116]

Were spirits to play a game while they waited in Purgatory, surely it would be Mario Party. It can take an age to get to the end, and the minigames are interspersed with a turgid board game section that tests the patience to its limits. [Jan 2004, p.109]

While its appeal may have some age restrictions, some of those minigames are deceptively distracting, and doubly so. [Jan 2007, p.85]

The sad fact is that this combat mostly fails to ignite interest, and combined with its cruel difficulty spikes, occasional glitches and a severe differential in graphical quality between 360 and PS3 versions (the latter losing out), Turok's strong contextualisation and smattering of brave ideas get buried. [Mar 2008, p.92]

Conan is a genuine surprise. It’s not innovative in its entirety, but it does almost as much as it can with the central conceit, and thus proves one of the better examples of the hack’n’slash genre. [Dec 2007, p.93]

The game occasionally drags, arguably due to representing the bleakness of its environment and the challenges of existing within it a little too keenly. Autosave points are few and far between, which means that on anything above normal difficulty your frequent restarts will result in much repetition. Likewise, I Am Alive's platforming is occasionally cumbersome and inexact. But nevertheless this game offers a journey worth charting, one of physics, social decline and welcome terror in a market overrun by zombies.

As chaotic and unrefined as it is, however, it motors on with a definite sense of purpose and provides a solid sense of fulfilment, if not necessarily one of accomplishment. [Christmas 2005, p.110]

This is not, then, the kind of game you pick up and play between train stops, but one to sit down with when you've got an afternoon stretching out in front of you. [Issue#338, p.118]

Octodad: Dadliest Catch asks you to overlook an awful lot more than plot holes.

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.

Clock Tower 3 is never scary: rather it's unwitting proof of the banality of evil. [June 2003, p.101]

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]

Annoyances aside, there's a sense of pluck to Titanic Scion which may well power you through its most threadbare moments and its nagging UI quirks. [Issue#416, p.118]

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

Ends up feeling like it's been built by PC game developers obsessed with quick saves. There's absolutely no creative latitude; it's a case of remembering where enemies appear and getting them before they get you. [May 2005, p.86]

The game's world of desperate survival is much more effectively painted through its mechanics. [Issue#386, p.112]

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]

Ironically, this series is unlikely to blossom until its popularity wanes and Koei stops being afraid to change it. [July 2005, p.95]

Toybox deserves a wider audience. Chunky, colourful and challenging, this is a game that makes the most of its strange conceits. Occasionally those Nobel laureates are onto something, then.

Ultimately, though, the derivative puzzling and repetitive grid of traversing Sker House at an absolutely snail's pace makes Maid of Sker more like a crawling simulation than a game that truly makes our skin crawl. [Issue#349, p.104]

It's a smart idea in an enjoyably brisk score-attack game that sadly feels a little undernourished thanks to the brevity of its campaign and its repetitive play rhythms.

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.

Try and play Shelter as a perfectionist and you’ll fail, the victim of a cruel world and occasionally clunky, unclear rules. Better to simply do your best, allow Might and Delight’s fantastical art to enthrall, and let nature take its course.

Boom Boom Rocket is marking time rather than feeling the rhythm, and that’s not enough to set Live Arcade’s skies alight. [June 2007, p.88]

It's a bold first effort from the studio - the first spark of something great, perhaps. [Issue#338, p.122]

Early on, we wondered why they don't make games like this more often. Within a few short hours, we were grateful they don't. [Issue#338, p.120]

Structurally, the game is a waking nightmare. The hub world is vast and unnecessarily confusing, and it is possible to become trapped in levels if you can't figure out where to go next. [Mar 2004, p.108]

It looks great, and the boosting system means that, as a time-trial game, it's fantastic. If your progress wasn't so easily sabotaged by a thoughtless collision, it would be a fantastic racer, too. [June 2004, p.104]

Acclaim's latest manages to tick all the required futuristic race sim boxes, except the one titled 'memorable'. There's one really good thing about XGRA - it's all over very quickly. [Nov 2003, p.109]

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]

Every one of its features you will find in better games elsewhere - with a strong emphasis on the plural, since Rune Factory 5 tries to cram in so many different genres. [Issue#371, p.116]

Residents themselves are a colourless bunch, a series of knowing archetypes – goth girls, hip DJs, Italian chefs – that lack the effortless charm of Animal Crossing’s simple ciphers. [Dec 2007, p.97]

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]

A simple, finely tuned and comprehensive shooter that only rarely wobbles. [Sept 2009, p.100]

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]

There's not doubt that chasing the 'Ippon Master' bonus is where the most fun is to be had. [Issue#348, p.98]

A remake that's peculiarly of its time: a western-style, casual gaming aping of the Japanese shoot 'em up that's less homage than banal dilution, and the game sucks the life and vibrancy from its rich lineage. [July 2008, p.99]

Despite the simplicity of the puzzles, it's an unnecessarily bewildering game for the first hour or so. There's an RPG's worth of menus, full of abilities and stats you just don't need to know about yet. [Mar 2004, p.109]

Sure, Three Fields might not have the resources its founders once did, but it feels as if the studio was in rather too much of a hurry to get this one out the door. [Issue#323, p.122]

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]

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]

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

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.

As much as Firmament highlights the skills and importance of industrial labourers, then, it also brings with it some of the tedium of the real work - which surely wasn't part of the blueprint. [Issue#386, p.118]

Attempts to bring the fun back into Henry's life make for a more engaging third act, even as they inadvertently underline that they (and we) are largely going through the motions. By the treacly finale, we're more saddened by the unfulfilled promise of the start. Lululu's insistence on Saying Something over exploring the potential of its central mechanic proves, well, unbecoming; Henry Halfhead is at its best when possession is nine-tenths of the lore. [Issue#416, p.121]

EDF was never about careful aiming or strategic cover or any of the other things that drive modern shooters, though – it’s about superior firepower earned through RPG grind, but 2025 has made the happy grind gruelling.

Playing it instils a completely neutral response, as though it were no more than a means of absorbing time. [Jan 2008, p.91]

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]

It's the curse of "better with friends" - if any member of your own personal brigade loses interest, it could quickly end up a dusty relic. [Nov 2018, p.118]

Disarray is perhaps the best way to sum up Battleborn. [July 2016, p.108]

Brink is not revolution. It might not even be evolution of the kind the FPS needs. If anything, it's an ideas board: a fun enough game in the short-term, but more valuable in the long run to better and brighter thieves.

Though the game’s confidence falters, its storytelling never does, building a new myth with the kind of passion and resonance expected from an eastern retelling of an old one, and enriching the entire sweep of its universe. [June 2005, p.84]

As much as The Chant contains a solid action adventure, then, it could do with more suitable clothing. [Issue#379, p.116]

Most egregious of all is that Deracine too often turns into a tedious game of hunt the sparkle, as you grope awkwardly around bodies to find the twinkle that triggers conversation audio. [Jan 2019, p.118]

On retreading the levels enemy attacks become predictable puppet shows, with mad-eyed soldiers lining up to get killed exactly where they did many times before. It's the kind of repetition more commonly associated with lightgun games these days. [Christmas 2003, p.109]

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]

It may lack the emotional heft of darker epics, but it remains a tightly plotted confection with charm to spare. [Jan 2009]

Given the power at the player's fingertips to rewind, pause, fast forward and even record time, the scope for creating some genuinely engaging and ingenious situations is still as immense as it ever was. But, in actuality, everything is blandly obvious and ironically one-dimensional, and the use of the rewind function is still as chronological as it ever was. [Jan 2005, p.91]

The result is not a bad game, but Steelrising's beautiful and imaginative shell is wrapped around a workmanlike interior. [Issue#377, p.110]

This characterful, sprawling throwback might well have been considered a classic two decades ago. But, as its creators have patently discovered, it isn't 1997 anymore. [June 2017, p.86]

As dating-centered RPGs go, we know a spot, and it's not here. [Issue#390, p.136]

This is a simple game at heart, a game about learning the rules, becoming really good at manipulating the elements, and then getting a huge high score to brag about. And who could argue with that? [Oct 2007, p.98]

The beauty of Deadly Premonition is that it's a straightforward whodunnit viewed through the cracked prism of an unreliable narrator, conjuring an atmosphere of suspicion and confusion throughout. [Dec 2010, p.92]

All but shorn of their narrative context, the missions can feel rather inconsequential, disconnected from the truncated plot and lacking the variety and invention of some of the 3DS game’s later missions.

There are things to admire here, and The Ball's simple challenges ensure a pleasant, if casual engagement, enhanced by the skilful drawing of this subterranean world. [Dec 2010, p.96]

Once you’ve wiped away the layer of gore, you’re left with an experience that, expectedly, offers limited entertainment. [March 2005, p.85]

Nobody, nobody at all, walks into a game shop and thinks: "Hey, goblins are pretty cool. Today I want to be a goblin." When the goblins in question have been rendered with almost no character or charm, this merely compounds the lack of emotional connection. [Mar 2004, p.106]

A fleeting novelty.

In miring the action in a crayon-written plot and applying the brakes to anything going too fast, the screaming thrills it does provide are the exception, not the norm. [Oct 2010, p.97]

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

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.

That twist, however, is the root of the game's disappointments, hinting at something beyond a typical platform game, yet leaving players to go through the genre's familiar motions - just in the shade. [Dec 2010, p.91]

You can take the massively multiplayer game out of the PC, then, but perhaps not the PC out of the game. The endless beta testing, the freewheeling project management, and the agonies and ecstasies of the results. [Apr 2011, p.88]

An impressively comprehensive, reasonably captivating though ultimately flawed experience. [June 2005, p.95]

A largely muddled package. [Nov 2010, p.95]

Tokyo Crash Mobs might not be the best version of Puzz Loop around, but in allowing us to briefly abandon our traditional British reserve, it becomes one of the most satisfying variants we've played.

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]

In short, it's sweet. [Dec 2014, p.118]

The detection of item-grabbing slashes is often fumbled, and since moving your finger can leave you prone to missing punches, it ruins a promising risk-reward system.

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.

The game’s major achievement is an emphasis less on personal advancement, but rather on working as a cohesive unit to achieve your collective goal – the hunting of monsters, truly absurdly monstrous monsters... It’s an excellent exercise in humility and cooperation, and one that should not be passed by. [Dec 2005, p.108]

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]

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]

Marvel's Avengers has a lot of good parts, a lot of indifferent ones, and an overall lack of direction. [Issue#351, p.90]

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

In its wake, Dosa Divas can often only muster the kind of anti-capitalist polemic we've heard many times before. [Issue#424, p.112]

There are moments of compelling spectacle...But the stop/start intrusion of missed QTE presses hurts these moments of the game, even as the dramatic visuals start to win over the most skeptical player. [June 2009, p.95]

It's done enough to shake a shambling wraith out of its coffin and render it an elegant, challenging treat.

Whether you're flipping a fried egg or turning a dial, this is tactile and satisfying, if slight, entertainment. [Tested with Vive; June 2016, p.121]

All that may dent its mass-market appeal, but for open-minded players The Far Shore could well be 2021's most captivating videogame destination. [Issue#364, p.102]

Rusty Lake is smart enough to keep things brief. [Issue#378, p.114]

In the end, though there is little average about either its elegant successes or its needless failings, between them they leave Lost Magic hanging in the balance. [June 2006, p.97]

Despite the obvious staying power of the game’s mechanics that has made it a hit in all its various iterations, it strains to push itself beyond its one-note colour-matching principle into truly engaging puzzling. [Aug 2006, p.92]

Gratifying though it is to see your decisions produce such tangible results, Where The Heart Leads is consistently let down by its storytelling. [Issue#362, p.120]