Players are in danger of slipping in to a meditative trance from sustained focus on the undulating, serpentine ribbon of dirt that their vehicle consumes. Hypnotic, perhaps, but not especially compelling. [Dec 2008, p.93]

A strangely admirable bore: smart enough to take direct movement out of your hands, but not quite smart enough to find anything suitably enjoyable to replace it with. Never less than earnest, Doom Resurrection ignores the central lesson of much horror fiction: there are certain things you probably shouldn't do, even if you can.

Encounters feel needlessly protracted - born of a stubborn refusal to admit the game’s fundamental lack of content. The layout of scenery predetermines your every gambit before enemies blithely meander into your squad’s unlimited gunfire. [Apr 2005, p.101]

Little Deviants' real problem is simple: it's not moreish, and its challenges fail to reveal the kinds of nuance on the second and third tries that will have you refining strategies and aiming to better scores. Without that incentive to return, you're unlikely to.

Despite the air of brutality Space Marine tries to cultivate, it's ultimately defined by convenience; by linear levels where you follow the green lights of unlocked doors from one corridor to the next, while the gentle trickle of upgrades and new weapons does just enough to keep you playing. The result is sometimes casually enjoyable, but never vivid, or memorable, or truly involving.

When directing death from above, Strike Team offers a glimpse at what might have been, but when it’s time to go loud, the whole thing collapses as limply as the enemies you’ve dropped.

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]

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.

Lucid is carrying on the spirit of its PGR days with this sim-arcade hybrid, but where Bizarre Creations’ driving games pushed their platforms’ boundaries, 2K Drive is incapable of breaking through the limitations of iOS.

At release, it offers a staggeringly beautiful world filled with unfinished systems, ugly cash grabs, and a string of missed opportunities. [Jan 2014, p.108]

A whole lot better on phones than it is on 3DS. [July 2015, p.115]

Its heart is in the right place, but its feet are not - and when you're walking a new path, that's always going to be a problem. [Issue#341, p.112]

As a whole, it is undeniably well meaning and generous, and the individual pieces work well enough, but somehow we find ourselves wishing there was a little less game in this reserve. [Issue#402, p.118]

Many titles are likened to "Devil May Cry," but Van Helsing appropriates that game's structure with such brazen thoroughness that it might be seen as this generation's Great Giana Sisters. [July 2004, p.108]

Astro Boy is a light cartoon romp sure to please young admirers of the character, but it fails to offer the depth required to engage a broader demographic. [May 2004, p.105]

Nearly all enemy behaviour consists of direct charges, calling on the butt of your gun as frequently as its barrel. While it’s undeniably intense, it soon becomes apparent that this intensity is the only string on the designers’ banjo, plucked with increasingly feverish rapidity instead of ever-changing chords. [Nov 2005, p.105]

Rarely does dying feel like the player's fault and, in typical "Sonic Adventure" fashion, the best bits are when you find that the majority of control has been taken away from you, and you're flung around the world at escape velocity. [Mar 2004, p.105]

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]

Nearly all enemy behaviour consists of direct charges, calling on the butt of your gun as frequently as its barrel. While it's undeniably intense, it soon becomes apparent that this intensity is the only string on the designers' banjo, plucked with increasingly feverish rapidity instead of ever-changing chords. [Nov 2005, p.105]

By trying to do too much too soon elsewhere, however, Rivals reduces many of its heroes to sidekicks. [Issue#406, p.110]

Free-to-play works when you earn the trust of your players over time, but RedLynx instead prods you at every opportunity to remind you that you haven’t paid for your game yet. Even so, once dredged from beneath the cloying mass of microtransactions that suffocate it, Trials Frontier isn’t a bad game as such. It is, however, a very bad Trials game.

For all the very human flaws in its script, it ends up somewhere in the uncanny valley of narrative games: it looks the part, but behind that glistening exterior, something vital is undeniably missing [Aug 2018, p.96]

It's often unclear whether or not your shots are hitting, which inclines you to blunder out from your cover and head for close quarters - which in turn destroys the developer's intention of forcing a tactical, cautious approach. [Nov 2003, p.105]

Yes, you really do feel in chargeof steering, but when the amount of speed put into a tight bend is dictated by the game, not the player, that feeling only delivers so much. [Christmas 2010, p.98]

In-app purchases, however, are handled with more nuance and kept pleasingly out of sight.

Even when its style doesn't get in the way, like its diaphanous hero it's lacking in substance. [Issue#399, p.123]

So despite the winner podiums and big sponsorship contracts and – yes – even the hours you'll spend in this askew universe, Grand Prix Story feels more like deja vu than entertainment. The formula is rapidly palling.

The dozens of pre-prepared puzzles can be fiendish enough in themselves, but the option of dragging modifier icons on to tiles, changing the pattern with which they flip, enables high scores just as surely as it does enormous headaches. [June 2007, p.92]

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

There's plenty to like here - the script almost justifies a playthrough by itself - but it's a little overlong, a little padded out, it's obvious charms soon obscured by busywork, reputation and irritation. [Christmas 2017, p.122]

As interesting as exploring the island can be, it's painfully hard to get anywhere without being forced to repeat chores that are just plain boring. [May 2007, p.93]

As it stands, High On Life 2 makes a good case for throwing the baby out with the bathwater, then bleaching the tub. [Issue#422, p.114]

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]

It’s not necessarily badly constructed, but in many ways it is badly intentioned, failing not just because of its conga-line of racial and sexual clichés, but because of the way it makes it a little bit easier to criticise videogaming as a hollow and sadistic pursuit. [Dec 2008, p.91]

As with Sony’s other long-awaited exclusives, Lair and Heavenly Sword, Folklore pulls its punches, and the romance of its vision ultimately all but vanishes in a puff of fairy dust. [Dec 2007, p.88]

There's a prevalent fashion at the moment for games to contain a multitude of games styles, a presumption that suggests consumers have become bored of single genre games. But Rogue Squadron III exposes the lie. It's a game that tries too hard to do many things, but only manages to do a few of them well. [Dec 2003, p.92]

It can be hard to separate what is ironically bad and what is just, well, bad. [Issue#381, p.100]

Overland sadly feels much like out late friend Vernon: stuck in the rear-view mirror, lost in the fumes. [Issue#338, p.108]

Despite the game's uncluttered arenas, the camera regularly manages to find a way to flip out and point you in the wrong direction. [Dec 2009, p.101]

Encounters feel needlessly protracted - born of a stubborn refusal to admit the game's fundamental lack of content. The layout of scenery predetermines your every gambit before enemies blithely meander into your squad's unlimited gunfire. [Apr 2005, p.101]

Scars Above bears all the hallmarks of a game that was overscoped and steadily scaled back as development went on, with many of its more intriguing ideas sidelined as the story progresses. [Issue#383, p.117]

The Kratos we know would most likely growl in disdain. [Issue#422, p.122]

Why roam freely (when the game lets you, which is by no means always) when all that's out there to find is an empty trek between jarring episodes of production-line gaming? [Christmas 2005, p.105]

As poetry, it might be evocative, but when you're trying to advance the game to the next scene, it feels rather like being the one sober person in the room. [Issue#404, p.122]

There’s no sophistication, subtlety or real inspiration in the design. It might have Craig’s likeness, but this Bond is more like Connery’s, a thug in a dinner jacket. [Christmas 2008, p.94]

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

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]

At a time when science fiction has never been handled with more vim and vigour, Star Ocean threatens to miss out on all the fun of the genre resurgence through its total lack of ambition. [June 2009, p.92]

As a sideline between sessions with meatier games it's generally right on target. [Sept 2006, p.88]

As well-intentioned as its encouragement to slow down and sniff the flowers may be, we can't help but bristle when the process is so leaden that it rarely feels like a relaxing meadow stroll. [Issue#404, p.120]

If Headhunter's controls were as coherent as its looks, it could've made for one of the greatest action-adventure games of recent times. Instead, we're left with a clunky shooting gallery that is, in parts, a likeable gunfighting game. [Oct 2004, p.109]

From a game entitled Assemble With Care, we had really expected something with a bit more heart. [Issue#338, p.115]

While not doing anything particularly innovative Gun Survivor 4 is frenetic, fun and supremely challenging on its 'extreme difficulty' setting. [May 2003, p.103]

In 2025, Resistance's aim is well off-target. [Issue #408, p.112]

The more it seeks to challenge the player, the more likely it becomes for the game to fail to provide either an enjoyable process of trial and error or a legitimate test of aptitude. [Aug 2005, p.97]

Broadly speaking, Lone Ruin's stern challenge feels broadly well-pitched, but it's unfair just often enough to gradually sap your will to continue - and when a bug leaves us outside a room's boundaries with no hope of return, our patience evaporates with it. [Issue#381, p.107]

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]

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]

AWESOME Land's harder across the board, actually, but its slightly naff virtual controls work better than expected, and the checkpoint placement isn't unduly sadistic. It's difficult, at times, to tell whether FreakZone's pitched this as parody or homage, but take it as the latter, and you'll have a fairly good couple of hours with it.

Like the grisly cutscenes, Mortal Kombat 11 is fun as long as you don't think too hard or look too closely at it - but that's exactly where the real joy is found in a fighting game. If Mortal Kombat wants to elevate itself, it's time to start overhauling the skeleton underneath all that flesh. [Issue#333, p.110]

There's a single moment of joy in Fallout Shelter. It comes right at the beginning. [Sept 2015, p.122]

Too many of its dishes are mere remixes of the same simple techniques. Too many of its taut time trials founder because of some quirk of the Remote. [June 2007, p.93]

Yet despite these conveniences, Junkster never stops feeling awkward and clumsy to pilot. [Issue#411, p.122]

To be fair to The Shoot, it gets the basics right. It just attempts very little beyond them. [Christmas 2010, p.101]

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]

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

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]

Rogue Agent is the result of design by committee: a safe, reasonably accomplished but uninspiring offering which neither excels nor progresses its genre in any way. [Christmas 2004, p.82]

It's becoming a 5th Cell tradition: strong ideas compromised by erratic level design and structural weaknesses. One day, the developer will find the right balance to support its undeniable creativity, but sadly, it hasn't found it here.

Aptly enough, there are two opposite ways to view Mirror’s Edge, ours obviously being the less forgiving one. Its ostensible break from the norm, its sparkling monoliths and its Nordic skies perform some kind of counterbalance, but there is simply not enough depth or reward to the realisation of parkour that lies beyond that sheen. [Christmas 2008, p.92]

You won't even break a sweat before you get to the Silver Cup in the Expert class, and F-Zero stalwarts will feel patronised by the ease with which this short-lived Tournament mode can be completed. [Feb 2004, p.110]

The short-term gratification is gradually diminished by too-obvious regeneration of the damage you cause, and there's not enough variety of experience to sustain a monthly subscription. [June 2006, p.90]

A fairly standard game in a genre overflowing with quality. [Christmas 2007, p.99]

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

That it largely fails to deliver does not quite snuff out its allure – not, at least, for devotees of the fiction. For those yet to be tempted by Martin's work, however, the blunderous combat, mangled dialoguing and profoundly unlovely looks will make it seem, as a Westerosi idiom goes, a mummer's farce.

If you're looking for a sparklingly attractive shooter with a side order of slinky physics, this delivers the goods. But it's about as average as FPS gaming gets. [June 2004, p.105]

It’s a cheap thrill, a shallow way to connect input with outcome that doesn’t, in the end, compensate for Pocket Football Club’s lack of responsiveness elsewhere.

A frustrating port of an above-average game. Rather than attempting to significantly tweak Mafia's structure and narrative … the developer has attempted to replicate the PC experience to the letter. It has been only partially successful. [Mar 2004, p.109]

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]

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

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

For players to get more out of this world, Crimson Desert requires a greater sense of purpose - a reason to remain invested in persevering through its most testing moments, to press on for hours in the faith that it will attain some kind of shape. [Issue#423, p.98]

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]

Maybe, after all, Ubisoft has managed to simulate the existence of the average pirate. Perhaps that's what the fourth 'A' stands for. [Issue#396, p.112]

The early promise is blunted, however, when too many cooks arrive and you're left relying on potshots and memory games. [Christmas 2009, p.106]

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]

True, the early response to Reunion seems to suggest plenty of players are content with seeing Arcadia Bay's finest together again. The rest of us might wish we too had a rewind. Or, failing that, a particularly potent case of storm amnesia. [Issue#423, p.106]

Rivals’ biggest problem is that its chances of success are inexorably bound to the performance of the device around which it is designed.

In depicting a bold move that goes dreadfully awry, that opening cinematic proves unfortunately prescient. [Issue#396, p.114]

Oakmont is a convincing Lovecraftian town - but the point of those stories is that these are places you'd never want to find yourself. [Issue#335, p.114]

Call Of Juarez has mined its source material well, collecting a wealth of imagery that it then squanders on lacklustre and dysfunctional gameplay. [Aug 2007, p.93]

Like a conversation made entirely out of pleasantries, it ultimately rings false. [Issue#423, p.108]

Destroy All Humans 2 is initially enjoyable, entirely endurable and gratifyingly easy. But at its heart it remains an average experience. [Dec 2006, p.86]

There's definitely a kind of magic to discover here, but Sea of Solitude too often breaks its own spell. [Issue#335, p.116]

It's a little too simplistic, and repetitive, to stick with for long, but in short bursts the style of the thing comes to the fore. [Issue#323, p.120]

Without immediate course correction, Activision is likely to discover that even the most loyal playerbase can smell when it's being cheated. [Issue#392, p.104]

There's an involving, and sinister story to pursue on that front, but as with the City the Kid yearns for, 198X never gets there. [Issue#335, p.120]

For JRPG unbelievers the battle system changes don’t address the common complaints leveled at the genre. For fans, the emphasis and pacing of its unique selling point overwhelms everything else, stripping the game of its poetry and balance. [Jan 2009, p.5]