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]

There's enough here to compel us to move the app to a prominent position on our home screen for easy access - close to the bottom, of course. [Issue#392, p.123]

There’s no sense of strength or weight to your actions despite how extravagant the carnage becomes.

While the basic mechanic shows promise, the game itself is purely mechanical, and predictably joyless as a result. [July 2006, p.92]

The moments that make Biomutant worth playing, intermittent as they can be, exist not in spite of the game's muddled identity but because of it, sitting right at the junction between its janky mechanics and outright bonkers fiction. [Issue#360, p.108]

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]

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]

Mildly charming but fiercely superficial, Kinect Sports remains undermined by the lingering inconsequentiality that tends to gather around all but the very best compilation titles.

A quiet game within which burns a fierce revolutionary spirit. [July 2015, p.114]

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 story is inventively fantastical but ridiculously so, like a child’s weightless daydreaming, and its shallowness is made all the clearer by Agetec’s lifeless and laborious translation. [Feb 2006, p.92]

It’s a slick slice of B-movie alien blasting, in short, but we’re glad it’s standing alongside a more authentic take on XCOM rather than wearing its visage but not quite acting the same.

Stray from the beaten track and Crystal Bearers is a different game...That it is so oddly buried is inexplicable, but you can't deny the fun of excavation. [Feb 2010, p.94]

It's a laugh, albeit at the expense of itself. [Issue#314, p.118]

While the beauty and evocative nature of Kairo’s world has survived the transition from its original PC form to iOS unscathed, the controls have not. Movement is flighty and unwieldy, and in desperate need of a sidestep.

Even if some of the fundamental stuff has been sacrificed to the creation of this huge world, Fuel still makes it across the finish line on a far-from-empty tank. [July 2009, p.97]

Sadly, that fresh new take on combat is hamstrung by a camera that can’t keep up with the elaborate effects, animations and blistering speed.

Beyond the odd jolt of panic as your wrench breaks mid-fight, or when the piercing shriek of a spindly screamer attracts a ravening pack, there's little here to quicken the pulse. For a zombie game, that might be the most damning criticism of all. [Aug 2018, p.100]

The Novelist, then, is a game of endless compromise, and in that sense it is a quite remarkable simulation of family life.

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]

Whatever its merits as a brawler, it's safe to say that in years to come no one will be ringing up game shops to preorder this one. [Issue#350, p.104]

It's hard to find too much fault in a game that's so in love with its inspirations, but Rise & Shine is at its best when it's being itself. [March 2017, p.104]

A fine introduction to the pleasures of multiplayer VR, but ultimately there's not quite enough substance here to keep you coming back after your first few tours of duty. [Christmas 2016, p.119]

The early hours spent getting to know your airship suggest Forever Skies might soar. Sadly, from there, it struggles to get off the ground. [Issue#411, p.104]

To The Sky also emphasises that this is a game to be enjoyed in groups, with co-op for up to four people, and it's true that it is more enjoyable alongside others. [Issue#417, p.123]

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.

There's scant variety as Nutmeg runs through the same handful of sequences repeatedly, and little tactical leeway within your deck. The beautiful game is thus made less so as the rose tint softens its essential texture. [Issue#423, p.121]

Overall the greatest disappointments is the lack of any sense of exploration or accoplishment. And although the mansion is packed with wonders, there's no feeling of discovery since the game manoeuvres you neatly from one room to the next. It adds up to a world in which you never feel truly connected. [Christmas 2003, p.111]

The games it apes work because they're easy to engage with and paced to banish boredom. Here, everything takes ages and is sprinkled with tiny irritations. Appropriately, given its title, the game can offer only a muted reverberation of its inspirations, with the exception of recreating their flaws quite capably. [Issue#415, p.102]

As a short, sharp blaze of fun, it's every bit as brash and ballsy as "Mercs" ever was. [July 2008, p.99]

Despite its name's implications, this is a better game when you're following Lucky's nose, rather than his tail. [Tested with Oculus Rift; June 2016, p.119]

Need for Speed is a disappointing follow-up to the flawed but big-hearted Rivals, and while it's billed as a fresh start for the series, it feels more like a false one. [Christmas 2015, p.118]

There's nothing revolutionary in Lethal VR, but it's an accessible, frequently enjoyable showcase of what its host hardware is best at, let down only by the decision to bring a knife to a gunfight. [Tested with HTC Vive: Jan 2017, p.118]

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]

There's an abundance of character here, sure, but what Bleeding Edge needs most is a personality - preferably its own. [Issue#346, p.104]

Too often feels like a predetermined narrative that's indifferent to your involvement. [Issue#373, p.114]

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.

For a title trying hard to inject personality into the genre, the experience feels irreparably mechanical. There's plenty of variety in terms of racing categories and machinery, but the overall lack of involvement is inexcusable. [Feb 2004, p.102]

It only takes a couple of playthroughs for events to start recurring, and that severely diminishes The Yawhg’s spell, but it can’t take away the charm with which Carrol and Sommer’s game weaves together fairy tales.

Though it’s regrettable that Sony opted for a retrofit rather than a rebirth, and while series stalwarts might initially balk at controls that fit awkwardly, given a chance the cat-and-mouse charm shines through, and make On The Loose a fine first stab at a new wave of portable platforming. [May 2005, p.93]

You've seen most of what it has to offer before you've even unlocked all of the sculpting tools. [Issue#424, p.118]

Offers the most blissful vision of rural Britain since "Everybody's Gone To The Rapture." [Issue#360, p.120]

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

Despite the game's lofty sky-mindedness, this is all about mastery rather than freedom. Thankfully, mastery brings with it plenty of its own rewards.

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

As an interim project, it's good to see Criterion still interested in its most beloved IP, but it's just a shame there's so little of interest in the game itself.

Watching your carefully directed army walk into each other and painfully slowly correct themselves by walking one square left, two squares up, one square right, while an army approaches is frustrating to say the least. [Oct 2007, p.97]

The majority of insights are lost in a flood of banal dialogue and sluggish, shallow puzzles. [Aug 2009, p.107]

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.

The irony is that many of Too Human’s problems wouldn’t exist if another pair of human players were allowed to enter the fold (as was originally intended) – speeding up play considerably and making ‘just one more run’ into something a little more manageable. [Oct 2008, p.92]

Subtitling this Battle Revolution could be considered a breach of advertising standards; it's about as revolutionary as a racing game with powerslides. But while Custom Robo lacks a fresh hook, it's done with such a diligent simplicity that it's hard not to take a shine to it. [July 2004, p.108]

The flash and gore are toned down, and the henchmen never get any smarter, but that bond with the protagonist – and that investment in his salvation – make the whole game worthwhile. [Apr 2009, p.117]

If the result sometimes feels more like a robust proof of concept than a complete game, it's a reasonable outlay for an afternoon's fun. [April 2017, p.121]

While it doesn't pass as an update or a worthy torch bearer for the hyperactive, all-out action-clash that was the original Guardian Heroes, the resemblance is still there. It's more homage than successor, but it's a decent beat 'em up in its own right. [Dec 2005, p.116]

Instant deaths, glitchy combat, uninspiring boss encounters and twitchy controls conspire to make this a below-par experience. If it wasn't for the occasional flashes of imagination and the familiarity and richness conveyed through the license then The Emperor's Tomb would be utterly forgettable. [May 2003, p.99]

The joy of Pirates of the Caribbean is to be found in the variety of the elements delivered - sword fights and canon battles happily sit alongside contraband trade route management. But ultimately none offer a tremendous amount of depth. [Nov 2003, p.107]

Briefly diverting. [Apr 2015, p.121]

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

Balancing real-time action with tactical micro-management proves beyond Vanpool. With arbitrary limitations placed on an already meagre cash supply, and towers and fortifications proving equally flimsy, what little money is available is best poured into single-use items and permanent ability boosts for Dillon.

Its basic form is a succession of things that you hit with little emotion or interest. Approaching such a task co-operatively can only distract you for so long. [June 2009, p.95]

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]

This is a cosy, likable affair. [Issue#356, p.104]

The guns and costumes you'll be buying make Random Heroes a little more appealing, perhaps, but they're poor compensation for a wider lack of imagination.

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]

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]

Realistically, Buraiden's biggest appeal lies in the joyous anarchy of the multiplayer modes. Team up two-on-two, three-on-one or every-samurai-for-himself, replace any absent human players with the game's convincing AI, set the battle parameters, and prepare for the kind of balletic carnage that Tarantino will soon be ripping off for volume two of 'Kill Bill'. [JPN Import; Feb 2004, p.98]

None of this feels like a refinement, … just a slight bulking up. With Legends, you’re buying into an upgraded suite of presentation – of lengthy career modes, of yet more movie-faithful music – than anything else. [Nov 2004, p.105]

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]

If we're at a point where one way to make COD feel "new" is to revive ideas from more than a decade ago, that is perhaps a sign that the series needs a break, or at least a hard reset. [Issue#419, p.112]

It's well-meaning, but unserious. [Issue#402, p.108]

Chaos Legion isn't as sharp as it should be. Beautiful, polished and at times engaging Capaom's latest invention, nevertheless, tests neither the reactions nor the brain enough to hold your interest. [May 2003, p.93]

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]

Its scenarios are striking in scope, but its gunplay can’t quite keep pace. It features some moments of truly cinematic vision, but the technology and framework can’t quite do them full justice. [Christmas 2007, p.90]

Opoona has enough character that, combined with its innovative combat and leisurely pace through an interesting world, it is comfortably its own experience. [June 2008, p.93]

What had the potential to showcase to the uninitiated what makes fighting games so special has become a game aimed too squarely at those who already know.

TV Show King’s key problem is that each round is identical: answering five questions for points. [Aug 2008, p.101]

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

Something of a departure, sure, but it's nothing new. Falling awkwardly between action and strategy, it's unlikely to satisfy anyone other than rabidly obsessive fans of the character.

There’s a familiar, welcoming charm to Wii Party U, which offers an evening spent in the company of nice-but-quiet friends. We wouldn’t blame you, however, if you snuck out to visit the more vibrant party hosted by Wario or Bumpie next door.

Darkspore remains a humdrum deep-space Diablo, but one doomed to be defined more by what it's missing than what it offers. [June 2011, p.98]

The irony is that in mining some unforgettable games, Curve has delivered a forgettable hodgepodge. [Mar 2011, p.105]

Despite its lunges for the mainstream, in other words, The Act has forgotten one of the most important things about escapist cinema and cartoons: they generally don't require this much effort.

Without a clear motivating engine to drive your actions, it can feel like you're constantly playing just the top layer - that strategy wrapper of base-building, resource management and upgrade trees you might expect in an XCOM or Total War - without ever getting to play the actual game bit buried underneath. [March 2019, p.118]

Arzest has laid an egg here, but not of the golden variety.

The Baconing is undoubtedly a solid, entertaining addition to the series, but over-saturation has made this once brash and energetic adventure feel slightly predictable.

The combat missions are where The Falconeer falters, the controls for quickturns and dives never as responsive as they need to be. [Issue#353, p.120]

Fights descend into muddled brawls, as blobs of mobs smack into each other until one side keels over. [Issue#385, p.118]

It's less a trip to another world than a slice of this one, warts and all, carefully preserved in the middle of a bewitching, inaccessible wilderness. [Issue#310, p.116]

While it doesn't do enough to earn a place in the halls of Valhalla, there is still pleasure to be had in sprinting and fighting through these Elysian fields. [Issue#378, p.112]

The flash and gore are toned down, and the henchmen never get any smarter, but that bond with the protagonist – and that investment in his salvation – make the whole game worthwhile. [Apr 2009, p.117]

The Warrior's Code essentially has forgotten when to say no. Pulling itself outward in every direction at once, it stretches thin where it should be richest: at its core. [June 2006, p.95]

If Desert Storm 2 has one flaw, it's that there are only ten maps and these usually channel the player down avenues rather than provide ample playgrounds for strategic experimentation. [Nov 2003, p.100]

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]

The core idea of Eat Them is sound, and when it works it's undeniable fun; there's a definite pleasure in starting with a pristine, ordered city and methodically reducing it to rubble. [Feb 2011, p.102]

In-app purchases require delicate balancing, but with T-Coin bundles costing up to £69.99, and annual T-Club subscriptions available for £20.99 a year, EA could hardly be more obvious in letting you know that, as far as it's concerned, the 69p you paid to download the game was only the beginning.

And in declining to make any kind of meaningful statement about its environmental themes, After Us only demonstrates that, like its protagonist, it has nothing to say for itself. [Issue#386, p.116]

It can't entirely compensate for the lack of depth, but wading together into a throng of the undead, guns blazing and fists flying, leaving a trail of dissolving bodies in your wake, is without question a grisly pleasure.