For its dramatic and cinematic flair, its lovingly crafted chaotic destruction and above all its network of interconnected personalities, it's an adventure that shouldn't be missed. [JPN Import; June 2006, p.92]

Successful only as an interactive showcase of Jurevicius' art – and arguably the Flash original was more effective in that regard – it's almost criminal that a world this vivid should be so wearying to explore.

While Cargo Commander might be an occasionally limited platform game, it's nonetheless an entertaining ode to the simple pleasures of an honest day's work.

The game's failure to monopolise on its squad dynamic relegates it to a shooter-by-numbers, and its appeal is then further undercut by the fact that, while Barker clearly has a sense for the grotesque, it is the only note that Jericho plays. [Dec 2007, p.91]

Lords Of Shadow 2 is clunky, ugly and deeply misguided. It’s a game that sees the lord of the damned as a vehicle for rat-powered linear stealth, and that takes a future-Gothic London setting and then sets the action in tower blocks and sewers.

Sonic games, and platformers in general, have always been about memorising the lay of the land, but rarely have mistakes been so costly or heavily punished, and it says much that one retailer’s preorder bonus consists solely of 25 additional lives.

There are some interesting ideas here, but in practice the game is overloaded with cut corners and blunting repetition. [Mar 2010, p.97]

The charismatic animation and evocative, sunset-hazed setting make up for a lot of the game's shortcomings, and although limited in lasting appeal, Miami Vice is solidly and imaginatively made. [Sept 2006, p.86]

Once again we leave a Nintendo mobile game feeling a little underwhelmed. [Issue#338, p.114]

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

Despite the obvious talent at work here, the studio has chosen to bury The Order's potential under a fug of dissociative, QTE-focused game design that's as stifling as the smog that creeps through its Victorian streets. [Apr 2015, p.106]

This disappointing reboot is best left, well, alone. [Issue#397, p.118]

There’s just no accounting for an excruciating wipeout on the final lap when such possibilities are at the mercy of circumstances as much as they are at the player’s skill. But, played with a graceful, Zen-like acceptance – shit happens – Crash ‘n’ Burn is as enjoyable as it is easy to understand. [Jan 2005, p.97]

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]

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

It's a shame the journey itself can't match the poignancy of the final destination. [December 2016, p.123]

The problem that remains, however, is its lack of anything profound to say, as it tees up complex topics before leaning towards comfortable answers. [Issue#406, p.120]

Jumping damages the delicate balance of mechanics that makes the series so distinctive and pushes Rearmed 2 into the wider genre bracket of run-and-gun platforming. [Mar 2011, p.105]

Its most striking ideas don't fulfil their promise, and its successes are etched by pervasive minor flaws. The towering, terrifying city, and the lens through which it is shot, drag you onwards through the game's lesser parts, but you sense that the real crime in this whole bloody escapade is that it doesn't live up to its dark flashes of imagination.

You'll soon learn the groove: shoot, dodge, shoot, dodge. It should get tedious, but it doesn't. P.N.03 rewards skill above all else and mastery brings huge satisfaction. Grace under fire has rarely been done better. [June 2003, p.96]

Bladestorm works hard to appease both the keen strategist and the action-hungry player, while confidently answering critics who claim that Koei is nothing more than a one-trick warhorse. [Christmas 2007, p.95]

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]

As nostalgic joys go, though, it's a damning one. [Issue#367, p.106]

In borrowing from stories that are so often about one kind of ambiguity, Empire of Sin creates another: the ambiguity of too many numbers and systems for any to feel significant. [Issue#354, p.114]

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]

Much remains to be done, certainly, but after a dire six months, Destiny is, at last, back on track. [Aug 2018, p.104]

Rare’s late-‘90s obsession with currencies and unlockables, combined with the new additions to adventure mode, make Diddy Kong Racing feel at times like a maze of conditions and transactions in search of an actual game, and put many of its attractive new features behind bars with no word of how to free them. [Apr 2007, p.87]

At heart, Dangerous Golf simply wants you to make a big, beautiful mess, and it's an invitation that proves surprisingly hard to resist. [Aug 2016, p.108]

Vanguard simply fails to deliver the pomp and bluster or the window dressing so essential in disguising the shortcomings inherent in "Call of Duty's" framework. [May 2007, p.92]

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.

This Arkham Origins is a brawny, brainless offering, then, that takes one aspect of the series and remixes it for iOS in a way that should temporarily scratch that Batman itch ahead of the main event.

While online play provides more convincing competition, with only eight riders supported the circuit will appear as underpopulated as the scenery. [Aug 2008, p.100]

The simple tasks - jump, drag, hide - create a sort of meditative state, where the bare bones of the game itself don't matter and your eyes are free to drink in its sumptuous world. Counterintuitive puzzles aside, that's a sensation worth chasing. [Nov 2018, p.120]

Given that its bland combat is little enhanced by the ability to create cover, you suspect that the promises made for the technology have simply dug its own grave. [Dec 2008, p.90]

Sadly, the developer's good work is all but undone by its publisher's demanding IAP structure.

Board game fans might be able to overlook these sins to find the deep game within, but developers Full Control has done too little to evangelise the cult of Space Hulk.

Sluggish menus, clumsy controls, and an intrusive, atmosphere-scuppering soundtrack mar each excursion, while excessive weather effects will have you straining to see as you awkwardly bump up against objects to find out if they can be ransacked. [Aug 2017, p.122]

If there is a criticism, it's the essentially unvarying mission objectives. In the hands of a lesser developer, it might have resulted in a monotony over the game's long life span. That it never does is a testament to Drag-on Dragoon's excellence. [Dec 2003, p.98; JPN Import]

It's the cutest game we've seen in a while, but not nearly as good as it looks. [July 2010, p.105]

On a console where tried and tested ideas continue to dominate, it would be wrong to entirely dismiss an experiment like this, even if the result is only fleetingly worthwhile.

Whereas Super Meat Boy accounted for its punishing difficulty by creating micro levels, most of which could be traversed successfully in just a minute or two, Wakfu frequently commits the cardinal sin of using extended sections of grind to raise the stakes during its seismic and vaguely arbitrary difficulty spikes.

Global Storm feels like the true heir to the Conflict: Desert Storm games in more than just surname, and remains a worthy war effort, despite there being other games that may do it grander or deeper. [Nov 2005, p.102]

There's a fine line between graphic artistry and immaturity, and while Alter Echo makes an attempt at the former, it probably falls into the latter. The hues are creative enough, and the faux-naturelle structures suitably curled and alien but perhaps the real problem is that a world made from plastic would look as dull as it sounds. [Nov 2003, p.109]

Technically, ... Dead Man's Hand is a mess - which is a shame because this could have been a whole barrel of fun. [May 2004, p.107]

A stunt-filled shooter in the vein (but not the league) of Stranglehold, it's a game that takes control away, reverts to how things used to be done, and judders between debilitating combat and haywire presentation. [May 2009, p.92]

In Agents of Mayhem, the limits are all around you, all of the time - from the moment you start playing to the minute you stop, it feels permanently imprisoned by its own lack of imagination. The result is a game that carries the weight of a litany of sins - a saint that has fallen far, far from grace. [Issue#311, p.116]

This is a cheap game with an expensive price tag, and there's nothing remotely super about it. [May 2017, p.123]

Most baffling of all is the way each match concludes. [Issue#360, p.112]

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]

Four years on and Republic is revealed as a more familiar and modest proposition. What promised to be revolutionary has emerged as a mere curio. A shame. [Oct 2003, p.90]

For the promising set-up, it collapses in the heat of battle. Nearly a full third of the PSP’s screen is filled by a clumsy status display, clipping the peripheral vision that would have been so useful in the chaos of a Dynasty scrum. [Feb 2005, p.79]

A maddening, misguided mongrel of a game... Luck plays a huge part, and simply navigating the world can be exactly as hard as the hardest challenge: a random, enraging, minutes-long bore, especially with moving enemies straying across your line. [Dec 2005, p.115]

This is the fundamental flaw in Bloodlines 2. Troika's original game was not only about being a vampire but living as one, it's balmy LA nights riddled with chances to fulfill that fantasy. Bloodlines 2, in comparison, has no inner life. [Issue#418, p.114]

It's telling that the more dejected and hoarse your voice becomes, the easier it seems for the forces to understand their orders. Whoever programmed Odama's English speech recognition clearly wasn't having much fun either. [May 2006, p.90]

Its most striking ideas don't fulfil their promise, and its successes are etched by pervasive minor flaws. The towering, terrifying city, and the lens through which it is shot, drag you onwards through the game's lesser parts, but you sense that the real crime in this whole bloody escapade is that it doesn't live up to its dark flashes of imagination.

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]

Criticism has often been aimed at Hudson’s perpetual shrug of the shoulders as to how to milk new games from the same old buttons and analogue stick setup, yet here we find all-new motion controls and still no freshness. [Aug 2007, p.95]

For a studio of this size, this is a game of impressive scale, but for all it offers in scope, it lacks in depth. [Issue#376, p.112]

At its best, Orgarhythm's disparate ingredients coalesce into scenes of thrilling tribal warfare, a winningly eclectic soundtrack stirring your men to march into battle. Too often, however, you end up feeling like your fragmented cabal: disorientated, frustrated and battered into submission by an unforgiving enemy, with little reason to keep on fighting.

It's all a little rote - something we certainly don't associate with Final Fantasy. [Issue#315, p.120]

At launch, matchmaking can't even manage to find a single game. [Issue#348, p.94]

A stunt-filled shooter in the vein (but not the league) of Stranglehold, it's a game that takes control away, reverts to how things used to be done, and judders between debilitating combat and haywire presentation. [May 2009, p.92]

Ditching the self-aware snuff-movie set-up for an unsubtle conspiracy story, Manhunt 2 lacks the redemption of a smart commentary on violence as entertainment. [Christmas 2008, p.98]

It’s all personality and no muscle, a prime victim for getting sand kicked in its face by the numerous RPG beefcakes currently swaggering around on PS2. [July 2006, p.92]

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]

With design lifts from here, there and everywhere peppered throughout, it’s safe to say that the developer has rather appropriately played things by the numbers. [Mar 2006, p.88]

Feisty and unapologetic, it’s a game that's happy to break the resolve of those who fail to accept its rules: play casual and compete at leisure. [June 2006, p.91]

There's a fine line between graphic artistry and immaturity, and while Alter Echo makes an attempt at the former, it probably falls into the latter. The hues are creative enough, and the faux-naturelle structures suitably curled and alien but perhaps the real problem is that a world made from plastic would look as dull as it sounds. [Nov 2003, p.109]

Through the crush of it all, Viewtiful Joe's pedigree for fusing entertainment and quality is clearly visible throughout the chaos, even if it doesn't necessarily shine. [Dec 2005, p.100]

Alien worlds scarcely come more mundane than this. [Issue#424, p.102]

There are plenty of games with strong visual design and atmospheric settings that don't make you jump through nearly so many hoops to get to the good stuff. [Nov 2018, p.116]

Where there was charm and artistry in the old designs, choosing to detail those basic representations rather than reimagining them makes the look of the new game too generic by far. [Feb 2008, p.95]

Global Storm feels like the true heir to the Conflict: Desert Storm games in more than just surname, and remains a worthy war effort, despite there being other games that may do it grander or deeper. [Nov 2005, p.102]

MicroBot is a technically accomplished but sterile experience. As the game settles into a rut, its stylistic strengths lose more and more ground to the sluggish combat, uninspiring upgrades and repetitive stages.

The Good Life makes for a charmingly eccentric getaway for the 12 hours its story lasts, though you'd hardly want to spend weeks, let along months, there. [Issue#365, p.116]

Blacksite is a thoroughly unexceptional title for which unrealistic promises were made, and one that is further let down by a wide assortment of bugs and design issues. [Jan 2008, p.83]

While See the Future undoubtedly delivers on its title, giving you a single feverish glimpse of a potential new direction for the series, this odd collection of entertainments offers far more than a mere early-warning hype machine dressed up with a few free haircuts for your dog. In its cheeky refusal to conform, it’s also a chance to see Albion’s present, and take another look at a game that’s both fascinating and gently flawed.

The main quest’s predefined battles do throw up enemy combinations that require more complex tactics, but there’s no denying that, having breached the fourth wall, Behold Studios’ charming game is content to head back inside the building.

There's little variety in the 400-square-kilometre American midwestern locale where everything takes place, and roads rarely feel optimised to test your handling skills. [Issue#418, p.112]

If Fuse had been made by a lesser known studio, it would simply be forgettable, but set against the expectations of a new game from the house of Rachet & Clank and Resistance, it’s a crushing disappointment.

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]

Due to a heavier emphasis on all-out action, however, the gratifying bullet-cam pay-off becomes tiresome even sooner than it did in V2.

What we're left with is an update that is out of date, a reimagining without enough imagination. To be this simplistic, the game needed a masterful melee system and a range of inspiring enemies; it tries, but it doesn't fully deliver on either count. [Jan 2011, p.98]

Given that its bland combat is little enhanced by the ability to create cover, you suspect that the promises made for the technology have simply dug its own grave. [Dec 2008, p.90]

A cynical, if predictable approach to monetisation also sours the experience.

In this game of strong beginnings and - at last - a comprehensive ending, the journey between the two needs more spring in its step. [Issue#360, p.118]

It’s a game about picking dialogue options that are metaphorically represented as potential moves on the board, but it’s that which goes unsaid that makes its semi-improvised conversations so intriguing.

While we’ll accept that Deadpool the character is an acquired taste, this is an indisputably poor game, one whose knowing winks and quips come off not as metacommentary but as tacit apologia for its litany of specific failings.

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]

With the exception of fleeting moments, the game's milquetoast mechanics don't cut it - watching a superspy and being one are very different things. [Christmas 2010, p.88]

Those who can overlook the rudimentary visuals, convoluted interface and overly forced dialogue may lose themselves in the vast mathematical playpen. [Aug 2010, p.95]

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]

A mediocre game a genre stocked with the highest quality. [Sept 2010, p.99]

Global Storm feels like the true heir to the Conflict: Desert Storm games in more than just surname, and remains a worthy war effort, despite there being other games that may do it grander or deeper. [Nov 2005, p.102]

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]

We could have coped with technical issues, curious UI choices and unsophisticated mission design had Saints Row given us even half as many memorable moments as previous entries "The Third" and "IV". We could even forgive a Portal joke that would have felt old hat a decade ago. But this whole enterprise feels misbegotten, even before the story goes wildly off the rails, belatedly introducing a new threat, before wrapping up with an ending that almost feels algorithmically generated. [Issue#376, p.100]

Ninety-Nine Nights deserves a better score... That's a strange ways to put it, but it comes from the fact that its most grating flaws occur at such a fundamental level that it's a mystery they were ever tolerated at all. [JPN Import; June 2006, p.89]

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]