Scourge: Outbreak may seek to mimic the thrills and achievements of its blockbuster inspiration, but it serves merely to underline their superiority. Tragnarion has clearly put effort into polishing the game, but it’s fatally neglected to work on the underlying basics that were crooked three years ago.

If there’s one thing that 25 To Life gets to do right, let it bring an end to this destructive preoccupation with the cross-media lure of gritty, crime-flavoured urban violence, and the unacceptably low standards it so often brings with it. [Mar 2006, p.89]

We struggle through, resisting the urge to trigger the final heist early. [Issue#371, p.114]

If there’s one thing that 25 To Life gets to do right, let it bring an end to this destructive preoccupation with the cross-media lure of gritty, crime-flavoured urban violence, and the unacceptably low standards it so often brings with it. [Mar 2006, p.89]

A frustrating experience, though thankfully not a long one. [Dec 2009, p.103]

Its world feels considered. There are decent performances from its cast among the graphical artefacts, and zippy pacing that respects your time and conjures a sense of playing the Schwarzenegger role that never was. But it's been released in a technical state that makes it impossible to enjoy its ideas, with core components of its action left underdeveloped. For the player, that's frustrating. For those who made it, surely, it's heartbreaking. [Issue#413, p.112]

Don't let the vibrant colours of this scene fool you: this is the world as seen in Combat Breaker, a brief period in which time slows down. As son as the meter runs out, it's back to the game's usual dusty dullness. [Issue#370, p.119]

The simple attack-defend volleyball games are the true beauty of Zack Island, frequently raising the pulse as you battle to deliver that killer blow. [May 2010, p.104]

There's little satisfaction in downing an enemy who can't see you, less in getting flattened by an unseen assailant. [Issue#296, p.114]

Realmforge is clearly a student of the genre, but budget is king here, and the studio lacks the financial clout to even pierce the flesh of a crowded market. Despite being crafted with noble intentions, Dark succeeds only in sucking the life out of itself.

Despite the aforementioned illusion of choice, there is really only one pre-determined way to conquer a given mission, each stealthy ability in reality a functional button-press to move the game along. [Apr 2007, p.87]

With its unusual blend of Kinect and controller – of simple missions and complex control – Heavy Armor is a modern rarity: a game designed to be hard work. Whether that translates directly into it being a game for the 'hardcore' is debatable, but From Software has made the best of a bad situation and, aptly, delivered a game that asks you to do exactly the same.

Whether you view the appearance of a game like this on the DS as a crucial step in conserving gaming’s heritage, a convenient nostalgia fix, or a total reversal of everything the machine was supposed to deliver, you’ll most likely greet Bub and Bob with little more than familiar affection. [Feb 2006, p.92]

It's hard to come away from this without a sense of persecution. It isn't just that it's a poor game, it's that it thinks it's good enough to survive on the coat-tails of its license - and that you won't have the wherewithal to discriminate. [Jan 2011, p.99]

Vengeance feels like a small-minded attempt to corner the Remote-controlled shooter market at the earliest opportunity. "Red Steel" may have failed in a similar bid, but at least it had the excuse of being a new franchise, not one already established. [Feb 2007, p.78]

Even when you disregard the charmless character, ignore the relentless music and eventually manage to tame the handling, something comes along to spoil the party - an odiously placed bump on the road that causes an unnecessary spin, the sudden inability to respawn even when off the track, resulting in a lost race... the list goes on. [Jan 2010, p.90]

Unlike its namesake, Quantum Theory makes no attempt to depart from classical mechanics - it merely diminishes them. [Nov 2010, p.96]

It’s not often that a war game captures almost perfectly the feel of walking drunk through a Las Vegas casino – that overpowering mix of randomness, mediocrity and nausea. [Sept 2007, p.94]

All the interaction it requires could be better executed, with equal intuition and far greater reliability, on a joypad with an analogue stick. [Nov 2010, p.94]

The game's ambition far outstrips its creator's abilities: damned by execution rather than intent, but damned nonetheless. [July 2009, p.99]

The game's ambition far outstrips its creator's abilities: damned by execution rather than intent, but damned nonetheless. [July 2009, p.99]

It’s a B-movie game in every sense, but approach it with sufficiently lowered expectations, and you may just be pleasantly surprised.

This is a series that probably needs to be retired, because the joke isn’t funny anymore. [Feb 2009, p.89]

Partial blame can be laid on the less-than-stellar CG film Astro Boy adapts, but considering High Voltage so vocally invoked Omega Factor during development, it is not unfair to hold the game to a higher standard. It doesn't come close. [Jan 2010, p.96]

It’s a souring of Bomberman’s classic formula, and it hasn’t been compensated for with any new thinking, leaving older editions to continue reigning supreme. [Nov 2006, p.91]

It's hard not to lament the potential wasted here. [Issue#386, p.120]

The unspoken promise of Sony's portable is console quality on the move, but a thoroughly bloodless version of a massive franchise only feels like going back on that word. This wasn't what Jack Tretton had in mind when he talked about having "a triple-A shooter in the palm of your hands". Rather, Declassified is a single A: awful.

Escape's one resounding achievement, it seems, is that it has somehow managed to be an even poorer game than Dead Island: Riptide. [Jan 2014, p.116]

It all feels thoroughly pointless...The rumour mill has it that THPS5 has been shoved into stores so prematurely because Activision's Tony Hawk license expires at the end of the year; we suspect that had the Birdman known this would have offered up an extension for free. [Dec 2015, p.118]

The ideas and content here are thin on the ground, and limply implemented, too - it's inexcusable that a game whose sole interaction is hand-to-hand combat should not be able to tell the difference between dodging and headbutting. [Christmas 2010, p.98]

Shellshock 2 is a scandalous FPS made with no apparent knowledge of the genre, little but contempt for its audience, and few tools beyond a spluttering engine and a hammer. [Apr 2009, p.116]

Bad Day LA is the game people often say they want and then ignore when it arrives; it prizes ambition over execution and flair over finesse and both pays the price and reaps the rewards for daring to do so. [Sept 2006, p.82]

Worst of all for a game hoping to sell itself on scares, Amy is never frightening. Instead, its horrors are derived from the game's shoddy execution, weak puzzles and frustrating play rhythms, a nest of poor game design decisions through which disappointment, not fear, are hatched.

Fighter Within’s storyline is a misery of clichés, reaching for kung-fu movie kitsch but delivering nothing of the sort. But even the ugly presentation and forgettable cast of characters could have been forgiven if the developer had managed to make good on its ambitions for a nuanced fighting game controlled with arms and legs rather than fingers and thumbs.

Bugbear built the FlatOut brand, and bred a following on a balance of silly stunts, destructible environments and rewards. It crafted the game's zanier side with care, with the aim of keeping players invested in its often cheap kicks. Team6 has abandoned that manifesto in favour of haphazard thrills via haphazard design. As a result, FlatOut 3 crashes and burns.

Prose With Bros is irresistible: the interface is clean and simple, voting is snappy, and the algorithm producing each game's jumble of words delivers perfectly innocent but eminently corruptible English every time.

The laser-like focus on the personal side of management is to the exclusion of all else – the lack of a match engine is one thing, but there's no detail whatsoever to the football your team is playing.

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.

Chaos reigns in the brackish bayous of this endearingly ramshackle racer from Hydro Thunder Hurricane developer Vector Unit. An erratic police presence might attempt to uphold the law, but between the fluctuating prices of its illegal trading posts and the trail of destruction your air boat leaves in its wake – not to mention a frame-rate choppier than the winding waterways themselves – this is a world without order.

Monkey Bump lacks the gooey intricacy of the team's best games, perhaps, but it's still an elegant time-waster with fine-tuned controls and an excellent handle on the things that keep score-chasing gamers happy. Slight and chirpy, this may be PomPom at its least idiosyncratic, but the expanding boundary has never looked more at home.

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.

With both real-time and turn-based flavours of haphazard carnage on offer, Glitch Tank is willing to mess with your brain at a variety of speeds. Michael Brough's certainly given iPad owners something to think about, then – even if few will have the patience and foresight to feel truly comfortable on this strange new playing field.

Pig & Bullet is certainly an amusing distraction, but Spiceworx's thin veneer of polish can't hide the simplistic Flash game lurking beneath.

Gauge, then, is throwaway, minimalist, score-chasing brilliance, a game that's pulled together from the smallest selection of pieces, but that also feels bold and new and intensely imaginative.

The game is divided into four tournaments, each containing four unique courses. It's when you get to the second stage of the first tournament that the game's major failing makes itself apparent: there's only one composition to race to. Presumably, the developers thought this would be enough, as differences in course layout and sound effects provide a little variety, but in practice it's just too repetitive.

Rowdy and knockabout? Perhaps. Fun? Not quite.

Ugly, punishing, and extremely satisfying, Gets To The Exit is a raw kind of fun. [Oct 2012, p.110]

It's a surprisingly effective template for an action game, offering all the explosions and feedback of a shooter, while leaving you with a warm feeling of smugness when things go according to plan.

Fussy collision detection and what can only be deliberate slowdown are perhaps nods too far to the 48k era, yet the developer's ageing tools have sculpted something that feels surprisingly new. Not bad for what looks like the oldest game on Vita.

An amusing localisation (“he is cleaning his knife with a complex facial expression”) and some enthusiastically squelchy sound effects add charm to a decent challenge, and there’s enough vigour and character here to make it a worthwhile, if fleeting, diversion.

Goat Up 2 wears its influences on its sleeve – from Pac-Man to Portal – and its attempt to blend the immediacy and pace of the former with the brain strain of the latter is a unique, effective proposition.

The presence of IAP can’t prevent Fearless Wheels from ultimately delivering a robust and worthwhile ride for those looking for the colourful bursts of shallow play its minute-long tracks encourage.

It’s a solid concept, but Honeyslug struggles to develop it in any meaningful way.

Matches are brisk, varied and tense, but you might face a long wait to get one. An idle mode allows you to browse the internet or check emails until a challenge arrives, but alerts are sadly infrequent. Local play is a fine substitute if you have a willing partner, but Gun Monkeys is a two-player game too often lacking a player two.

It’s a game designed to intentionally test your stamina and patience, meaning that if you fail to prepare yourself for Hookball’s relentless pace and harsh difficulty, then prepare to fail.

Despite its flaws, however, Overdrive captures the essence of its progenitor, though it also serves as a reminder that the much-missed Bizarre Creations isn’t coming back.

Had Climax been able to condense the best parts of all three games - China's pared-down and accessible design, India's looks, Russia's two-character dynamic - into one, we might've had a valuable offshoot, but ultimately this is another Assassin's Creed that succumbs to inconsistency and bloat. [April 2016, p.110]

More consistent is the creeping sense of dread throughout, an atmosphere that's built on Robot Invader's preference for slow realisation over jump scares. [Tested with Oculus Rift; June 2016, p.118]

A dismally paced and hugely frustrating expansion of a fine core mechanic, and a badly missed opportunity. [Tested with Vive; June 2016, p.120]

For all its mechanical innovations, however, Aaero can't consistently match the synasthetic joy of its biggest influence. [April 2017, p.119]

Like most things in Luna, it complements the refrain of a children's storybook: work through your feelings, give them shape, and voice, and help others to do the same unconditionally. [Christmas 2017, p.123]

All told, it's a slight, essential basic little game. [Issue#315, p.121]

Battles account for around half the game, and unless you're a fan of the TV series, it's much the better one. [March 2018, p.110]

It's an easy game to play, and even enjoy, but a tough one to love. [March 2018, 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]

It may not give Supercell sleepless nights, but if you've ever thought Clash Royale could be improved by adding Cinderella on a motorbike, well, fill your boots. [Issue#330, p.120]

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

Crazy as they may seem, it's these musical dreamers that ensure Kine makes your heart skip as your head rings - wrong notes and all. [Issue#139, p.114]

This simply has the air of a development team biting off more than it could chew. [Issue#139, p.118]

Those vibrant looks belie a challenge that is sometimes tough but - with one notable exception - exquisitely fair. [Issue#340, p.112]

An imperfect, but highly original game that pokes affectionate fun at the not only very Japanese, but very human, desire for everybody to get along. [Issue#342, p.120]

If not the spiralling success we hoped, this sweet-natured and sincere game provides an afternoon's worth of uplifting altruism. [Issue#347, p.104]

At a time when, more than ever, connecting with others starts by working on ourselves, this endearing twist on the tend-and-befriend genre is a friend indeed. [Issue#348, p.106]

Despite the grim subject matter, Before I Forget isn't just about the pains of living with dementia; it's a deeply emotive tale that highlights an extraordinary life. [Issue#349, p.105]

There's still no one else making games quite like this, and whether you've got a headset or not, it's a joy to be transported once again so completely to the Minter dimension. [Issue#350, p.105]

Fujio's empathetic tale could almost be a playable short from filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda; like Kore-eda's best work, this compassionate snapshot of Japanese working-class life finds pleasure and wonder in the routine. [Issue#350, p.107]

Despite the posthuman setting, these puzzling exhibitions are gently life-affirming, offering warmth and ingenuity in equal abundance. [Issue#351, p.104]

There's a beauty and a strangeness to Tenderfoot Tactics fans of gardens or grid combat owe it to themselves to discover. [Issue#354, p.122]

What a rare delight this is: while other games concern themselves with the big moments this funny, sincere tale reminds us that it's the gaps in between where life really happens. [Issue#354, p.123]

That all-important momentum is absent: the physics of movement just feels wrong, and as such you cannot rely on it. [Issue#365, p.123]

Dap runs out of steam some way before it wraps up, but this abrasive, distinctive game lingers in the mind, haunting you like the ghosts of so many fallen Pikmin. [Issue#367, p.122]

Rodriguez's bright, resourceful debut is a compact little treasure that's well worth dredging up. [Issue#368, p.120]

From the pixellated sweat-drops of exertion as Red nudges a weighty block along to the arpeggiated chime that celebrates a stage's completion, its simple pleasures add up to a quietly transtemporal experience. [Issue#368, p.7]

Taking these works in hand isn't merely entertaining, it really does bring us closer to them - a clever touch. [Issue#369, p.123]

While Schneider may have moved onto 3D physics-based destruction in more recent years, there's something to be said for the enduring appeal of a 2D twin-stick shooter - and Devastator is a good one. [Issue#371, p.120]

It may lack the elegant simplicity and playfulness of Engare, but Tandis succeeds as a meditative plaything that once again encourages us to see the beauty in geometry. [Issue#372, p.119]

Despite its flaws, we're compelled to return. [Issue#374, p.118]

Every bit as transportative as "Hypnospace Outlaw", Last Call BBS combines the studio's puzzling expertise and the flair for storytelling it exhibited in "Eliza", serving as both a fine curtain call for Zachtronics and a fascinating portal back to a time long before its foundation. [Issue#375, p.123]

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

Beneath this joyously aimless frolicking flows a gentle undercurrent of melancholy, which comes to the fore during the game's bittersweet finale. You're asked beforehand whether you're ready to go; it says much for this fuzzy, wistful daydream of a place that leaving it behind proves a surprising wrench. [Issue#378, p.123]

Capturing the seat-shifting tension of cinema's finest vehicular pursuits, Swordship perhaps lacks the longevity of other Roguelikes - though this sprint isn't a marathon, but an exhilarating sprint. [Issue#380, p.122]

There is a lingering sense that Jett's ultimate form lies somewhere between The Far Shore's guided storytelling and the hands-off puzzling here, but this generous and welcoming expansion is deserving of any time given over to it. [Issue#381, p.98]

This is the finest alternative sports game since Windjammers 2. [Issue#381, p.105]

Deftly capturing both the low-key horror of loneliness and the ways we might attempt to deal with it, Birth is a quiet triumph for this compassionate creator. [Issue#382, p.114]

Whether you're into funk fusion or not, there's no denying that the musical rewards all that fastidious work behind the mixing desk. [Issue#383, p.119]

It captures moments of messy humanity that cut through the wreckage. [Issue#384, p.119]

This might well be one of the finest hint systems (certainly in this type of game) that we've ever seen. [Issue#384, p.120]

We don't mind seeing behind the scenes, since in a way the whole game is just that storycrafting system on a larger canvas. [Issue#386, p.123]