An incredibly solid universe with barely a technical glitch to be found, but it's soulless and almost bereft of plot or character. This is a sandbox game that's begging for a purpose. [March 2005, p.80]

Whilst some of the novelty of seeing a stalwart RPG on GameBoy Advance has worn off, The Lost Age is still slick, practised and enjoyable. Fans will lap it up. [June 2003]

It's as intoxicating as it is intoxicated and thus, for those who partake, perhaps best enjoyed with a glass of wine. For comfort, naturally. [Issue#424, p.121]

Few games reward your investment in such exhilarating fashion. [March 2015, p.108]

The gloriously beautiful landscapes; the vital Jim Guthrie soundtrack; the pounding desire to see, explore and accomplish more of this ambient quest: these save the game from itself. It may be uneven in tone, but S:S&S is a triumphant experience nonetheless. It's a brand new page in the dusty book of adventure games, and an inarguable statement as to how much art and music can give to gaming.

The level of personality in the Patapons and their world makes up for any disappointments - and your involvement in their story becomes huge. [Mar 2008, p.99]

It is so often calamitous that its few charms are either squandered or obscured. [Christmas 2009, p.96]

If there’s one great story in The Sims 3, it’s of how the biggest game in the world continues to act like it, expanding in some respects, shrinking in others, but always evolving. And it’s about EA learning more and more how to act like the world’s biggest developer, the production values, build quality and feature set here being almost overwhelming.

Ignore the presentation, the much-talked-about comic book inspiration. Ignore the artwork, the ridiculous voiceovers and the magnificent origin stories. Pay it no attention. The really funny thing about Freedom Force is how little the funny stuff matters. [May 2005, p.89]

Although the basic joy of rolling realistic water around might be short-lived, it's bolstered by the far greater satisfaction of solving the game's intuitive, well-paced puzzles. [Jan 2011, p.102]

This is a good expansion, a solid foundation for the next year of updates, and a lousy place for newcomers to start. [Issue#370, p.108]

It’s a thoroughly successful evolution of the twitch shooter, broadening its scope both upwards and outwards as well as expanding its toolset.

Super Hexagon weds zen-like design purity with the highest order of twitch-reflex athleticism. It revels in the ineffable dance of muscle memory, the act of shutting off your brain and trusting your thumbs to guide you improbably to safety.

Whether she’s huddled up against the cold or sending five men to their doom with an explosive arrow, this is still Lara Croft, one of gaming’s most distinctive heroes – and now she has a personality that extends far beyond the bounds of her bra straps. If the purpose of a reboot is to redefine a character and set them up for the future, then this is a job well done.

As always, the perception of good value lies with you, but even without a penny paid this is still one of the most fluid, elegant, and strategically rich online shooters available. It's a beautiful game to play – in the elaborate motion of its tactics as much as its bright, crisp worlds.

Too often, what's on offer feels like a succession of incomplete experiments - the shoulders of giants on which other VR games might build. [Issue#394, p.100]

Silent Hill 2 is the rare game that isn't over after we've finished playing. It's a state of mind, and it waits for us to return. [Issue#404, p.108]

It's a well plotted and paced, if straight-laced, action adventure that takes most of the strengths of the main franchise while removing a few of the weaknesses. [Christmas 2010, p.100]

Affecting and profoundly different, Her Story is a superlatively told work of crime fiction, and one that deserves to shift the conversation around interactive storytelling. [Sept 2015, p.110]

As an open-world game, it might be too light for some, but World earns the suffix in other entertaining ways. [Issue#413, p.106]

Nioh 3 is ultimately less of a leap from its predecessor than Elden Ring was from Dark Souls 3, but that's to be expected from a direct sequel versus the introductory act of a new franchise. [Issue#421, p.96]

The most comprehensive remake Nintendo has ever undertaken. [July 2009, p.94]

Although Suikoden 3 is better than the average Japenese RPG, it's clear that with the move to 3D Konami has tried to freshen the formula. But by watering down the series' bastion gameplay elements it may have alienated all but the fanatics. [Sept 2003]

For an expansion, HOTS is a dense package, adeptly fashioned and hugely enjoyable. But while its core game might be perfection, HOTS itself isn’t.

The most satisfying effort from Ubisoft Montpellier since Rayman Legends. In a rebirth of this calibre, death is a moot point. [Issue#394, p.98]

This is one of the smartest and most substantial thirdperson action games you'll play. [Issue#378, p.100]

Puzzlejuice may ultimately be too hectic and exhausting to stay on the front page of your iDevice forever, but it's the perfect game for an unhealthy binge every few days. Enjoy it as much as you can, and try not to burn yourself out for good.

As clumsy as some elements feel, it's still difficult to vilify KOTOR II. Its strength is in its ability to make you care about your character's fate, and as an RPG package it's as comprehensive as they come. [Feb 2005, p.70]

For tenacious players and those inclined towards the genre, Fallblox could prove an irresistible draw, with clearing its parade of cryptic conundrums a delicious prospect. For others, the game's difficulty, and its visual and thematic linearity, will prove tiresome, their enthusiasm for its self-evident ingenuity petering out before each of its challenges has fallen.

Yotei is another breathtaking vision of Japan, then, which treads open-world paths familiar to Tsushima but explores a more captivating story, with characters you want to spend time with. [Issue#416, p.102]

It's an 'experience' as much as a game, meaning that it will leave as many people cold as it grabs by the right half of the brain. Beyond good, then, but not quite excellent. [Christmas 2003, p.104]

Often, it can be enough for a sequel to deliver more of the same, but in Superstar Saga’s case, when what the first game delivered was such a powerful sense of freshness, more of the same – which Partners In Time certainly delivers – inevitably feels like less. [Feb 2006, p.86]

Its sheer assuredness in mechanics, spectacle and often situation are unlikely to be surpassed for some time.

You need a decent stick (or a god among pads) to facilitate the split-second Just Impacts, Ukemis and sidesteps that consistent victory demands. This, more than the abundant content is the game's defining improvement - one to snap you out of the sleepwalk by which most Namco fighters are conquered in singleplayer. [Christmas 2005, p.103]

Is this the most violent game of all time? Maybe. Its ragdoll physics may not match the flying limbs and broken faces of Soldier of Fortune, but its throwaway approach to life and death is genuinely shocking, leaving a bitter, metallic aftertaste. This is neither a fall nor an ascension. This is an update. [Jan 2004, p.105]

More than once we extract on our knees, the dregs of life draining out as we hit the button. [Issue#418, p.100]

Offering the quiet contemplation of a puzzle mode, the soothing time-wasting of a marathon session, or the frenetic rivalry of multiplayer: this has it all. [July 2007, p.95]

Despite the familiarity, the longer you spend in your scaled-down village, the more you’re soothed into a gentle, constructive daydream which is every bit as charming as in all its other incarnations. [Jan 2005, p.89]

This is still a fine – and visually opulent – auto-runner, but it’s bloated, too; a little restraint would have gone a long way.

This is a remarkable sequel, one that takes its predecessor not as a template, but a jumping-off point. And for all the justifiable concern about its chosen business model, its implementation of the free-to-play model prizes players’ hearts above the contents of their wallets.

This is the best entry in its genre since Bayonetta, and might just be the best game Ninja Theory has made to date.

Puzzle hunting is the only hassle in an otherwise laidback world. This niggle aside, Professor Layton remains a fine antidote to dull Sunday afternoons. [Dec 2010, p.99]

Brimming with self-assuredness both in its characterisations and its functionality, and measures its pace and progression with an ever more aggressively beautiful interface and environment design, capturing even more galactic and universal scale than the original. [Sept 2005, p.88]

The seamless integration of voice commands into a polished, thoughtful upgrade is Harmonix's slick finishing move. Dance Central 2 is a typical music game sequel – it works better, offers more, yet feels fundamentally the same – but it's a practised improvement to an already eye-catching routine.

We're ready to see what the future holds for The Creative Assembly after Total War. We're also, however, delighted by the studio's seemingly indefatigable ability to bend its own rules and brew up new playstyles, as it brings one of gaming's greatest licensed adaptations to a thunderous conclusion. [Issue#370, p.114]

Plagued by imbalance, the Round 3 career can serve up over 50 bouts before one goes the distance. The new stun punch – a thunderclap of a haymaker – helps to ensure first to third round knockouts for the vast majority of fights. [Apr 2006, p.82]

Amplitude is actually the perfect sequel. Not an expansion pack; a game that doesn't set out to mimic its forefather, but seeks to change the rules slightly without wholly perverting the initial concept. [June 2003, p.92]

This is a game built from great art and clever mechanics, but it's an adventure born of both deeds and words.

We may have no experience of 1980s Taiwan, but Devotion carries the tang of authenticity in both the sharply observed detail of its setting and its more imaginative flourishes, including a gorgeous interactive storybook episode. [Issue#331, p.122]

Every single moment of Four Swords is magically familiar and every single moment is dazzlingly fresh...Whether being experienced in the competitive, co-operative cackle of multiplay, or the captivating atmosphere of singleplayer, the extraordinary virtues of the game itself remain the same. [May 2004, p.96]

The game's frustrations are notable, but never spoil the appeal of controlling that indefatigable little guy. [July 2010, p.100]

The plot is revealed in awkward clumps which never quite dovetail. There's no question, however, that Namco has managed to twist out a tale that sustains your interest across both discs. [Oct 2004, p.106]

This is a stupefyingly linear experience. While the individual stand-offs and shoot-outs are exhilirating, the removal of any sense of choice or any requirement of tactical thought makes this more of a theme park ride than a military operation. [Christmas 2003, p.117]

When so many games are trying to defend their value by cramming every mode and style into one unpalatable mix, it's refreshing to play something that's conceived with such vibrant, capricious clarity. [May 2004, p.104]

For those who favour Vice City above all else from GTA's back catalogue, it's the perfect 80's revival: a chance to live in the past, and love it. [Christmas 2006, p.80]

Watching a plan come together, guns and voodoo and bear traps working in perfect harmony, is incredibly satisfying. [Issue#348, p.90]

Diablo still contains enough impulsive monster-slaying to entertain, but the trek from its home on PC has left it diminished.

For dedicated Ghosts GRAW 2 is a no-brainer. For the rest of us it's just the exact game "Advanced Warfighter" should have been and would have beeen if the clock wasn't watching; Ubisoft rewriting history and charging us twice for the privilege. [May 2007, p.89]

It's a resourceful little game, then, mining laudable variety from an economy of ideas. It's amusing, too, littering its backgrounds with visual gags, including a sly reference to Angry Birds - even if one cake-related joke proves a meme too far. And it saves the best for last, with a final level that offers some thrillingly silly catharsis, managing to one-up its most obvious inspiration in the process.

A surprisingly conservative game from Rockstar. Its absorption of cover mechanics makes Payne feel more familiar than he should, but even then his signature tricks are over a decade old. This is a game about a world-weary killer doing the only thing he knows how to, and for all its spectacular action beats there's something apt about Max's fatigue.

The strongest MMO launch for a long while, and the genre’s deftest ever take on PVP – but its appeal may yet prove too narrow. [Christmas 2008, p.93]

While it's unlikely to win as many hearts as Resident Evil 4 did, it's an equally important and remarkable entry in the series' tumultuous timeline. [March 2017, p.94]

This is a gentle refinement, ironing out kinks, sewing on a few accouterments, and leaving everything else the way it was. [Christmas 2015, p.110]

The same game you've been playing for seven years - or perhaps even longer. And for that it's a thorough success. [Mar 2008, p.97]

What it does have is something an Activision or EA would kill for: a game built up around one good idea that drew in a community of unprecedented size. And that counts for a lot against PUBG's flaws: its rough-edged movement, animations, collision detection, character customisation, spectator functionality, and presentation. Perhaps you might hear all that and think this isn't worth your time. To do so would be to miss out on an absolute, and absolutely deserving, phenomenon. [March 2018, p.106]

All things considered, it’s about the best game called ‘DJ Hero’ we were ever likely to see. It deserves extended play.

It's a shame that Forza's much-vaunted AI tech proves an ill fit for open-world racing. [Dec 2014, p.112]

This is a smart, savvy evolution of the "Spire" formula, one you suspect Mega Crit, flattery be damned, would have been happy to put its name to. [Issue#348, p.105]

Beat Saber never reaches the same transcendental moments of synaesthesia as Tetris Effect, but it does make you feel like a genuine participant in the music. [Issue#328, p.120]

Missions are wonderfully compact and briskly-paced, sweeping you though a substantial campaign with style to match. [Feb 2016, p.119]

Best of all is how the storytelling bleeds into the battles. [Issue#362, p.114]

Then it interrupts the action for a bit of brazen padding, inviting you to trudge back through earlier floors to track the spectral pawprints of an elusive cat, and you wonder if you were right first time. [Issue#339, p.96]

Despite the twitchy combat and compulsive collecting, it all comes back to those creaking mansions. Highly polished under their grime and cobwebs, the treats awaiting in their dark rooms prove Luigi’s subversive series still has the capacity to thrill.

It's a system that very naturally sets up some excellent multiplayer modes, and this is one of an elite few that can truly even the odds between players at different difficulty levels.

It isn’t any kind of reinvention, but a revitalisation, with a style so rich that it becomes an integral part of the game’s substance; Psychonauts breathes imagination and individuality as effortlessly as most games steal from one another. [July 2005, p.84]

The game's greatest triumph is in delivering a truly singular vision. This is not the work of a team in thrall to trend or fashion, its designers given the opportunity to build from their own imagining instead. At a time when many rival studios are guided by the whims of focus testing and audience pandering, it has resulted in a game with one elusive quality. Dragon's Dogma 2 is, more than anything else, unforgettable. [Issue#397, p.98]

Certainly, it provides exhilarating depths for those willing and sufficiently talented to reach them, but the game's narrow and unforgiving constraints will repel far more than it entices. [Issue#389, p.102]

One supposedly shocking reveal is so transparent a five-year-old could guess it. [Nov 2018, p.112]

It's hard not to think how much more memorable and rewarding it would have been had the writers made the effort to intertwine these stories from the outset, instead of making its characters spend so much of their journey walking in parallel. [Issue#383, p.108]

It uses preexisting flaws as the foundations for something that is better in just about every single way: bigger, more coherent and, best of all, immeasurably more generous. With that comes, appropriately, a puzzle for Bungie to solve. How do you continue to build on a game that has so few chinks in its lustrous, gleaming exotic armour? [Dec 2015, p.106]

Heroes of the Storm's great success is that it works harder than any other game to date to open up the strengths of this genre. [Aug 2015, p.114]

Returnal is by turns a gloriously dynamic action game and a dark slice of psychological horror. [Issue#259, p.106]

Those expecting a tale on par with Atlus’ remarkable RPG may be disappointed, then, but Persona 4 Arena’s thoughtfully designed combat system has been well worth the wait.

Its keen sense of drama is as authentic as it is exhilarating: arcing a 40-yard free-kick around the wall and into the top corner in the last-minute of a cup final is as thrilling a moment as you'll witness in any FIFA match. It's hardly the beautiful game – its visuals are perfunctory at best – but Simon Read's creation smartly captures the capitalism, the artistry and the sheer, glorious unpredictability of its subject.

As a sequel, it's not so much an extension as a remix, but one so capable and confident that 'remix' could very well be one of Clover Studio's own personal VFX powers.

Amid those undeniable influences, this emerges as a bona fide original: one that fully merits a place alongside the other gems in Enhance's gold-tier catalogue. [Issue#385, p.110]

V isn't the only one with two souls wrestling for one body. Cyberpunk 2077 ends up being a sometimes-unnecessary exercise in building a better merc, and a propulsive open-world tale about building a better life. If you can ignore the inconsistencies of the former and enjoy the latter, there's a lot to love in Night City. But if Johnny Silverhand teaches us anything, it's that two heads aren't always better than one. [Issue#354, p.98]

Even completing a stage in the relatively tame classic Mini Cooper S will leave you feeling bothered and fatigued. [Feb 2016, p.114]

A short, budget shot of old-school gaming. [Sept 2010, p.100]

This convincing comeback has been designed for the die-hards - and they haven't been this well served by a Sonic game for ages. [Issue#311, p.118]

It gets far more laughs than it should, and special mention to its credits song: perhaps the finest ending on the App Store. Original, funny, and intense: for a game based on Snake, not bad at all.

Quarrel DX is the funniest and most stylish word game around, with layers of strategy that go down so deep it sometimes feels you're just scratching the surface. Even without multiplayer this is an essential purchase. With multiplayer, it could take over the world – or, at the very least, be the thinking person's Angry Birds.

This charming, eccentric mash-up is well worth a spin. [Issue#335, p.112]

Monster Hunter still offers some of the most exciting and handsomely staged third-person combat you'll find in any game - and, if only by a small amount, Generations has raised the bar again. [Issue#296, p.112]

Full of bravado, packed with features and brimming with invention, this 20-year-old veteran is as vital and relevant as ever. [Jan 2007, p.84]

Were Inscription half as long, it would probably be twice the game. [Issue#365, p.114]

Its flaws stand out in the short singleplayer campaign, and its tail end relies too much on the gunplay that the game otherwise relegates to a begrudging last resort. But when it hits its stride, the environments unlock the player’s tactical ambitions in away that is truly empowering, launching you between shadow and light, discretion and aggression.

It turns out that Mario+ Rabbids still has the capacity to surprise us after all. [Issue#378, p.96]