And though a clutch of score-based challenges are both too few and too brisk, they contribute to an iOS game of rare generosity and substance.

Its ragged edges mean it feels more like a competent cover version that occasionally strays off key, rather than the genuine article. [Dec 2017, p.120]

Level-5 and Studio Ghibli's contributions are harmonious. As a game, Ni No Kuni builds upon classic JRPG foundations, eschewing the evolutions of Xenoblade Chronicles and Final Fantasy XII. But the assured flair with which Level-5 has implemented each of the game's classic components combines with Ghibli's masterful storytelling to deliver a JRPG that's quite unlike any other.

Is 2010 about the show or the sport? It is, like the UFC itself, ready to be both. This confidence is what makes it such a complete and compelling package – a great MMA sim, a near flawless UFC sim. In a year, it’s made the kind of studious jump that took FIFA almost ten.

This is easily the better sequel, a firm improvement on "Warrior Within." So why the long face? For the simple and saddest reason of all: ennui. [Christmas 2005, p.100]

That central combination of philosophical debate and logical reasoning remains as robust as it did nine years ago. [Issue#392, p.112]

Ready At Dawn has successfully maintained its focus, making its debut game a standout title on a platform lacking in must-haves. [May 2006, p.91]

The most ambitious game BioWare has ever made. [Jan 2014, p.104]

On its own terms, Tales from the Borderlands is one of Telltale's best works yet. [Christmas 2015, p.116]

An ambitious and largely successful attempt to meld the accuracy of traditional firstperson battling with the extra spatial agility and awareness afforded by thirdperson movement. It does feel slightly overdone, but not to the point of obscuring its offering of intensity and flighty action. [May 2005, p.90]

No, it doesn't make any damn sense. But consider us compelled. [Issue#354, p.112]

Where once upon a time this series might have built an entire dungeon around a single gadget, here it's possible to pick up new inventions every few minutes, for hours on end. [Issue#403, p.96]

It might not always say what you want it to hear, but the words stay with you. [Issue#139, p.110]

The 3DS' first fighting game happens to be a version of one of the genre's best, and it's lost little in the conversion to a portable system. Token additions, such as the cute-but-unworkable Dynamic (3D) View, bulk out the package, but it's what's stayed the same that's the real triumph here. SSFIV is just as vibrant, fluid and confident as ever – and it's just been unshackled from your TV.

One of the few games of its type you can actually play for an hour, take on one of its missions, and have a meaningful unit of experience. Staight in. Straight out. Gamer satisfied. [Sept 2004, p.105]

Bright and breezy, it offers almost bottomless value, creates a believable and consistent world, offers a real strategic challenge as well as the kind of brainless completism that’s best suited to delayed trains and rainy afternoons, and hides a staggeringly intricate set of mechanics inside an accessible and non-threatening world. [July 2007, p.84]

As the more intimate title suggests, this may be as much about Croft's brand awareness in the face of unprecedented (and Uncharted) competition. [Oct 2010, p.96]

The extreme volatility of every moment carries a reward that overshadows the annoyances. [June 2005, p.85]

Though the Clancy series entirely consists of such well-rounded packages, it’s Splinter Cell that shines – a game of equally accomplished halves. [Dec 2006, p.82]

This is a game that skilfully blends the safe with the courageous in an alchemical fusion of old and new, somehow brave and default all at once.

Survivor manages to leave us wondering what could possibly be left for a sequel - and surprisingly eager to find out. [Issue#385, p.106]

Doom's shimmering, bombastic combat is as absorbing as it is revelatory. [Aug 2016, p.100]

Even if its technical handicaps are clear, what it achieves with the palette at its disposal is astounding. Instincts' lower resolution textures, sporadic pop-up, cruder characters and jagged shadows are all clearly defined beneath its baking sun, but the composition of the overall canvas offers a masterful distraction. [Nov 2005, p.100]

Relic seems afraid to let any of its ideas meaningfully vary your experience, in case the result isn’t as satisfying as the scenario it has clearly tested so well. [Apr 2009, p.119]

It's easy to forget just how precious few of the genre's many exponents ever attain this level of competence, of course, but that said it's not unreasonable to have hoped for a little more innovation from Capcom. [July 2004, p.103]

Though the explosions scale with progress, and the act of detonation continues to be a giddy pleasure, Mars could do with a thicker atmosphere.

The problem is that, in the areas where Esoteric Ebb differs most from its clearest inspiration, it's imitating something else. [Issue#422, p.112]

It doesn't so much break the fourth wall as move effortlessly through it as a spectre might, leading to conundrums that rival the dearly departed Cing's finest work: one more act of resurrection in an ingeniously constructed ghost story. [Issue#384, p.118]

Over-familiarity and stagnation has bred a cancerous apathy among gaming's cognoscenti. FFX-2, like it or not, gives players a reason to take notice again. [Jan 2004, p.98]

What's most frustrating about Tiberium Wars is that it chooses not to accentuate the breakneck battlefield thrills of C&C's arcade stylings, opting instead to preserve the old blueprint. [May 2007, p.86]

A masterclass in imaginative flair and precision-engineered game mechanics. The GBA is beginning to feel all grown up. [Feb 2004, p.107]

It's a puzzle game and a strategy game as much as an action game, then, and like Rockstar's Manhunt, it will sicken you even as it provides its murky thrills.

Perhaps its greatest achievement is defying comparisons to Rock Band and emerging as its own game. GHWT might be a little rough around the edges, but it’s a good stab at reinvigorating the franchise. [Christmas 2008, p.96]

As smooth and exhilarating a ride as it ever was… MotoGP 3 remains a strong, solid outing for those who enjoy a thoroughly analogue play experience as well as fans of motorbike racing. [Oct 2005, p.98]

If Rocket League often feels like a sports game for people who don't really like sports games, that's no criticism. [Oct 2015, p.123]

With it’s limited range of costumes (broadened with lazy palette swaps) and unambitious Tag and Team battles, DOA4 remains as familiar as the mild disappointment it delivers. [Feb 2006, p.84]

It’s one of the happiest pieces of software ever released, constantly throwing tunes, trinkets and new tricks at the player simply to amuse them. [Jan 2009, p.93]

It's a tale of swords and souls in which everyone keeps their dignity until you knock off their cuirass and make them fight in their bra. [Sept 2008, p.84]

In exploring the past so thoughtfully, it has established itself as a name to watch in the future. [Issue#363, p.121]

Where Frostpunk was painfully intimate, the sequel takes a bird's-eye view, but this distance serves it just as well. [Issue#403, p.100]

Yes, in places, it's a little too familiar, sometimes ungainly and unsure of itself. Yet it's also big-hearted and likeable, with a hero that, even at the peak of his powers, remains endearingly human. By the time the credits roll, you might be convinced that Parker should extend his vacation. [Issue#353, p.104]

[An] endearingly odd, memorable little game. [Issue#314, p.122]

It's not so much a game with depth as one with width, a fat pool of possible ways to idle away your time between quests, allowing you to craft what feels like an unprecedented sense of social personality, in terms of colour and grandeur if not actual complexity. [Nov 2004, p.94]

Previous Forza entries showed glimmers of personality, hinting at a broader approach to accessibility, but were too shy and reserved to truly let loose. Horizon boldly goes there. It's a magpie game, assembled from pieces of other series, but it delivers a driving game precision engineered to offer all levels of player the best possible experience.

The knowledge that there's always another unlock just around the corner - and the tanalising locked-off areas you pass en rouge - ensures Shadow retains the fourth, invisible thing that held the Arkham series' other pillars together: the sense of forward momentum. [Issue#405, p.116]

This is an incredible achievement, the closest a simulator has come to entertainment; the nearest videogaming has come to the real experience of driving. Forget play. Just drive. [March 2005, p.84]

As efficiently and proficiently designed as Logan’s Shadow is, it’s unavoidably tied to the problems associated with action games of this type on PSP. [Feb 2008, p.96]

This is a game that requires serious commitment. [Issue#395, p.116]

As enveloping a puzzle space as any (outside of wells and hotels) we've encountered this year. [Issue#399, p.120]

It’s a great shame, because with tighter controls Frogmind’s charismatic debut would be a memorable one, but as it is it lacks the power to draw you back into its world.

Over-levelling all too easily threatens to undermine Fire Emblem's unique place in the genre. It's a problem easily side-stepped by both choosing an appropriate difficulty level and tempering your levelling, but nevertheless the option is unwelcome. [Aug 2005, p.90]

Pragmata has an original combat system, some smart toys and tight engineering, yet its rhythm and structure are a touch too singular. This is no mere 3D printout, but an exercise in the pristine and clinical nonetheless. [Issue#424, p.96]

As an experiment in making a genuine retro game, and as a tribute to a forgotten title of yore, Forget-Me-Not is brilliant. But as a 2011 release, even with rose-tinted spectacles firmly applied, it's much harder to recommend.

When Tunic gestures towards Zelda games of old, something it does with all the subtlety of an air traffic controller, it's indicating an attempt to chip away the intervening decades and get back to the feeling of playing those games for the first time, when they still held what seemed like bottomless mystery. [Issue#370, p.104]

Irritations never last long in Smash 3DS, sandblasted away by the winningly varied combat and the sheer torrent of ways to enjoy it. [Dec 2014, p.122]

Treyarch has taken just enough from COD4 to make World At War a broad success, but it remains firmly in its shadow. [Christmas 2008, p.90]

Levels feel more segmented and less regimented, and the better for it. There’s no cheap, wholesale reduction of difficulty, just what feels like a more balanced play experience. [Jan 2005, p.84]

The fifth Tony Hawk's title doesn't just suffer because of its embarrassing attempts to be edgy and urban, it's poorer because it lacks the verve and imagination so prevalent in previous iterations. [Christmas 2003, p.122]

As the studio name suggests, this is a game design team that's in love with books, and so it's amongst books that its first offering reveals its true potential.

A love letter to the NES era, Shovel Knight is punishingly difficult, a game of quick reflexes and exacting precision. [Sept 2014, p.112]

Whether you're truly getting to co-author Fortuna's story isn't always clear, but then divination is an ambiguous practice - and here, a terrifically enjoyable one. [Issue#389, p.121]

Like the early Tomb Raiders, this is a game in which you truly get to know your environment, connecting with it physically and emotionally: a puzzle to be solved, yes, and a story to be unearthed, but also a space to respect and to feel humbled by. [Issue#391, p.116]

After a lengthy hiatus, the series has returned with a sense of forceful creativity it's lacked for some time. [Issue#416, p.106]

It’s almost shocking how seamless, engrossing and accessible Fahrenheit is. It’s sad, then, that it shows weakness in the one area where it needed to be stronger than any other game: the script. [Oct 2005, p.84]

This is a wonderful, expansive piece of sequel-craft that has already drawn us in for a second go-around at a higher difficulty, with no fear that we've scraped the ceilings of its systems and stories. For something like that, we'll take a bit of instability any time. [Issue#407, p.90]

This is easily the better sequel, a firm improvement on "Warrior Within." So why the long face? For the simple and saddest reason of all: ennui. [Christmas 2005, p.100]

But the puzzles themselves are nearly an unmitigated joy.

As the game strays further from this core fantasy, its charms are dulled. Nioh 2 is a rather conservative sequel. [Issue#346, p.96]

The fundamentals of the game are intoxicating.

It's in traditional multiplayer (and to some degree singleplayer) where the game shines and attains that perfect shallowness of being both addictive and immediately forgettable - until the next go. [Apr 2004, p.109]

Remarkably compelling. But there's only so much joy to be found in repetition, particularly when dogfighting interludes are so mannered. Ultimately, it's difficult to recall what all the fuss was ever about. [May 2003, p.100]

Guitar Hero 5 does stand as the most accessible version of the game concept to date, presenting a significantly tidier, more intuitive menu to get you playing sooner. [Nov 2009, p.103]

In a growing field of downloadable shooters, it stands out as one of the best. [Aug 2007, p.94]

The best Metroid game in years. [Dec 2017, p.112]

Charming, irrepressible and inventive, the fact that it never manages to blend its ingredients smoothly together doesn’t stop it being a toothsome pick ‘n’ mix of playful puzzles, familiar faces and unrestrained whimsy. [June 2007, p.84]

This core loop of planning and upgrading defences while plugging the gaps in your frontline is enriched by art that imbues surprising amounts of character into your microscopic soldiers, and sound design that turns the clash of swords and crackling fizz of magic spells into a compulsive symphony.

What emerges from the emotional wreckage is a paean to human resilience in the face of catastrophe, one that amply rewards your own perseverance. [Issue#382, p.113]

Combat is thrilling – each weapon packing a solid, vicious blast; movement suggesting heft and momentum. [Dec 2008, p.80]

There are lots of puzzles, a fun environment to tootle around in, and little to dislike. Utterly charming. [Apr 2008, p.95]

Such steps forward may seem at odds with the time period, but that late-'80s setting is put to brilliant use in the story. [March 2017, p.98]

Mario 64 DS is a magnificent execution of entirely the wrong content. Happily, despite its age, that content is so robust and remarkable that the result is still surprising, spectacular and, yes, downright Super. [Jan 2005, p.78]

Thematically eccentric, mechanically shambolic and technically stunning, Dead Rising is the kind of infectious experience that yearns for a sequel. [Oct 2006, p.80]

The singleplayer adventure is yet another sprawling, puzzle-heavy artefact hunt which, truth be told, is far bigger than we had any right to expect. [May 2006, p.89]

A distinctive twist on an established formula, and a remarkable accomplishment for such a small team. Its subject matter might seem like serious business, but this game about death feels thrillingly alive. [Issue#362, p.112]

For the more casual - OK, more sane - player, however, Destiny 2 is almost a triumph. It is a game much better at explaining itself, that wants to be enjoyed and understood, and is happy to reward players for simply being there. [Dec 2017, p.102]

Nintendo has clearly been experimenting with how to better exploit its system's obvious potential, and its solution is a natural, graceful implementation of 3D that complements and even improves its games, rather than feeling tacked on.

This is easily the better sequel, a firm improvement on "Warrior Within." So why the long face? For the simple and saddest reason of all: ennui. [Christmas 2005, p.100]

With incessant dialogue boxes and the option to tweet every other scrap of text you come across, this second iOS outing from Fable designer Dene Carter has picked up some of the worst habits of smartphone gaming.

For those willing to invest in all of the paraphernalia required to experience it, Phantasy Star Online remains a beguiling prospect. [May 2003, p.104]

The game feels somewhat tormented by its turgid dialogue and a one-note plot, both given preference over the raw thrills of doing kickflips in hell. [Issue#419, p.108]

A monument to the entire trilogy, it allows IO to move on (the studio has another numerically monikered agent in its sights) in the confidence that these masterful feats of in-game architecture will last in the lone and level sand of a new console generation. [Issue#356, p.88]

The Alters is unique in how it explores trust, regret, choice, self-sacrifice, labour and autonomy through its characters every bit as much as its pylon puzzles. [Issue#413, p.110]

It has a masterful user interface. [July 2008, p.93]

Combat is thrilling – each weapon packing a solid, vicious blast; movement suggesting heft and momentum. [Dec 2008, p.80]

Rogue Legacy offers the silly, slapstick cruelty of the best roguelikes, but twins it with something just as appealing: a tantalising hint of control over your fate.

Bright, colourful and mostly dismissive of current trends, it’s clear The Behemoth wants to delight players with every moment of its latest performance. That it succeeds in only most of those moments is still a remarkable achievement.

The essence of the classic JRPG distilled into an unlikely form. [Issue#336, p.114]

Bright and breezy, it offers almost bottomless value, creates a believable and consistent world, offers a real strategic challenge as well as the kind of brainless completism that’s best suited to delayed trains and rainy afternoons, and hides a staggeringly intricate set of mechanics inside an accessible and non-threatening world. [July 2007, p.84]