The springy physics are almost perfect, giving you just enough control even as you hurtle through the air at speed. [Nov 2016, p.118]

What should be a straightforward tale of coming to terms with loss introduces a few too many complexities and characters, muddling its attempts to explain what happens when we shuffle off this mortal travelator. [Issue#379, p.123]

At its most intense, Exoprimal is aakin to playing an EDF game without the accompanying performance issues. [Issue#388, p.100]

Perhaps the saddest misunderstanding in Assault, though, is its pedestrian, linear structure. There's nothing wrong with it, but the multiple routes and secret branches of the earlier titles bound levels into a taut, short, player-directed adventure that was always seamless and could never be fully experienced in one sitting... Without it, Assault is a jumbled, disposable thrill. [Apr 2005, p.92]

Look at it one way, and it's a choking journey with unprecedented attention to unease and psychological horror, a game framed with unparalleled sophistication. From another angle, it's just a clunky PSone throwback, with all the design wit of a dodo. [Aug 2004, p.92]

This is a potent and upsetting work that leaves a deep impression, spreading and darkening like a bruise. [Dec 2015, p.120]

As narrative adventures go, this is like the wonky piece of pottery we find after packing up Tess's things: handsomely rendered but misshapen and disappointingly empty. [Issue#397, p.110]

Once you get past the surface, the environments are lacking in engaging activities, largely consisting of requests to hunt a certain amount of monsters with gradually diminishing returns. [Issue#361, p.108]

All the games, even the good ones, outlast their welcome. [Jan 2008, p.90]

If the game is to flourish, Rare must develop the basic structures that compel modern players to return even on the days when nobody gets kidnapped by the Kraken. Sooner or later, we all have to grow up. [June 2018, p.108]

It’s the kind of concept you suspect was conceived more by the desire to ‘leverage brand synergy’ than to create a classic videogame. [Jan 2008, p.90]

Suda is an undisciplined designer. As with his comedy, he throws every idea at his game design, hoping something will stick. He's an artistic, if idiosyncratic, thinker, so invariably some ideas do succeed, but the assault of jokes, ideas and vignettes ends up as unwieldy as it is characterful. The result is a game in which there's as much to celebrate as to berate, as much to admire as there is to admonish.

Occasionally gripping but frequently unfulfilling, Sniper Elite V2 comes in at a heavy price for a package that's all gore and little reward.

After some hit-and-miss experimentation, SOCOM needs refreshing, and this more aggressive approach is aiming in the right direction, even if it isn't a direct hit. [June 2011, p.93]

It's the kind of scrappy contender you want to root for, but while its battle camera keeping you at a distance proves a smart move, the same can't be said for its story. [Issue#378, p.119]

You can call it feature creep or over-ambition, but it's the surfeit of content that almost buries the game's achievements. [June 2010, p.100]

"quotation Forthcoming"

If you're still wondering whether to give it a go, we politely refer you to the title. [Issue#358, p.120]

Area 51 is entirely without inspiration, an exercise in slick, crowd-pleasing cookie-cutter cliché from the Jerry Bruckheimer school of entertainment manufacture. It is absolutely not bad, almost never broken, and usually a good deal of fun. [July 2005, p.92]

Once you’ve wiped away the layer of gore, you’re left with an experience that, expectedly, offers limited entertainment. [March 2005, p.85]

A consuming, flowing and sparky fighting game that, like Rocky himself, is as defiant as it is aged. Yet it smacks of trying to draw out the dying moments of a well-flogged horse.

Between a legacy it can't quite shake and a jumble of borrowed mechanics that fit neither the format nor the fantasy, Gotham Knights simply isn't it. [Issue#379, p.114]

At least building the game around a mountain ascent avoids survival horror cliché. Instead of stepping bravely into the murk you are motivated forwards by the peak's promise. [Oct 2009, p.98]

Ends up feeling like it’s been built by PC game developers obsessed with quick saves. There’s absolutely no creative latitude; it’s a case of remembering where enemies appear and getting them before they get you. [May 2005, p.86]

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]

But content is no substitute for quality, and while Sniper Elite III might have made for an engaging design document, it isn’t much of a game.

Naturally, it isn’t as attractive as its console cousin, though zoom down to eye level during its majestic sunsets and the shanties belted out by your crew make for a reasonable facsimile of the console game.

To see it submit to mobile gaming's worst tendencies, rather than make any effort to be different, to be better, is galling. It may be flashy and efficient as both a Diablo game and a mobile game, but Immortal offers little that is bold, ambitious or innovative. Instead, its structure and pacing is designed with one goal in mind: to squeeze as much cash out of every player as it can. [Issue#374, p.110]