Sega Superstars Tennis is well-crafted, lovingly garish, and it plays a solid game. [Apr 2008, p.97]

This is a sorely flawed game, but also a truly majestic one... a beautiful and ambitious manifesto for what games can give you that nothing else can. [June 2004, p.98]

Underneath the mundane masculinity and grimy gun-toting clichés lies a heavily structured and well-considered score-attack game – one that’s worth excavating for all the short-lived interest it holds. [Feb 2008, p.88]

Even if some of the fundamental stuff has been sacrificed to the creation of this huge world, Fuel still makes it across the finish line on a far-from-empty tank. [July 2009, p.97]

The early promise is blunted, however, when too many cooks arrive and you're left relying on potshots and memory games. [Christmas 2009, p.106]

The overriding sensation is that, 18 years of waiting later, this is not the game we had dreamed of... And despite the areas in which it clearly struggles, Shenmue III does ultimately leave us wanting to see how those plot developments are resolved, and to take our virtual tourism to a new frontier. Whether we, and Hazuki, will get that opportunity... we'll see. [Issue#341, p.98]

The relentless thrill of one half of it dragged down by the barren, boring needless sprawl of the other. [Issue#334, p.110]

Some elements of story and gameplay are left disappointingly underdeveloped, and the grand environmental puzzles of the opening section become all but absent in the later locations - but when Belli's running for her life, you won't stop to notice.

Suda has a punk attitude to amking games, so at this point we decide to adopt a punk attitude to playing them. We put down the controller, and walk away. [March 2019, p.114]

It's certainly going out with a bang. [Sept 2010, p.97]

Infuriatingly, Dissidia NT's focus on 3V3, its limited modes and lack of beginner-friendly packaging means that, as the online well of competition runs dry, we're repeatedly matched with a single opponent with the remaining four slots filled by incompetent AI. [Apr 2018, p.116]

There's tactical depth, then, but it's squandered on a game that doesn't understand the importance of balance.

Tycoon City’s desire to create a believable Big Apple has become an obsession, focusing on that end rather than the means of getting there. Where its peers extol freedom, this game calls the shots. [Mar 2006, p.90]

Unlike a good spy, however, it flubs its final execution. [Nov 2014, p.116]

It's a bloated, often incoherent game, but the most frustrating thing about Resident Evil 6 is that (Chris's focus on cover shooting aside) it's not an unimaginative one. It might feel padded at times, but Capcom always has something new to show you after the filler, such as a fresh campaign, another repellent boss form, a surprising enemy type, a co-op vehicle section, or an odd location to explore.

In isolation, it's a little thin. [Issue#400, p.122]

This sense of unevenness doesn't stop with the characters, and spreads to the design of the combat spaces. [Issue#400, p.118]

It can be hard to separate what is ironically bad and what is just, well, bad. [Issue#381, p.100]

Coupling this mostly successful strategic management to a realtime 3D world is unconvincing. More than that, the places where the RTS bits meet the shooting bits exist on some weird fringe of reality, where the symbolic shorthand of tactical games clashes absurdly with the pavement-pounding veracity we've learnt to expect from open-world crime. [May 2009, p.91]

For a title trying hard to inject personality into the genre, the experience feels irreparably mechanical. There's plenty of variety in terms of racing categories and machinery, but the overall lack of involvement is inexcusable. [Feb 2004, p.102]

While that means Soulstorm works - accidentally or otherwise - as a metaphor for the struggle of the working classes, all that toil rarely makes for a particularly engaging game. [Issue#359, p.112]

Those seeking a healthy eating plan are advised to look elsewhere: this is more likely to encourage consumption of hallucinogens than fruit and vegetables.

That player-considerate attitude is offset by less reverential treatment of its inspiration, however. Ittle Dew isn’t really a parody, more a loving pastiche, but its gently sassy mockery of Zelda’s conventions ties with the beautiful, vibrant art to ensure that while this really is mostly block puzzles, they’re some of the best presented ones you’ve ever played.

It's competent but insufficient and disparate, full of ideas that haven't been fleshed out or meaningfully linked, as if it's all stripped back from a broader original vision. [Issue#139, p.120]

And while it's really more a snack than a buffet, it's one that will leave you full and contented, the acidic tang of competition cutting through all that sugar. [Issue#376, p.120]

Fun concepts brought low by crummy execution. Hand-to-hand combat can benefit from skill-based flourishes, but rarely goes beyond crude whomping. Large plains hide crannies galore, though you navigate them atop a horse with the handling of a bus.

While suspension of disbelief can stretch to accommodate the odd genuine flaw – inconsistencies between what objects you can and can’t punch through, for example – the sequel has too many to hide. [Feb 2007, p.80]

The stakes are raised in the closing stretch, but the drama is undercut by the story's brevity. [March 2017, p.106]