Had The Official Game provided a consistent overall challenge, it would have been bearable, if unexciting. But it hasn't, and it isn't. [July 2006, p.88]

Had The Official Game provided a consistent overall challenge, it would have been bearable, if unexciting. But it hasn't, and it isn't. [July 2006, p.88]

The overall impression is of a game that’s both bravely and badly designed, and weighted towards the latter. [July 2006, p.84]

In a family whose every member shouts from the rooftops, it risks palling into the background. Set it on its own, though – or besides absolutely any other 2D platformer – and it shines with dazzling kaleidoscopic brightness. [July 2006, p.78]

Big Huge Games has dressed the RTS in its finest coat-tails, sent it on the most captivating of journeys and transformed its communication skills. There's no question it has become a creature with broader horizons and more refined taste, but there's also no question it's still a familiar figure. [June 2006, p.84]

Sin Episodes promised us one part of an epic, but we’re in danger of getting a generic formula over several iterations, ageing technologically each time. [July 2006, p.85]

While the basic mechanic shows promise, the game itself is purely mechanical, and predictably joyless as a result. [July 2006, p.92]

Only a supreme apologist could suggest that such performance dips aren’t as damaging as they are disappointing, but conversely a realist should soon become capable of accepting them, momentary as they are. [Apr 2006, p.95]

It’s all personality and no muscle, a prime victim for getting sand kicked in its face by the numerous RPG beefcakes currently swaggering around on PS2. [July 2006, p.92]

In the end, though there is little average about either its elegant successes or its needless failings, between them they leave Lost Magic hanging in the balance. [June 2006, p.97]

While these new ingredients can be magical, they’re not enough to produce a truly golden successor. Nevertheless, it’s still an RPG that contains some precious properties. [July 2006, p.90]

Namco’s design process seems so addled by the multiform calls for improvement – the aforementioned mission design, multiplayer modes (which remain entirely offline), storylines and sheer content volume all trailing expectations – that it’s momentarily lost its focus. [July 2006, p.88]

If you share director Ragnar Tornquist's view that being engaged in dialogue is a form of gameplay, then there's a richness here that few other titles have the ability or luxury to create. [June 2006, p.86]

If you share director Ragnar Tornquist's view that being engaged in dialogue is a form of gameplay, then there's a richness here that few other titles have the ability or luxury to create. [June 2006, p.86]

The fact that it’s just mental arithmetic simply doesn’t matter: all it makes you realise is that most games are mental arithmetic one way or another. [May 2006, p.95]

The short-term gratification is gradually diminished by too-obvious regeneration of the damage you cause, and there's not enough variety of experience to sustain a monthly subscription. [June 2006, p.90]

Some may argue over what the series should have become, but what’s important is that it has made that tough decision for itself, and established a rock solid foundation for inevitable, now justified successors. [May 2006, p.86]

Some may argue over what the series should have become, but what’s important is that it has made that tough decision for itself, and established a rock solid foundation for inevitable, now justified successors. [May 2006, p.86]

Some may argue over what the series should have become, but what’s important is that it has made that tough decision for itself, and established a rock solid foundation for inevitable, now justified successors. [May 2006, p.86]

Were it not for its creative direction's admirable job of filling in its patchy mechanics' gaps it would be entirely skippable. With those gaps filled it's a charming, if flawed, achievement. [June 2006, p.96]

Some may argue over what the series should have become, but what's important is that it has made that tough decision for itself, and established a rock solid foundation for inevitable, now justified successors. [May 2006, p.86]

It's telling that the more dejected and hoarse your voice becomes, the easier it seems for the forces to understand their orders. Whoever programmed Odama's English speech recognition clearly wasn't having much fun either. [May 2006, p.90]

Tourist Trophy is never anything more than you, a motorcycle, and the quest for the racing line. It’s more than accomplished enough to fulfil fanatics of bikes and simulations, but too dry for anyone else. [Apr 2006, p.86]

Developer PAM has reinvented a game that no longer strives to be a thinking man’s alternative to Virtua, but something altogether superior. [May 2006, p.94]

Were it not for the rich, recognisable and beloved settings that fall over themselves to get to the player, this would be a desperately bland game. But the power of those settings simply cannot be brushed aside. [June 2006, p.88]

It’s on Live, though, that Ten Hammers truly explodes into life, the absolute requirement for tactics creating jumpy matches that outgun anything so far on Xbox or its baby brother. [Apr 2006, p.92]

It’s on Live, though, that Ten Hammers truly explodes into life, the absolute requirement for tactics creating jumpy matches that outgun anything so far on Xbox or its baby brother. [Apr 2006, p.92]

The Warrior's Code essentially has forgotten when to say no. Pulling itself outward in every direction at once, it stretches thin where it should be richest: at its core. [June 2006, p.95]