Beyond its undoubted visual appeal, Ori doesn't quite have enough ideas of its own to set itself apart from the genre classics of which its developer is so clearly enamoured. [May 2015, p.118]

Throughout there is a sense of a studio that, after its arduous struggles with "Below", has remembered how to have fun again. The feeling is mutual. [Issue#338, p.102]

It’s no accident that your role can often feel more captive than intrepid explorer; Fireproof skilfully demonstrates that escapism through escapology can be a potent conceit indeed.

Like the very best narratives, Thirty Flights Of Loving relies on economy more than excess, and it races you breathlessly to its conclusion rather than herding you through an awkward gauntlet of false choices and bottlenecks.

It has, through painstaking effort, upgraded the card duel into a thoroughly modern form. It has resisted the dark lures of free-to-play, and has made deep systems simple to parse without neutering them. In short, Hearthstone is borderline alchemy, turning physical systems into digital gold.

It’s all here: the hoi polloi, the ambience, the weather, the police pressure, and the emergent scenarios that can make you feel special or wretched. It feels familiar, but remains primed for fresh exploration and mischief, reapplying a formula that still feels superior to its imitators’ approaches. [Christmas 2005, p.107]

A perfect organism? Not quite, but in its finest stretches Dread has a momentum that can mesmerise for hours at a time. It's hard to look away from the screen - even when, in moments that reach towards full horror, you might want to. [Issue#365, p.98]

Aside from a very few niggling discrepancies, it’s an almost flawless experience – one which, having demanded a heavy investment of both time and thought, richly pays off. [Christmas 2006, p.83]

Hamstrung slightly by its hardware, this is a wonderful and educational creative tool; better, if less lovable, than its predecessor. A compromise, then, but a damn-near essential one. [Issue#335, p.104]

Over-dependence on legwork over the bulk of each world robs the game of its sparkle, making it feel more work-ethic sweatshop than well-paced sweetshop. [Dec 2005, p.111]

The series is so hemmed in by its own history - and the demands of fans - that it is largely unable to innovate. As such, the PSP version, while a solid iteration of an eminently playable formula, is able to grow only in width rather than concept. [Sept 2006, p.85]

The Stanley Parable is brave. It’s brave because it offers the freedom to define the parameters of your experience. It’s brave because it’s willing to explore the ways in which games manipulate players, and to extrapolate that point into a discussion of the way we are all manipulated by the structures of real life. It’s brave because it’s willing to make fun of itself.

With Capcom's technicians helping Nintendo's console punch well above its weight, Rise has made it a thrilling contest between two majestic beasts. [Issue#357, p.104]

The levels here are every bit as inventive as they were in Origins and, by the time your moveset has expanded to include a hover, wall-run and punch, every bit as punishing.

As a series, Civilization is being quietly surpassed. [Christmas 2016, p.114]

Battlefield 1 is better than its predecessors in almost every way. [Christmas 2016, p.102]

You may think you know Diablo, but you don't know it with this level of polish, from the clean brilliance of interlocking skills and classes to the sheer amount of chaos the game's comfortable with conjuring in its later dungeons. It's a testament to what money and confidence (Blizzard's own equivalent of mana and health) can do.

A game world that keeps bettering itself, until some kind of disbelief sets in. This dazzling technical feat is mirrored by some terrifyingly fast loading times, with no in-game loading and restarts from any save point in the whole world taking around two seconds. [Feb 2005, p.72]

Elements such as marching onto an island, or talking to a governor, seem flat and underdeveloped. Islands are sparse and awkward experiences, while their governors are often illogical and nonsensical in their responses. [Jan 2005, p.88]

If you've been writing the series' Vita appearance off as a compromise or a contractual obligation, you're in for something of a treat. That 5 inch OLED screen is a chance to see Media Molecule's staggering achievement afresh, and to witness one of this generation's most intriguing engines of creativity at its most energetic and effective.

For the first time in years, it's easy to meet up with other players, drawn together by enticing new stories. [December 2016, p.120]

Far from simply feeling sufficiently old-school, Pillars of Eternity II is a game of systems and setting working in wonderful harmony and with a pioneering spirit, exposing what it is that players miss about those particular 'good old days' on the first place. [July 2018, p.110]

Crimson Skies really comes to life online. Up to 16 players can duke it out in the skies and the dogfights are terrific. This is better than you'd ever have expected. [Christmas 2003, p.123]

With a smart, wry script, a warmly uplifting narrative and a likeable cast, this is a game with its heart in the right place, even if some of its other parts feel a little out of whack. [Jan 2017, p.123]

Perhaps that's Infinite Fall's ultimate triumph: with a group of 2D animals it's built a cast that's more rounded and identifiably human than any mo-capped blockbuster. [May 2017, p.116]

Racers has an appealing lack of pretension that suggests it has nothing to prove other than that Ridge Racer is a delight to play. And it is, with no call for caveat – for a handheld, for a ‘remake’, for a launch title. It's simply one of the best pure arcade racers to date. [JPN Import; Feb 2005, p.68]

What Fireproof has done, in other words, is to literally wrap the mechanics of a point and click adventure, with its abstract puzzles and occasionally opaque logic, around these fantastical contraptions, before suffusing the experience with an air of ghostly mystery.

With a superior control system and a raft of incisive upgrades, this year’s update is a connoisseur of the boxing arts. [Apr 2005, p.103]