Its basic form is a succession of things that you hit with little emotion or interest. Approaching such a task co-operatively can only distract you for so long. [June 2009, p.95]

Away from the restrictions enforced by the licence the game improves. Free Roam gives you unlimited access to the excellently designed LA streets and rooftops, while Stunt Mode also takes greater advantage of the exquisite physics engine. But why are there no added incentives such as stunt scoring or accumulators? A missed opportunity. [Oct 2003, p.101]

Nobody, nobody at all, walks into a game shop and thinks: "Hey, goblins are pretty cool. Today I want to be a goblin." When the goblins in question have been rendered with almost no character or charm, this merely compounds the lack of emotional connection. [Mar 2004, p.106]

Many titles are likened to "Devil May Cry," but Van Helsing appropriates that game's structure with such brazen thoroughness that it might be seen as this generation's Great Giana Sisters. [July 2004, p.108]

For all Tina's spirited efforts as dungeon master, every aspect of the Borderlands experience is showing its age. The next instalment needs more than dismal puns and wonky guns if it's to avoid being the butt of the joke. [Issue#371, p.112]

Despite its problems, and they're not insignificant, Ancestors has an unusual magnetism. [Issue#337, p.116]

If you take a player to the extremes of in-game power, giving them the equivalent of a god mode against standard enemies, how can that be turned into something more engaging than a temporary plaything? [Nov 2008, p.90]

Haze is a distinctly unflattering addition to Playstation 3's library, embarrassingly reminiscent of the previous generation. [July 2008, p.88]

It's perhaps because the title benefits from such a high production spend … that the average design and execution becomes more pronounced. [Mar 2004, p.101]

At launch, matchmaking can't even manage to find a single game. [Issue#348, p.94]

Every one of its features you will find in better games elsewhere - with a strong emphasis on the plural, since Rune Factory 5 tries to cram in so many different genres. [Issue#371, p.116]

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]

Commander Video needs to be the bigger rectangle and step aside for the two final planned installments. [July 2010, p.103]

It's easy to over-rate launch titles thanks to the shock of the new, doubly so when the control scheme is as interesting as this one, but at its heart Red Steel is just another lever-pulling trawl through big rooms and S-shaped corridors. [Christmas 2006, p.77]

Were spirits to play a game while they waited in Purgatory, surely it would be Mario Party. It can take an age to get to the end, and the minigames are interspersed with a turgid board game section that tests the patience to its limits. [Jan 2004, p.109]

It all adds up to an uneven brawler, a game with the resources and technology to break through the walls of the developer's lineage but one unprepared to fully let go and take a chance. [Dec 2010, p.90]

3DS was the perfect opportunity to take Super Monkey Ball back to its GameCube glory days. Instead we find a game that has spent so many years honouring various types of hardware, it has forgotten its own original aim. [May 2011, p.102]

It’s sure to be a more compelling experience online, albeit one that relies heavily on the honour of your opponents, and its rough-edged charm is compulsive. [Mar 2007, p.87]

If this were a physical card game, we suspect it's be the kind people buy booster packs for solely to admire the art within, and never to play with. [Issue#374, p.120]

Being among the first of the console MOBAs, Guardians Of Middle-Earth could've been a gentle introduction to an intimidating genre, providing a welcoming hand for players new to the MOBA, but a split focus between accessibility and complexity means neither genre greenhorns nor greybeards will end up feeling truly satisfied.

Mario Kart isn't a racing game any more. It is a party game, and anyone buying it for anything more than frantic, foolish, social fun will grow tired of being cheated very quickly indeed. [Christmas 2003, p.98]

The puzzles are generic. [Issue#348, p.104]

Put simply, it regularly betrays the cyber-ninja fantasy it's peddling. The speedruns will doubtless be dazzling, and Ghostrunner certainly LOOKS every bit the blockbuster it isn't. How unfortunate, then, that a game about a deadly assassin should suffer from so many critical failures in execution. [Issue#352, p.114]

Like any good zombie fiction, the real enemy in AZMD! isn't the walking dead, but the humans who created them.

By its publisher's standards, this is lower-division fodder. [Issue#374, p.123]

The game's failure to monopolise on its squad dynamic relegates it to a shooter-by-numbers, and its appeal is then further undercut by the fact that, while Barker clearly has a sense for the grotesque, it is the only note that Jericho plays. [Dec 2007, p.91]

Sadly, any gains made here are squandered by woolly controls, a dearth of feedback and infuriating inaccuracy even with aiming assist dialed up to maximum.

There are points of interest here, but they're scattered too far and wide to make this a worthwhile excursion. [Issue#398, p.118]