Perhaps it's time to rebuild from scratch. [Issue#405, p.122]

All but shorn of their narrative context, the missions can feel rather inconsequential, disconnected from the truncated plot and lacking the variety and invention of some of the 3DS game’s later missions.

Why roam freely (when the game lets you, which is by no means always) when all that’s out there to find is an empty trek between jarring episodes of production-line gaming? [Christmas 2005, p.105]

There’s a fine-line between rote-learning frustration and seat-of-the-pants glee in on-rails arcade games, and Secret Rings wobbles either side of it perceptibly, but seldom stays on the wrong side for too long. [Apr 2007, p.81]

With the game's over-reliance on backtracking and aimless overworld item hunts, another shooting segment is never more than ten seconds away, resulting in a jarring, disjointed flow... In the end, Sigma Star Saga does justice to neither of its two loosely conjoined games. [Oct 2005, p.95]

Much has been sacrificed in service of making a brilliant central concept work, then - and yet it's the very thing robbing Legion of any star quality. [Issue#353, p.118]

This is not a modern game, no. Nor is it a particularly good one. But nor is it quite the disaster it often threatens to turn into. So, yes, faint praise indeed. We'll ensure such mistakes aren't repeated when they appoint us CEO. [Issue#358, p.116]

There's little variety in the 400-square-kilometre American midwestern locale where everything takes place, and roads rarely feel optimised to test your handling skills. [Issue#418, p.112]

If we seem grumpy about the third act, that's largely because the first two promise so much. [Issue#358, p.118]

Octodad: Dadliest Catch asks you to overlook an awful lot more than plot holes.

This is a freemium game, masquerading as a paid download.

This is the fundamental flaw in Bloodlines 2. Troika's original game was not only about being a vampire but living as one, it's balmy LA nights riddled with chances to fulfill that fantasy. Bloodlines 2, in comparison, has no inner life. [Issue#418, p.114]

With the exception of fleeting moments, the game's milquetoast mechanics don't cut it - watching a superspy and being one are very different things. [Christmas 2010, p.88]

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

Much of the drive spurring players onwards to completion depends on the game’s cutscenes, and in this respect it’s a backwards step, relying on the crutch of a strong licence to hide fundamental shortcomings. [Christmas 2007, p.92]

As a whole, Mercenary Kings is a case study in the perils of Early Access. The need to provide a steady flow of content to early buyers has birthed a glut of superfluous systems and a swollen set of missions – the wrong sort of substance to accompany Robertson’s style.

We can only guess that Possessor(s) needed more time than Heart Machine had left to give. Hopefully it hasn't run out altogether. [Issue#418, p.120]

Warrior Kings: Battles mixes and matches familiar mechanisms in interesting ways, but it proves that balancing real wargaming with resource-based empire building is as precarious a task as ever. [June 2003, p.105]

While Once Upon A Katamari is too similar to its predecessors, then, a lot of the new ideas simultaneously also work against the classic sensations of fun and flow. [Issue#418, p.123]

Cleverest when at its most minimal, It's Mr Pants is a little too convoluted and coy a brain-tease, destined to live in the shadow of purer designs. [March 2005, p.93]

The combat missions are where The Falconeer falters, the controls for quickturns and dives never as responsive as they need to be. [Issue#353, p.120]

Rare’s late-‘90s obsession with currencies and unlockables, combined with the new additions to adventure mode, make Diddy Kong Racing feel at times like a maze of conditions and transactions in search of an actual game, and put many of its attractive new features behind bars with no word of how to free them. [Apr 2007, p.87]

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]

As dating-centered RPGs go, we know a spot, and it's not here. [Issue#390, p.136]

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]

The game fumbles its potential with unanticipated incompetence. [Christmas 2007, p.94]

The pacing, thanks to a combination of necessary haste and the weakness of your divided squad members, feels more akin to a corridor shooter; there’s a constant sensation of feeling harried and hemmed in. [Oct 2004, p.107]

What used to be a decent fighting game with comical breast physics is now a pervier DOA Xtreme with punches instead of presents. Honestly, we're getting a bit old for it, and so is the industry around it. [Issue#331, p.116]