Rogue Agent is the result of design by committee: a safe, reasonably accomplished but uninspiring offering which neither excels nor progresses its genre in any way. [Christmas 2004, p.82]

Rogue Agent is the result of design by committee: a safe, reasonably accomplished but uninspiring offering which neither excels nor progresses its genre in any way. [Christmas 2004, p.82]

As the credits roll, and we once again consider what Fort Solis is, the Steam blurb reminds us of another thing it isn't. A "riveting thriller", after all, requires thrills - and those, like the station's employees, are conspicuous by their absence. [Issue#389, p.110]

Like the first Gears, Ryse is a simple game loaded with small-scale encounters and rudimentary set-pieces with the intention of hustling you towards something beautiful. Both have their own ‘horror’ stage, both have sieges, both have stationary guns of sorts, and Ryse, like Gears, has room to grow if given the chance.

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]

To be fair to The Shoot, it gets the basics right. It just attempts very little beyond them. [Christmas 2010, p.101]

There’s a desperate lack of innovation on display here; nondescript levels based around ice caves, pyramids and inevitable Mayan temples. The boring locations exacerbate the sneaking feeling that the levels, which can easily take an hour or longer to finish, are simply too large. [JPN Import; Mar 2007, p.81]

It's simple, enjoyable, and in wisely steering clear of trying anything grand or complex, is an enjoyable if self-contained success. [May 2010, p.97]

Sonic Unleashed isn’t quite the spectacular return to form promised, but it’s a hell of a lot closer than Sega’s other recent efforts. [Jan 2009, p.89]

Constantine's narrative is compelling enough, and some excellent puzzles save it from the ignominy of being yet another average third-person movie tie-in, but only just... Yes it's uncomplicated, but still an engaging realisation of the source material. [Apr 2005, p.99]

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

Track & Field and its ilk have few pretensions beyond being disposable and frantic multiplayer diversions; Beijng 2008 has made its events marginally more taxing, but no more joyful. [Aug 2008, p.100]

By keeping it real, the game retains many of the things that make navigating the real city more of a pain than a pleasure: countless faceless skyscrapers don’t make for memorable landmarks, and facing the wrong way down a jammed one-way street when you’re in a hurry to get somewhere is the sort of challenge few will relish. [Jan 2005, p.91]

Cheap bosses and stingy save points ensure that it's a drag as well as a bore, while a handful of crash bugs do very little to improve proceedings. My Little Hero's greatest charm is its air of sweet innocence, perhaps, but in truth this adventure is primitive rather than childlike.

Something it achieves more successfully is the frustration of sensory impairment. [Oct 2015, p.120]

It’s a game that makes you desperately want to feel like a Jedi, arcing your lightsaber across the screen, ducking under attacks, parrying counters and going in for the kill, but the subtlety just isn’t there. [July 2005, p.94]

Anyone prepared to look beyond the candy colourings and initially floaty controls will discover a game of real depth and precision. [July 2007, p.90]

There are flashes of what might have been, but otherwise Brawlout doesn't feel so much a plucky underdog as a no-hoper, entering a fight it knows it can't win in the hope of a big payday just for showing up. A first-round stoppage to the champion, then, with the challenger being booed out of the ring. [March 2018, p.122]

A wholly unoriginal creation burdened by memories attached to the good ideas it’s imitating, and made worse by the sloppy execution of basic mechanics. [Oct 2008, p.100]

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]

Every element of I Hate This Place is perfectly functional but nothing stands out, and it ends up feeling like a slasher with no blood, a haunted house with no ghosts, a zombie with no teeth. [Issue#421, p.122]

What Level-5 has created is a Frankenstein's monster. It's half singleplayer and half multiplayer, and both of them are half good: a compromise that leaves much of this game feeling soulless. To give WKC2 its due, it certainly improves on the original. But in trying to fix a poor template rather than start anew, it was probably doomed from the beginning.

At once expanded yet stripped back (or focused, if you're feeling generous), Luminous might not quite be Endless Ocean as we knew it, but it retains enough of the series' distinctive signature that it's worth taking the plunge. [Issue#398, p.120]

For all those who gun Reign down for toying with its own rules and essentially cheating on the player at times it feels are appropriate, there'll hopefully be as many who recognise that such times are appropriate and and that even the dirtiest of its tricks can be bested. [Dec 2005, p.104]

The resounding impression is of a game that has not emerged from early access because it was finished, but simply because its developer needed it to. Wolcen's early success may suggest that was a wise decision. We do not expect it to last for long. [Issue#344, p.122]

Blacksite is a thoroughly unexceptional title for which unrealistic promises were made, and one that is further let down by a wide assortment of bugs and design issues. [Jan 2008, p.83]

It feels as though Konami channelled Franz Kafka to produce a retelling of the myth of Sisyphus. [May 2018, p.116]

This recurrent rehash is branding to serve the genre, and of little benefit to Poke-fans. [Sept 2008, p.96]