While the arcade version of the game (included here in its entirety) is not without serious flaws, this interpretation exacerbates those that exist and throws in significant new ones. [Jan 2008, p.87]

It'll be happier on PSP, where competitors and attention spans are in short supply, and the more energetic interaction offered by the Wii should play to its drop-in simplicity and haphazard dogfights, but on PS2 it's too obviously anachronistic and quickly exhausted. [May 2007, p.93]

As an example of unabashed, often exuberant Britsoft that pulls out the SRPG's staples and rebinds it in approachable ease, Future Tactics is remarkable, deserving of cult status. [Aug 2004, p.99]

MicroBot is a technically accomplished but sterile experience. As the game settles into a rut, its stylistic strengths lose more and more ground to the sluggish combat, uninspiring upgrades and repetitive stages.

Technologically something of an embarrassment and devoid of any vitality or personality, Undercover seems a sharp downturn for one of EA’s traditional bastions of seasonal sales. [Christmas 2008, p.101]

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]

Maybe, after all, Ubisoft has managed to simulate the existence of the average pirate. Perhaps that's what the fourth 'A' stands for. [Issue#396, p.112]

It's too easy and basic for adults and likely too mellow for children drawn in by its bubbly aesthetic. It's a shame, because Okabu's is a quietly charismatic world, one destined to be overlooked thanks to its grind of an opener and failure to match its visual vigour with mechanics that haven't been used better elsewhere.

There’s a vibrancy that ensures progress is a pleasure and backtracking is seldom a chore – in fact, the game is often at its best when you’re free from the demands of unlocking the next section and simply revelling in your buoyant weightlessness. [Nov 2004, p.110]

Age of Resistance Tactics would merely be tolerably mundane, were it not brought low by a UI as cumbersome as the game's title. [Issue#343, p.116]

Somehow, Dark Void just about rises above its faults, but it's hardly at rick of flying too close to the sun. [Feb 2010, p.86]

The Power Of Two may have fewer technical issues than its predecessor, but it's a less adventurous, less courageous, and overall less interesting game. It struggles to make you care about its world, and as a result its one big idea – that of the Wasteland reacting to your choices – feels decidedly flaccid.

When it comes to paper, Tearaway has the aesthetic edge and Paper Trail boasts smarter puzzles, while for inventive transformations, Mario remains the origami king. Next to those three, Hirogami feels flimsy and flyaway. [Issue#416, p.120]

You could also call it derivative and crudely executed, and no transmedia offering can compensate for that. [Issue#404, p.112]

Seemingly conflicted between delivering next-gen graphical impact and providing immediately recognisable objectives, Killer Game errs on the side of form over function, and in turn stumbles though a laundry list of poor design decisions. [Dec 2005, p.114]

It refreshes with its purity of purpose and ambition, even if, as a mechanising of the grieving process, it’s a game few will wish to return to once completed.

The core racing is pleasingly intact for 16bit nostalgists, but that doesn't make Micro Machines a no-brainer for the new-school, season-based multiplayer model. [Sept 2017, p.119]

Sorrows is a hollow experience, misinterpreting the original as a sheer numbers game rather than one of constant risk and reward. It’s an issue made more glaring by an unsatisfying combat system, paying lip service to counters, juggles and combo strikes even though endlessly repeating the same moves is just as effective. [Feb 2006, p.88]

It’s just a murky brew of meaningless, exploitative dysfunction filling an empty game, and it leaves a bitter taste. [Dec 2006, p.90]

What we're left with is an update that is out of date, a reimagining without enough imagination. To be this simplistic, the game needed a masterful melee system and a range of inspiring enemies; it tries, but it doesn't fully deliver on either count. [Jan 2011, p.98]

It’s a game of light and shade, sure, but there’s a little too much of the former seeping through the cracks.

"Will leave you wanting more at every turn," says Witch Strandings' Steam blurb; that's accurate, but not quite in the way intended. [Issue#375, p.121]

An experience lacking flavour, with a transparent design, the game shares many qualities with its elemental subject matter. It is entering a super-competitive environment, and its premium DLC will need to be something special to turn things around.

With Dust, CCP promised something that had never even been attempted before, and it delivered. Dust takes place in Eve. The setting is the same, the currency is the same, and the corporations can hold players from both universes. It’s just not enough. Because without Eve, there’s no point to Dust, a bland free-to-play FPS that can’t even capture the continent-spanning scale of PlanetSide 2, despite having a whole galaxy to play with.

Handling is the biggest setback here. In a sport where cars spend most of their time dancing on tarmac, gravel and snow there is very little feeling of cadence conveyed in Sega Rosso's game. Ultimately, your money could be better spent on something else. [March 2003, p.106]

The only black mark is for the controls: the on-screen buttons feel reasonably responsive most of the time, but you'll experience a definite stickiness when things heat up.

With the exception of the three bosses, there are no escalations or climaxes, no set-pieces, ambushes, chokepoints or challenges that involve anything more than the eradication of a roomful of enemies by way of laboured strafes and hops. [Sept 2005, p.98]

It's not lazy and unworkable, then, merely pleasant, compromised, and irrelevant. [Mar 2010, p.98]