It's just not accurate or tangible enough to be rewarding, handling with the same kind of wool as Sonic's 3D platformers. [Apr 2006, p.93]

Nucleus stands as a poorly executed game in a field where there are so many excellent others that it’s impossible to recommend. [Aug 2007, p.94]

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

Ingenious, experimental and entirely polarising, games like ColorZ show that WiiWare continues to take the road less travelled. In doing so, the platform’s most poignant offerings reveal something a little bit magical - a fleeting glimpse of the soul lurking within the machine.

WOTS2's intentionally short running time (most story paths can be finished in little over two hours), a steady stream of unlockable rewards, and the gradual appreciation of its combat system's depth can make replays strangely compelling. [July 2004, p.105]

It's yet another curiously half-hearted side project from Supermassive that, appropriately, won't linger long in the memory. [Apr 2018, p.120]

Peering through these layers of disguise, then, what we're left with is a hotchpotch of conflicting ideas, a rickety, if not entirely charmless, hack'n'slash that feels plucked from an alternate timeline. [Issue#406, p.118]

This is revitalisation, a fresh surge of life for the long-serving warhorse. By any typical measure of gaming it's not grand advance, but for those whose fingers have long been drilled by the brawls of Koei's sprawling riots, it's as worthwhile and frenzied as it's ever been. [Mar 2008, p.96]

Yet despite these conveniences, Junkster never stops feeling awkward and clumsy to pilot. [Issue#411, p.122]

One of the most robust online community setups to grace Nintendo’s handheld, enabling users to link the DS game to a web profile, where they can browse and queue tracks for later download. [Dec 2008, p.99]

Die-hard roleplaying game fans might have shrugged off its technical flaws and turgid combat if only the story had a pay-off. But instead of a tragic hero, Jason’s a dud. [Feb 2009, p.86]

While Monster Madness does much to scratch the co-op itch, and offers some titillating online modes, it sullies it with patchy execution and a series of poor design choices. [Sept 2007, p.93]

It’s a promising set-up, but one that’s flawed at nearly every level... You’re left with the overwhelming sensation of a Christmas present with no batteries to go in it. [Nov 2004, p.111]

The first Flipper wasn't a great piece of work, necessarily, but it had its own agenda and was powered by some pleasantly esoteric coding. The sequel, wonky and compromised, can't even claim that honour.

It's difficult to recommend as a standalone purchase. [Christmas 2016, p.122]

If Headhunter's controls were as coherent as its looks, it could've made for one of the greatest action-adventure games of recent times. Instead, we're left with a clunky shooting gallery that is, in parts, a likeable gunfighting game. [Oct 2004, p.109]

To an industrious, moralising serial killer, Saw would seem an apt punishment for a life wasted on videogames. [Christmas 2009, p.99]

A nice core bit of gameplay tarted up with unnecessary pretensions and stretched too thin, even over its short playtime. It feels like a minigame from a bigger title – specifically, those minigames from God of War and Dead Space 2 in which you guide a plummeting hero through falling debris. What it doesn’t feel like is a full a game – let alone the artsy indie hero Sony would like it to be.

If its creators can dig out the rot in its foundations, there is at least plenty to build upon here. [Issue#389, p.116]

What it didn't factor into the design is that kleptomaniacs rarely bother collecting items without emotional gravitas, and this oversight becomes immediately obvious when you compare Rumble to its source material. [Jan 2010, p.98]

The lasting impression is of a game that, for all its charms and potential, simply wasn't quite ready for takeoff - and that what might have been won't arrive for a couple of years yet. [Issue#331, p.102]

Minus the combat, Benedict Fox is Metroidvania reduced to its most basic form, where all that matters are the platforms you can reach and the doors you can open. [Issue#385, p.116]

The game is at pains to highlight its lack of tutorials or explanations, but outside an intriguing opening, its conundrums are unlikely to leave you stumped for long, a result of the ship's compactness and the robot's inability to carry more than one item at once.

Alas, a little too often, Recompile only seems to prove we should be careful what we wish for. [Issue#363, p.118]

It's essentially the slowest side-scrolling shoot 'em up you'll ever play, demanding you laboriously guide a submarine to the end of each level while avoiding damage and destroying evil submarines whose perfidy knows no bounds and warrants no backstory. [June 2011, p.97]

At a base level, this is simply too forgettable to give players a good enough reason to return. Perhaps it would be different if Zombie had been more lenient with its economy, allowing you to try more before committing to buy.

Black Sigil's big-picture rewards are too fleeting and familiar to justify the considerable effort. [Sept 2009, p.101]

A curious game about exploiting systems and psychology. The discussions surrounding it deal in politics and morality, because it’s a game about Rohrer’s response to a controversial real-world issue. Yet The Castle Doctrine’s notoriety ends up feeling like another fakeout – a disconnected conceptual commit gate at the entrance of an often-frustrating sandbox puzzler.