Astro Boy is a light cartoon romp sure to please young admirers of the character, but it fails to offer the depth required to engage a broader demographic. [May 2004, p.105]

In short, Welcome Tour seems designed more to highlight USB ports and air intake vents than give us a game. The climax of our tour sees us trapped inside our new machine, running laps and poking into every corner, praying we'll find the last stamp to open the exit. At this point, one question about Switch 2 remains: Nintendo, how did it come to this? [Issue#413, p.123]

It’s simply baffling that it manages to make so many mistakes within such a well-worn template.

Trying to balance the ceaseless button-mashing with the necessary manual camera tweaking is a bad joke, and often leaves you slashing just out of view and hoping for the best. [Mar 2009, p.93]

We'd be lying if we pretended we didn't have some fun with it. But it only works in the same way a McDonald's occasionally hits the spot: this is cheap, junk-food gaming that comes with a side-order of regret. [Issue#331, p.110]

Astonishingly, there's no replay function for your defensive performances. [Feb 2016, p.122]

Wrist ache is inevitable, but it's the imprecision of the strength gauge that ends up causing the most pain. [Sept 2010, p.103]

We've a right to enjoy this kind of brainless, murderous throwback, but we've also a right to expect it to be made to the standards of videogames of five years ago, never mind those of today. [July 2005, p.91]

Sure, Platinum has made flawed games before, but nothing nearly so bland or as uninspiring as this. [Christmas 2014, p.120]

Levels feature numerous boss battles and a stream of identikit foot soldiers, but merrily send the player back to square one when their lone life is over and make the singleplayer story mode an agonising exercise in self-abuse. [June 2005, p.88]

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]

Moops isn't a bad idea for a iOS title, then, but it's extremely poorly implemented. For a game about bug hunting, it's failed to catch enough of its own.

Series fans will know better than to expect an epic, but even by its own standards Kinda Funky News Flash is a short game...After 20 years in the shadows, Ulala's return to the spotlight involves a few too many missed beats to recommend. [Issue#344, p.120]

While the appeal of Ghost Rider palls in the long term (the game is simply too samey, unless your thirst for fighting overrides your need for variety and pacing) it’s a strong and well-considered title. [Mar 2007, p.86]

The bottom line is that Rise Of Nightmares isn't as engaging or exciting as AM1's established brand. It's also too adult in its content to appeal to the younger users who might enjoy its gimmicky use of Kinect.

The overall impression is of a game that’s both bravely and badly designed, and weighted towards the latter. [July 2006, p.84]

You come to Virtual-On to beat up big robots through a mix of opportune tactics and instinctive brawn, and throughout Marz the precise and articulated combat remains as demanding as ever. [Sept 2003]

How to mess up a game in which you ride a dragon is quite simple. You make the control of that dragon answerable to motion-sensing technology that can’t distinguish subtle or even very forced gestures in anything like the detail required. [Nov 2007, p.90]

Mission design feels particularly lazy this time round, Locomotive seemingly jotting down amusing cutscene scenarios before finding tenuous ways of tying ‘destroy this’ or ‘abduct that’ tasks to the constant stream of ooh-er references to ‘big willies’ and ‘meat’ in the dialogue. [May 2008, p.97]

Some will still find DOAX 2 to be a soothingly directionless or charmingly goofy, a game that feels numbingly pointless when treated like other games. But if this is you second visit to Zack Island, you may well find yourself wasting fewer hours than expected. [Feb 2007, p.79]

There's an overall level of polish to Inversion that shows a developer improving its skillset. Though the game never fully stretches its ambitious premise beyond the confines of the cover shooter genre, it's a game with the noblest of intentions: to provide wall-to-wall, or, rather, floor-to-ceiling, entertainment.

A cycle of challenges that never transcend routine. If this is what new technology does to old heroes, perhaps they're best left in the past. [May 2011, p.97]

Like Borderlands, the promise of fresh guns, equipment and powered-up skills offers an incentive to press on. But unlike its parent series, the combat in Legends means it's not worth doing so.

Facebreaker is vacuous, its interface without flair and its novelties without purpose beyond littering the boards at Gamefaqs. [Oct 2008, p.95]

It’s just too hard, the physics too capricious, and the tasks too frustrating for words. [Aug 2006, p.85]

Had The Official Game provided a consistent overall challenge, it would have been bearable, if unexciting. But it hasn't, and it isn't. [July 2006, p.88]

You'll be more irritated than scared. [Issue#336, p.121]

Access Games' take on the Monster Hunter formula attempts little beyond a straightforward recreation of that series' structure. [Mar 2011, p.107]