To see it submit to mobile gaming's worst tendencies, rather than make any effort to be different, to be better, is galling. It may be flashy and efficient as both a Diablo game and a mobile game, but Immortal offers little that is bold, ambitious or innovative. Instead, its structure and pacing is designed with one goal in mind: to squeeze as much cash out of every player as it can. [Issue#374, p.110]

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.

Arzest has laid an egg here, but not of the golden variety.

If Fuse had been made by a lesser known studio, it would simply be forgettable, but set against the expectations of a new game from the house of Rachet & Clank and Resistance, it’s a crushing disappointment.

It's all a little rote - something we certainly don't associate with Final Fantasy. [Issue#315, p.120]

The fun is spread far too thin. [Sept 2010, p.94]

Nevermind the sluggish movement, repetitive phrases from trainers, or ability to trap AI in combination patterns: at the most basic level, Prizefighter has suspicious collision detection and a great many gloves that clip through arms and heads. [Aug 2008, p.101]

Feels cheeky to be criticising a scrolling beat 'em up for being too shallow, but TMNT is possibly one of the most tedious ever. Repetition is only acceptable when you're repeating something gratifying. [Jan 2004, p.109]

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]

This disappointing reboot is best left, well, alone. [Issue#397, p.118]

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

It's almost a relief that the game struggling to break free from these severe technical shortcomings is mundane. [May 2011, p.104]

Firefights become more surreal than menacing when the worst-case scenario is of your fellow GIs having to catch their breath for a few seconds after being riddled with bullets. [Aug 2004, p.96]

A mediocre game a genre stocked with the highest quality. [Sept 2010, p.99]

Its concept feels almost thrown together. [Sept 2010, p.103]

An ugly, throwaway cash grab. [March 2015, p.110]

Frustratingly, the game’s on-rails sequences exacerbate its lack of invention, whipping up enemies that often inflict damage before their location is revealed. When a single rocket can end the game by killing you or your entourage, this tests the patience more than a prosaic shooter has the right to. [Aug 2005, p.97]

Whether there truly is a demand for the high-fidelity thrills found on other formats among shooter-starved Wii owners is largely academic, because Conduit 2 - like its predecessor - just isn't up to the task of providing them. [June 2011, p.92]

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]

Rowdy and knockabout? Perhaps. Fun? Not quite.

There are plenty of games with strong visual design and atmospheric settings that don't make you jump through nearly so many hoops to get to the good stuff. [Nov 2018, p.116]

Among its many failings one stands out as cardinal and, despite the slick presentation, simply can’t be forgiven: you never really feel in control of what’s going on. [Aug 2008, p.94]

As a script, Flower, Sun And Rain is, for at least two thirds, hugely witty and effortlessly mad, eliciting enough regular laughs to cover for the game's otherwise painfully tedious forms of interaction. [JPN Import; Dec 2008, p.96]

For a title trying hard to inject personality into the genre, the experience feels irreparably mechanical. There's plenty of variety in terms of racing categories and machinery, but the overall lack of involvement is inexcusable. [Feb 2004, p.102]

MercurySteam's worldbuilding adds clutter, not depth, obstructing a concept that's left feeling embryonic. [Issue#412, p.104]

Darkspore remains a humdrum deep-space Diablo, but one doomed to be defined more by what it's missing than what it offers. [June 2011, p.98]

Instant deaths, glitchy combat, uninspiring boss encounters and twitchy controls conspire to make this a below-par experience. If it wasn't for the occasional flashes of imagination and the familiarity and richness conveyed through the license then The Emperor's Tomb would be utterly forgettable. [May 2003, p.99]

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]