We at least have a chance to marvel at the hectic cost of ambition, and to be mystified, once more, at the strange, stupid, painful things that some of us will do for love.

Even at its best, when using the AV8R stick, Damage Inc feels clumsy, badly implemented and lacking in imagination. Mad Catz is unlikely to drive sales of its peripherals with a game in which every flight feels like work and every kill is, at best, a Pyrrhic victory in a tedious war.

The game’s unique honour system (requiring you to tag and then kill enemies in exchange for upgrades) proves largely irrelevant, and in the heat of battle, toggling your firstperson view and wrestling with the analogue nub to track fast-moving targets proves frustrating and unwieldy. [Jan 2008, p.88]

It's a pity that it has exited development before it was fully evolved. [June 2015, p.118]

A messy jumble of broken parts. [Aug 2016, p.112]

Astonishia ultimately proves to be little more than a charming catalogue of decade-old foibles and cliché. [Aug 2006, p.93]

It’s tempting to believe that Microsoft and Twisted Pixel set out to create some kind of meta-joke here, but the line between a successful and unsuccessful parody can be a fine one. All Lococycle achieves is falling on its face, while no one laughs.

Certainly, releasing it so close to Halo Wars suggests deliberate commercial suicide - that it’s genuinely progressive ideas will be ignored and lost as a result is a minor tragedy. [Apr 2009, p.118]

There are minor things for which The Fight can take credit. The progression of skills is well-paced, its 'street' aesthetic pioneers a delightful new direction for extreme cheese, and your flailing proves quite the workout. [Christmas 2010, p.101]

Sadly, encounters with enemy AI - particularly in combat - are by far the weakest link in an otherwise enjoyable effort. [Apr 2005, p.98]

Yes, Beat Down revives the warped charisma of Capcom’s beat’em up heyday, but that’s the only area where it actually triumphs. [Oct 2005, p.90]

If the Old West is anything, it's a giant myth, and one that the Call Of Juarez games have always embodied. What The Cartel replaces this with – a mishmash of 
The Shield and conspiracy theories – is a much less substantial vision, played out within a world with no real resonance to it.

Ultimately, Gamelion's lacklustre effort serves as a helpful case study for anybody interested in investigating why no-one's ever made a successful platform game about a character with almost no body weight before.

Hexodius’ dungeon sections aren’t involved enough to offer interesting choices or exploration, but last just long enough to qualify as clunky menu screens.

The dev team has an eye for spectacle – a towering golem comprised of cars and other metallic detritus is a visual highlight – but these moments mostly serve to illustrate how dull your actual actions are by contrast. [Dec 2008, p.98]

The root problem is that the board controller is poorly conceived. The notion of mimicking while stationary an activity entirely reliant on motion is deeply flawed. [Jan 2010, p.88]

If you find its imperfections endearing there’s much to position Apocalypse as one of the bolder attempts to further the art of the click-fest. [Dec 2006, p.85]

Comparisons with "Halo" are inevitable. Unfortunately, Fire Warrior shows how developers can steal elements from superior games, while fundamentally misunderstanding why they worked so well in the first place. [Nov 2003, p.101]

Even the most dedicated player’s are likely to fall out of love with the game more frequently than its promise of unstoppable motion and a world outside slate-grey corridors (which becomes more distant as the game progresses) can entice them back. [May 2005, p.83]

It's the first game we can recall, for instance, to feature a them tune comprising a single note. [Sept 2009, p.96]

The calibre of game you might well produce having been shot three times and then stabbed. [Jan 2005, p.91]

It's astonishing that Shiver couldn't conjure up a decent party game from such great source material. [June 2018, p.118]

This is not a modern game, no. Nor is it a particularly good one. But nor is it quite the disaster it often threatens to turn into. So, yes, faint praise indeed. We'll ensure such mistakes aren't repeated when they appoint us CEO. [Issue#358, p.116]

There is, at least, a pleasing weight to impacts as you thump enemies into walls or slam them into the floor. Good job, too, since there's precious little else to enjoy here. [Issue#391, p.123]

Where we once observed burgers grilled with the power of rap, we now meet a policeman who doesn't like littering. All very toothless. [June 2009, p.93]

Even the most dedicated player's are likely to fall out of love with the game more frequently than its promise of unstoppable motion and a world outside slate-grey corridors (which becomes more distant as the game progresses) can entice them back. [May 2005, p.83]

A game that, while dripping in style, is miserably lacking in substance. [Issue#328, p.118]

A stab at innovation would usually constitute an excuse for an otherwise diabolical title, but in Kakuto Chojin there are no puncture wounds, just lots of internal bleeding. [March 2003, p.104]