Natsume's anaemic offering is a bit of a Halloween zombie, in other words. It's shambling, it's barely animated, and you really ought to avoid it.

By even the lowest expectations Superman Returns is a staggering shortfall. [Jan 2007, p.86]

The original HOTD: Overkill is no holy grail of the genre, but it did spice up the ailing niche with some eccentricity and zany thrills. To see it massacred in this way is a shame both for the series and for iOS newcomers whose first taste of this most guilty of pleasures will be a sour one.

There's practically no aspect that doesn't appear half-hearted. Black Isle's drawn-out death has undoubtedly poisoned Brotherhood, but it's hard to tell if there was ever a good game here to begin with. [May 2004, p.109]

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]

Barring a couple of all-too-short sections near the beginning, Will: Follow The Light is a bewildering and arduous journey. [Issue#424, p.116]

Technically, ... Dead Man's Hand is a mess - which is a shame because this could have been a whole barrel of fun. [May 2004, p.107]

It's hard to come away from this without a sense of persecution. It isn't just that it's a poor game, it's that it thinks it's good enough to survive on the coat-tails of its license - and that you won't have the wherewithal to discriminate. [Jan 2011, p.99]

Where Escape From Butcher Bay and Assault On Dark Athena showed how games can complement and expand a film franchise in unique and interesting ways, The Merc Files feels like a rushed, irrelevant addition to David Twohy’s B-movie universe; one that would have been best left on the cutting room floor.

Don't let the vibrant colours of this scene fool you: this is the world as seen in Combat Breaker, a brief period in which time slows down. As son as the meter runs out, it's back to the game's usual dusty dullness. [Issue#370, p.119]

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]

Its idea of merging solo, co-op and deathmatch combat into a single mode is as noncommittal as its story, which merges decades-old cyberpunk cliches into one appalling mess. [Mar 2011, p.92]

Six 'f*cks' in the opening cut-scene set the tone for a game that's desperate to appear edgy, uniquely British and grown up... Ironically, the script is so desperate to be adult that it ends up sounding as mature as a teenager rebelling against school uniform. [Christmas 2004, p.85]

Given the state of Knights Contract, the famously hellish result of Dr Faust's own little deal seems comparatively sweet. [Mar 2011, p.101]

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]

A game that never feels comfortable giving you full command of its star. We're left feeling blue, but not in the way Sonic Team intended. [Issue#379, p.118]

European Assault is one of the ugliest current-gen games we've seen. Boring textures, a weak palette and a flimsy design ethic all round make it appear like slightly dressed up PSone data. The animation seems inspired by amateur puppetry and even the menus look like they were knocked up in the last day before submission. [Aug 2005, p.94]

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

It’s a clean game, at least, texturally crisp and evocatively lit, but the feeling of playing an interactive 3D Mark demo is discouragingly strong. [Apr 2007, p.88]

So wasteful of its source material that it should be held up as an example of how not to handle this kind of production. [July 2009, p.101]

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]

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]

Control is also stodgy and unreliable. [Issue#422, p.123]

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]

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]

Lost feels truncated to the extreme, a grand tutorial to island living violently cut off when the credits roll after four hours. [Apr 2008, p.93]

The game also fails as a high-profile PS4 launch title in terms of what it’s putting onscreen. The particle effects serve their purpose, but everything from the vapid story sequences to the hackneyed goblin foes feels blandly feeble. A chapter setting entitled The Barren Wastes? Yes, you think, no need to ram it home.

The levels are so gloomy, grey and fog-drenched (there's even fog in the mall) that it's hard to see buildings in the near distance, nevermind enemies. Dark, oppressive and torturous, Omega Strain is about as much fun as a wet weekend in a Kafka novel. [July 2004, p.107]