A monument to the entire trilogy, it allows IO to move on (the studio has another numerically monikered agent in its sights) in the confidence that these masterful feats of in-game architecture will last in the lone and level sand of a new console generation. [Issue#356, p.88]

The Alters is unique in how it explores trust, regret, choice, self-sacrifice, labour and autonomy through its characters every bit as much as its pylon puzzles. [Issue#413, p.110]

It has a masterful user interface. [July 2008, p.93]

Combat is thrilling – each weapon packing a solid, vicious blast; movement suggesting heft and momentum. [Dec 2008, p.80]

Rogue Legacy offers the silly, slapstick cruelty of the best roguelikes, but twins it with something just as appealing: a tantalising hint of control over your fate.

Bright, colourful and mostly dismissive of current trends, it’s clear The Behemoth wants to delight players with every moment of its latest performance. That it succeeds in only most of those moments is still a remarkable achievement.

The essence of the classic JRPG distilled into an unlikely form. [Issue#336, p.114]

Bright and breezy, it offers almost bottomless value, creates a believable and consistent world, offers a real strategic challenge as well as the kind of brainless completism that’s best suited to delayed trains and rainy afternoons, and hides a staggeringly intricate set of mechanics inside an accessible and non-threatening world. [July 2007, p.84]

Even in this compromised form, Virtua Fighter 5’s depth and beauty are unrivalled, and it can finally take its rightful place as the only game in town. [Apr 2007, p.76]

It's tricky to pick dourly over the faults in a game that refuses to take itself seriously, even when the fate of Japan itself is at stake. [Nov 2018, p.114]

Series veterans may find there's no individual mission that can compare to past highlights like the nails-down-a-blackboard dread of Return To The Cathedral or the emergent possibilities of Life Of The Party, but they remain admirably clever pieces of level design. [July 2004, p.101]

That there's nothing conventional about this beauty is firmly to its credit. [Issue#405, p.118]

The thrill of the chase is still present, then, even if we've come to expect something a little more subversive from Adult Swim.

This is a puzzle-platform game pared down to its base essentials, with a sweet, simple tale and an artfully imagined world wrapped around that core. [July 2013, p.122]

If you take away the window dressing, the epic sounds and the preordained surprises this is a derivative, one-note and sometimes flawed game, but see it as a spectacular amusement ride and you can play and it's a distinguished achievement. [Christmas 2003, p.110]

Although the decision to lengthen the already generous cut-scenes may deliver the odd treat for MGS veterans, many will find their duration exasperating. Crucially, though, some of the reworked sequences end up interfering with the game's pacing while failing to bring anything of substance to the experience. [Apr 2004, p.102]

As a reinvention it's a resounding success, and there are no pretenders to its comprehensiveness [May 2004, p.107]

Handsomely uncluttered, if more than a little austere, this is a modish, elegant puzzler.

The controls are excellent and the visuals might be a touch more rakish, but what really matters is that Radiangames has found a hectic pace that lends the blasting a kind of cumulative drama. In doing so, this until now polite series has picked up a bit of an attitude.

It's when the game is at its most GTA-like that it comes alive, conjuring up scenarios that take in whole city boroughs and throwing at you groups of adversaries and challenges you have to juggle on the fly… and then you get to a tediously engineered boss encounter and it all begins to get tiresome again. [Christmas 2005, p.109]

Though the explosions scale with progress, and the act of detonation continues to be a giddy pleasure, Mars could do with a thicker atmosphere.

It's not taxing or provocative, it will leave you neither upset nor elated; it simply wants to give you a good time. Sometimes that's enough. [June 2016, p.114]

The scenarios are often ingenious finding fresh ways to breathe new life into familiar systems. [December 2018, p.116]

The attention that’s gone into the update extends much further than a mere 3D overhaul and this update feels like a labour of love, even if its conception was merely for profit. [Sept 2008, p.96]

Those who've never understood the appeal of Kirby are unlikely to be convinced by his move into 3D. But otherwise this compact, imaginative adventure is a low-key triumph, a work of great craft and wit that, unlike its lead, doesn't bite off more than it can chew. And it only leaves you hungry for more. [Issue#370, p.110]

Earned In Blood might not seem like a radical departure from the original but the gloriously cascading AI and open maps have effectively transformed it into a very special WWII experience. The fact that there's nothing quite like it in such a crowded genre speaks volumes. [Dec 2005, p.103]

Far Cry 3 asked for the definition of insanity, and its sequel answers it. [Jan 2014, p.100]

It demands your full attention at every moment, something that was equally true of Mimimi's previous two games. [Issue#388, p.108]