The triumph of SpaceChem is that overcoming these situations is more a case of inventing a solution than discovering one - creating a technique on your own terms that, once learned, you find yourself reusing in later stages. [Apr 2011, p.101]

Rich with charm, ingenuity, artistry and genuine delight. [Jan 2007, p.77]

Playing Ball X Pit is a long ramp of rapturous discovery, a mad scientist's laboratory where the goal is to make the screen as blissfully incoherent as can be. [Issue#417, p.118]

The Atlus faithful who remember the anguish of Matador in Nocturne the first time will probably swallow their pride and press on, but newcomers who may confuse godhood with god mode are in for a rude awakening. [Issue#366, p.112]

In the end, we gain more from it than we imagined. [Issue#347, p.100]

As forgettable as the story mode is, this is a game that should be judged by the pleasure it can bring to a room full of gamers eager for furious arena combat and a splendid variety of team games. And judged by those criteria, it has few peers. [Apr 2005, p.94]

For the moment, though, SOE's MMOG is a remarkable achievement. Games like it often have to sacrifice visual fidelity for performance, but PlanetSide 2 looks stunning, even on medium settings.

This focus on creativity over flowcharts perfectly suits the most charismatic, expressive construction and management sim yet. [Jan 2017, p.116]

Credit, then, to Tiani Pixel and Fernanda Dias for a journey that feels deserving of your precious time. [Issue#367, p.120]

Outrageously pretty. [Feb 2015, p.108]

‘Splosion Man lives up to his name, providing a burst of exciting, arresting fresh IP that significantly changes the landscape around.

This is twitch gaming at its finest, with beautifully tuned thumbstick controls and a pulsing rave soundtrack that only seems to focus the mind more sharply.

There’s no question that DUB Edition can be pleasurable, especially in the multiplayer games, but the Career mode too often feels like graft. There are tournaments, one-off street races and ‘special’ events, but each individual race feels much the same as the last. [June 2005, p.92]

It’s still a hardcore sim at heart – forgiving lower difficulties, sexy day/night effects and emotive cars aside – and those that rush in may miss the point. But explore and savour each passionately sculpted track and car, either solo or in the 16-player online mode, and there are few games to touch it. [Nov 2005, p.111]

So while the campaign's filled with visual pleasures and colourful tricks, it's in the stark white spaces of the editor that Sound Shapes really dazzles, stepping away from the museum of hallucinations that all rhythm action games offer and threatening, at times, to become a genuine musical instrument in its own right.

There's a lot going on here, much of it captivating, some of it just for appearances and some of it annoying. [Issue#338, p.92]

A truly great detective story needs a satisfying conclusion - and here the Klavins deliver, and then some. [Issue#377, p.116]

Fight Night has tirelessly rebuilt itself when many expected retirement. Cautious improvements from Round 4 - the removal of the cut-man game and automation of recovery - have been confidently reinforced, while ring physics, ragdolls and cloth dynamics are in a different class to the chaotic Round 3. [Apr 2011, p.103]

Resident Evil 5 is a good game. The surprising, and sad, thing about Resident Evil 5 is that it feels old. [Apr 2009, p.112]

Salt & Sanctuary can be brilliant, but it's held back by undersized visual design, both in UI and open play, making playing it from distance a pain. [June 2016, p.122]

Tetris DS should celebrate the game, but instead feels hollow with its shortfall of rewards and bonuses. [May 2006, p.97]

Atlus succeeds in creating another idiosyncratic concoction of narrative and play, one that twists convention as often as it builds upon it. [Sept 2009, p.98]

This is easily the better sequel, a firm improvement on "Warrior Within." So why the long face? For the simple and saddest reason of all: ennui. [Christmas 2005, p.100]

It's a breezily entertaining flight through seven coloured environments, though it never quite generates the same feeling of mastery as its inspiration: reaching the Violet Zone for the second time isn't as significant an achievement as diving down to the undulating surface of Island 9.

It manages to be that rarest of things: a Wii game that you've just got to try online. [May 2010, p.98]

Our pilgrimage is one marked by the cuts and bruises we accumulate along the way, yet we find ourselves encouraged by a familiar mantra: how sweet the pain, indeed, when it is our own. [Issue#389, p.106]

Ultimately, Invisible War is a very fine game spread too thin. It's a game that's made the effort to name the cat in the secretary's desk photo but not to make jumping work properly, that bothers to script loving exchanges between insignificant NPCs but pits you against clumsy and stuttering AI. [Feb 2004, p.94]

This sense of restrictiveness filters through to ACIII's mission design. There are surprisingly few assassinations here, and relatively little freedom to plan an approach to them. It's mostly eavesdropping, tailing, chase sequences and battle scenes.