For console owners used to having to fiddle with power sliders in order to orchestrate their shots, it brings a nigh-on edible element of tangibility to the experience... An accomplished bundle. [May 2004, p.109]

It's a well plotted and paced, if straight-laced, action adventure that takes most of the strengths of the main franchise while removing a few of the weaknesses. [Christmas 2010, p.100]

It's scrappy, sure, but no racer offers such a breadth of choice, or seems so willing to let the player set the rules of the road. When Project Cars 2 gets into gear, there's little else like it. [Dec 2017, p.114]

Napoleon ultimately feels like the more successful younger brother to Empire. It fundamentally shares its DNA, for better and worse, but has learned from its mistakes, and has stayed trim and buff.

This may be the age of the single-screen brawler, but TowerFall is among the most feature-rich of its kind.

Frostpunk's atmosphere, tight structure and sense of purpose make it stand out in a genre often given over to abstraction. [July 2018, p.106]

The levels here are every bit as inventive as they were in Origins and, by the time your moveset has expanded to include a hover, wall-run and punch, every bit as punishing.

With Delta, Super Stardust has found a pulse. Perhaps all that's missing now is the soul to go with it.

It certainly lacks the variety and sense of progress that great platform games can offer. But then it was never supposed to be a great platform game. It was supposed to be, and is, a great DS game. [Apr 2005, p.102]

But with Tetsuya Mizuguchi's often bland musical experimentation replaced with some of electronica's finest moments, Electronic Symphony breathes new life into a series that had previously appeared stagnant.

So, yes, their irreverent take on the medium may have a few technical shortcomings, but you’ll usually be grinning far too much to care.

It’s surprisingly tactical.

It is, however, successful as an adaptation that gets to the core appeal of the original tabletop game, and uses it to the betterment of the strategic campaign system that it has adopted from elsewhere. [July 2018, p.116]

And the visuals? Well, if you want more screenshots, just pop your head out of the window and look up. [Dec 2007, p.96]

The game's angled view and coloured stacks mean that some of the best moments – cascading chains that ripple outwards as the landscape collapses in a shower of points – can sometimes be the result of luck instead of judgement.

For all those little frustrations, it's clear Paradise Killer is going to stay with us for a while longer. It's a considerable achievement for this tiny studio. Kaizen Game Works: may you continue to reach for the moon. [Issue#351, p.98]

It's never easy. But somehow, when we fall, it only makes us all the more keen to dust ourselves off and get up again. Once we've taken that calming breath, at least. [Issue#369, p.108]

Plagued by imbalance, the Round 3 career can serve up over 50 bouts before one goes the distance. The new stun punch – a thunderclap of a haymaker – helps to ensure first to third round knockouts for the vast majority of fights. [Apr 2006, p.82]

It’s almost shocking how seamless, engrossing and accessible Fahrenheit is. It’s sad, then, that it shows weakness in the one area where it needed to be stronger than any other game: the script. [Oct 2005, p.84]

It's a system that very naturally sets up some excellent multiplayer modes, and this is one of an elite few that can truly even the odds between players at different difficulty levels.

Race Pro engages like few driving titles manage, even if the driving model doesn’t quite meet the standards of the most advanced PC sim-racers such as Live For Speed. [Mar 2009, p.88]

It's brash and beautiful, and in looking outside its own boundaries has found fresh ways to keep you coming back to the danger zone.

This is without doubt the most comprehensive entry in Nippon Ichi's once-trailblazing series, packaging its accumulated ideas alongside a clutch of innovations of its own. And yet repetition has dulled the appeal, with the complexities acting as a tall barrier to newcomers while the innovations are simultaneously too meagre to sate any but the most eager devotee.

Come to terms with its idiosyncrasies and you’ll find a unique and wonderfully characterful action game; it’s well worth suffering those early scratches for the moments where it really begins to purr.

It’s a masterclass of design purity: every one of these elements exists for a reason, and its potential is exploited to the fullest. But Samurai Gunn’s genius lies in its dizzying speed. It condenses organic, balletic setpieces worthy of an action flick finale into mere seconds, the ground filling up with the bloodied pixel remains of the fallen.

Watching a plan come together, guns and voodoo and bear traps working in perfect harmony, is incredibly satisfying. [Issue#348, p.90]

While it attempts to blend FMX, quad bikes and more familiar Trials action, the new elements sit uneasily with the old. Trials has always been about precision and skill, traits that are blunted or obfuscated by four-wheel drive and fussy inputs.

Funny and miserable, disgusting and endearing, the end result is a game that's smart enough to have things both ways, offering an often brutal critique of certain religious sacraments, while wallowing comfortably inside the rituals of one of gaming's oldest genres.