In the big dumb act of blowing its extraordinary world to kingdom come, Crysis finds itself smarter than ever. [Nov 2008, p.97]

DMC4 is not the grotesque misstep it so easily could have been. DMC4 is hardcore. [Mar 2008, p.90]

Lost Legacy's shorter runtime and reduced scope means it has something many of its mainline forebears lack: focus. There is a game with neither faff nor filler, no sense of a story being stretched too thinly across a game that is too big for it. Once it gets into gear, this is a rare breed: a finely paced action game with a story to tell and no creeping sense that the needs of one are undermining the quality of the other. [Issue#311, p.108]

Absorbing. [Issue#361, p.112]

Even without the luminous pixel art to continue, there's always an impetus to investigate further. [June 2016, p.116]

Ragebound sparkles when it doesn't over-egg the pudding, confusing additional layers for mechanical depth. And we remain convinced that, whichever clan they're from, the best ninjas work alone. [Issue#414, p.114]

Black Box’s sequel ultimately struggles to offer any single compelling justification for its own existence. [Feb 2009, p.93]

SimCity 4 might sit down among the many footnotes in the history of gaming, but it fills its remit with skill, creating a game that genuinely demands something of our oft-neglected intellect. [March 2003, p.101]

Once fluent in Hulk's explosive vocabulary of lamppost-javelins, boulder-bowling balls and tank football, it becomes apparent how much there is to praise in this game. It's hard to think of a superhero title that has come so close in delivering the spirit of the hero's super-ness. [Sept 2005, p.95]

When the cards become familiar enough to make zooming a thing of the past, Ascension flowers thanks to its speedy and unfussy online integration. A simple game to learn, it's one that builds into rich and complex battles, big and small. It probably won't impress the airhead in your life, unfortunately – but that's what iPint's for.

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]

When it isn't engaging in playful (self-)mockery, it finds ways to explore videogames' quirks in witty, insightful fashion. [Issue#343, p.120]

Short but memorable, this is a low-key triumph: if Japanese indie developer NamaTakahashi doesn't go on to even greater things, well, we'll be shocked. [Issue#365, p.119]

It's a loud, mindless end to a game that features many stunningly crafted elements but rarely puts them to memorable use - a letdown after RE7 rescued the series from the convolutions of Resident Evil 6. [Issue#359, p.102]

Big Huge Games has dressed the RTS in its finest coat-tails, sent it on the most captivating of journeys and transformed its communication skills. There's no question it has become a creature with broader horizons and more refined taste, but there's also no question it's still a familiar figure. [June 2006, p.84]

With such a focus, People Can Fly has made the best game possible: one which is smart enough to make a case for looking dumb. [Apr 2011, p.86]

Race Driver 3 understands that a processional win from pole is less fulfilling than a hard-fought, championship-saving fifth place from the back of the grid. And though it can’t exactly engineer those situations, it does everything in its power to make them more likely and leave them unpunished. [Mar 2006, p.87]

Like Spelunky before it, survival often depends on what you're carrying, and when you happen across life-prolonging shops and lucky weapon drops. But FTL is a less masterful game than Derek Yu's cave diver, throwing more chance into the mix.

Creatively, New Vegas gets almost everything right. Mechanically and technically, it's a tragedy. So, it's a simultaneously rewarding and frustrating game, the gulf between what it is and what it could be a sizeable stretch indeed.

Seasoned with tragedy and humour, it’s a poignant tale that courts cliché but which, thanks to its charm and creative twists on well-worn themes, represents one of the narrative high points of the series. [Apr 2009, p.123]

X is a triumph of art over design, the wonder of the world enough to make periods of drudgery worthwhile. [Jan 2016, p.116]

The Unsung War doesn’t break any boundaries, but it perfectly fulfils expectations. What might look unambitious is in actuality an adventure that whisks you through brilliantly rendered backdrops with a touch more polish than previous iterations, always flying hard and successfully conveying the buzz of aerial combat. [Jan 2005, p.90]

It’s gorgeous; Resogun draws on its host hardware’s graphical capabilities to make you feel like the most powerful entity in the room.

Consistently astonishing. [Dec 2015, p.110]

The developer’s cleverest trick here, beyond creating a game that’s worth it for the presentation alone, has been to throw open so many of its rules to player customisation. [Nov 2006, p.90]

It's perhaps because the title benefits from such a high production spend … that the average design and execution becomes more pronounced. [Mar 2004, p.101]

This is a case study in how to get it right the first time - and, finally, students of this genre will discover what happens when devs don't have to spend the first 12 months of a loot game's life knocking it into shape. For one, the future looks bright. [Issue#332, p.108]

But this is a production that feels increasingly aged in the face of modern game design. The creeping and eventually overriding feeling is that this meticulously precise simulation, and its lovingly constructed catalogue of automotive history, deserved a little more game to come along for the ride.