It is an instinctive, ingenious joy to play for every minute, and it sets a new gold standard for game interface design on any platform. [Sept 2007, p.86]

A vast, almost encyclopaedic look at the united nations of rally, Dirt 3 doesn't feel definitive despite America – it wouldn't feel definitive without it.

The Last Guardian doesn't just live up to its forebears' legacy, it goes further. Despite the callbacks to Fumito Ueda's previous works, it is a unique creation. Outside of indie experiments, we don't get to say that about modern videogames often enough.

We may be in hell, but as far as the Roguelike genre goes, this is a glimpse of heaven. [Issue#350, p.92]

The neatness of the solution is all the more satisfying for the mess this once was: as the last piece slots into place, the sense of closure for player and protagonist feels as earned as it is overwhelming. [Issue#399, p.121]

SFXT successfully combines the best of the most popular 2D and 3D fighting games in the world, proves Capcom's most newcomer-friendly fighter, and boasts a combat system of bewildering depth. If any company was going to move the genre forward, it seems fitting that it's the one that invented it.

In a catalogue festooned with gems, this wild heart glitters brightest of all. [Issue#338, p.96]

From its sluggish, restrictive start, Human Revolution opens into a world of scintillating possibility in which your actions' significance reaches far into the future. And with something like that difficult future approaching fast, Human Revolution achieves a rare accolade: it's not just a great game, but a timely one.

It's the game's flexibility that drives its enduring appeal, complemented by its granular UI and difficulty settings that enable you to make it as easy or as hard as you like - whether through developer-prescribed challenges or personal rules imposed as a matter of pride - without ever adjusting a slider. [Jan 2016, p.114]

The game's unflinching depiction of wartime suffering is particularly unsettling in a medium that commonly focuses on pyrotechnics and headshots. [Jan 2014, p.118]

The central achievement of Minecraft is a willingness to let the player define the experience; to make them the most interesting element in a world that's already dynamic and fascinating. It's a decision that has made designer Markus Persson a millionaire, and it's ensured that the most important PC game of the past five years is also the most timely.

Throughout there is a sense of a studio that, after its arduous struggles with "Below", has remembered how to have fun again. The feeling is mutual. [Issue#338, p.102]

So if Arkham Asylum was defined by its limits, Arkham City is a careful, considered exercise in stripping those limits away. Its open city lets players be a different kind of Batman to the stealthy predator of Asylum – this is the Batman of dropped smoke pellets and theatrical getaways, the Batman with an ear to the ground for the strong picking on the weak, and the Batman who floats above the city with a gothic majesty.

FreeStyle's greatest achievement is that it's made the rhythm-action genre feel fresh again. [Christmas 2015, p.102]

Affecting and profoundly different, Her Story is a superlatively told work of crime fiction, and one that deserves to shift the conversation around interactive storytelling. [Sept 2015, p.110]

As an accessible, powerful game-building tool, LBP 3 is remarkable, and offers more scope than we dared to expect. [Christmas 2014, p.108]

Roll7's latest is its best game to date. [Aug 2018, p.116]

Where once upon a time this series might have built an entire dungeon around a single gadget, here it's possible to pick up new inventions every few minutes, for hours on end. [Issue#403, p.96]

Reach is a fine conclusion to Bungie's stewardship of the series, but that's what stops it from being anything more. Halo felt like the future. Reach is merely a brilliantly engineered present.

This is Mario like you’ve never seen him before, and unlike so many of his next-gen rivals, he nips along at an effortless 60fps. If the true measure of new hardware’s worth is how stark the difference is between it and what came before, then this is the most next-gen game that 2013 has yet produced.

This instalment breathes new life into a series that, for all its triumphs, had started to feel too constrained by its own illustrious history. [Issue #408, p.108]

The route you pick through Polytron's floating world is nearly impossible to verbalise, while its puzzles resolve themselves in your mind unexpectedly, in clear, wordless chunks. There's really no language to cover many of the things you get up to in Fez. For a videogame in 2012, that may be the ultimate endorsement.

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]

The micromanagement is on a previously unimagined macro scale and yet is accessible and coherent enough to draw you in, making hours of concentrated playtime pass like minutes. [Dec 2003, p.101]

To give in to its spell, you just need to let go. [Christmas 2014, p.123]

The fundamentals of the game are intoxicating.

Spelunky digs its way so deeply into your brain and often pops up when you're busy playing something else. You'll flashback when another game's arsenal reminds you of just how powerful Yu's simple toolset is, or when another level designer tries and fails to encourage a different approach and reward convoluted strategies.

There is an abundance of delicious meat on these old bones. [Issue#367, p.117]