Eden has composed a beguiling, intoxicating hymn to the open road, and every car lover will want to join its chorus. [Oct 2006, p.82]

Provides too little in the way of engaging structure behind its exemplary racing to make it more than a series of thrilling rides. [July 2010, p.96]

A fairytale comeback. Extravagance was one of the signatures of the graphic adventure: extravagance to bring them in, and a cracking story well told to keep them.Both tenets of the Broken Sword series remain intact here, and that's all the devoted fans could have wanted. [Christmas 2003, p.94]

Florence strikes a chord that resonates long after the cello fades. [May 2018, p.120]

Smarter, faster pacing could have made all the difference. When it isn't intentionally hobbled, the combat is spectacular and unique. [Feb 2010, p.88]

Metro Exodus is a mood piece, and it hits the mark brilliantly by building detailed environments and laying set-pieces within them for you to find, as if by chance. However, in its efforts to emphasize that it's a long-form experience, its storytelling comes across as plodding, and every time a glitch or framedrop appears you're pulled out of a 4A's rare, and beautiful, post-apocalyptic vision. [Issue#330, p.106]

As the more intimate title suggests, this may be as much about Croft's brand awareness in the face of unprecedented (and Uncharted) competition. [Oct 2010, p.96]

Beautifully detailed with impressive lighting, accurately modelled protagonists and a terrific sense of speed. A refreshing and captivating direction for the series. [Christmas 2003, p.115]

Sunrise does nothing truly brilliant, but does it with such engaging raw excess that it’s hard not to be sucked in by its fairground attraction. [May 2005, p.88]

If Pocket Paradise makes you want to throw it against something, though, it’s only because it succeeds in making gardening compulsive. [Oct 2008, p.96]

At times it taps into our lizard brain so successfully that hours pass by, our eyes glazing over as we mindlessly follow instructions. [Issue#376, p.116]

It's the tutorials that stick in the mind: Skullgirls' real win is via Zaimont grasping that fighting games needn't be easier to play, but should be easier to understand.

While PixelJunk Shooter 2 may seem more like an expansion than a standalone game, there's no shortage of new ingredients to enrich what was already a lively concoction. [Apr 2011, p.97]

For experienced players, though, this is as fluid as Tekken has been for years, the tagging doing much to revitalise a combo system that, with its over-reliance on juggles and wall combos, was in danger of growing stale. But it's taken a 12-year-old mechanic to do that, and other games in this increasingly crowded genre boast a deeper level of mechanical complexity as well as a more generous welcome to newcomers.

The payoff is feeling like the Red Baron and Luke Skywalker rolled into one when you emerge from a tricky dogfight. [Oct 2015, p.112]

It's becoming a 5th Cell tradition: strong ideas compromised by erratic level design and structural weaknesses. One day, the developer will find the right balance to support its undeniable creativity, but sadly, it hasn't found it here.

As a game, it has problems. Indoor spaces will struggle to contain more than a few players (the maximum is seven) and with no rules governing conduct, smaller players are at a natural disadvantage if competition escalates. Still, as a statement of intent it is extraordinary, and feels characteristic of what Sportsfriends sets out to achieve – a realisation that simplicity and good company are the root ingredients of enjoying games, and that far from being decisive, visual sophistication might actually be entirely irrelevant.

This is a delightfully risky experiment, and the end result is pure alchemy: the blending of two fiercely traditional genres into something both unique and entirely natural. [Apr 2009, p.125]

Atlus's surgery sim is in rude health. [July 2010, p.103]

Its prudence, that veil of simplicity masking a system of astonishing possibility and depth, makes it one of the purest fighting games on the market today.

Ferocious and heartbreaking, this is storytelling with serious clout: against the odds, Stoic has stuck the landing. [Issue#323, p.108]

Where a little Innocence went a long way, this gloomy, protracted Requiem proves that a lot doesn't always stretch so far. [Issue#378, p.104]

There is, after all, something quietly revelatory about a big-budget videogame that has as much in common with the work of Bennett Foddy as Ubisoft's boilerplate sandboxes. Far from a masterpiece, then, but Kojima's first post-Konami release HAS laid the foundations for something greater. Which is fitting, since that's what he's had us doing for 60-odd hours. [Issue#341, p.102]

Its troop AI is better than that of "FEAR," and environmentally more aware than that of "Far Cry." [May 2007, p.84]

It is too stressful to be enjoyable, it's world too dangerous to safely explore, it's story too dumb to take seriously. [June 2018, p.112]

Whereas a more comprehensive reimagining of how Okami would work on DS could have resulted in a less ambitious, more polished game, Okamiden succeeds in preserving both the spirit and form of its forebear, and that makes in rather special indeed. [Mar 2011, p.90]

It's a dazzling experience, combining carefree spectacle with careful score attack, a game that's as concerned with its looks as the precision of its underlying mathematical systems. [JPN Import; June 2009, p.94]

Blood Money feels only slightly closer to the series’ ideal of a gameworld that’s both complex and cogent, and is more accessible and entertaining with it. [July 2006, p.80]