Suddenly the nonsense global scoreboards of Xbox Live and PSN, designed no doubt to validate those services with the suggestion of mass involvement, are exposed as being badly hampered by their own ambition. United’s tight-knit communities are a welcoming, sensible and above all enjoyable blueprint for the way things should be. [Apr 2007, p.82]

Chaos Theory is the game that the original Splinter Cell was meant to deliver: a tight play experience within a trusty framework, one more of enjoyment than irritation, and a game that’s no longer exclusively for fans of repeated reloading. [Apr 2005, p.97]

A great and progressive return to gaming's adventuring roots.

Excellent. The rhythms of the day quickly become second nature and hypnotically absorbing. There're never enough hours in the day. [Jan 2004, p.106]

To those who treat mould-breaking games as life's milestones; those who can still smell the silver coins on their fingers ... this is dangerously close to the best in the genre. [Oct 2003, p.94]

In opposition to its marketing pitch, then, it's perhaps best to view FEAR less as a horror show punctuated by action than a blistering action spectacle that likes to play games with its guests. [Dec 2005, p.98]

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]

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]

OutRun 2’s heady caricature of driving is some kind of high-water mark for how much beautifully slick, instantly fluid and, thanks to the excellent use of joypad rumble, gloriously tangible play can be squeezed into five minutes of flamboyant autoerotica. [Nov 2004, p.98]

Never has a physics-based vehicular puzzle game bestowed such a vivid sense so generously before. [Issue#331, p.114]

The GBA original invented a new way to tickle your brain, conceived by gamers for gamers and loaded with unabashed enthusiasm. And now you can play it with your friends. What better excuse for throwing a party? [JPN Import; Christmas 2003, p.118]

A series that has spent too long paying bashful tribute has, at long last, emerged from the shadow of its classic debut. [Issue#332, p.112]

Tiny Tower's ongoing tick-tock of cash and happy bitizens is a fantastic toy.

In reckoning so candidly with the conflicting emotions we've experienced over the past few years, Mediterranea Inferno achieves a purgative potency few of its peers can match. [Issue#390, p.135]

Earned In Blood might not seem like a radical departure from the original but the gloriously cascading AI and open maps have effectively transformed it into a very special WWII experience. The fact that there's nothing quite like it in such a crowded genre speaks volumes. [Dec 2005, p.103]

It’s all a bit of a muddle, suggesting an unwarranted lack of confidence in the core systems, and at times the most keenly anticipated game of this new generation leans too heavily on the conventions of the past.

Extraction is not just a gun game that happens to work on Wii; it's a gun game that couldn't work on anything else. [Nov 2009, p.90]

Previous Forza entries showed glimmers of personality, hinting at a broader approach to accessibility, but were too shy and reserved to truly let loose. Horizon boldly goes there. It's a magpie game, assembled from pieces of other series, but it delivers a driving game precision engineered to offer all levels of player the best possible experience.

Masterful use of haptics and audio ensures that when your finger, so often an unstoppable force, meets an immovable object, you hear AND feel it. To play is to experience the pleasure of successfully picking a lock, or cracking a safe, or perhaps even repairing a watch: there is a constant sense of tension and release, as you find ways to free those gummed-up gears, to oil that rusted sliding-bolt mechanism, to feel the click of that tumbler dropping into place. [Issue#390, p.139]

Despite the familiarity, the longer you spend in your scaled-down village, the more you’re soothed into a gentle, constructive daydream which is every bit as charming as in all its other incarnations. [Jan 2005, p.89]

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]

The seamless integration of voice commands into a polished, thoughtful upgrade is Harmonix's slick finishing move. Dance Central 2 is a typical music game sequel – it works better, offers more, yet feels fundamentally the same – but it's a practised improvement to an already eye-catching routine.

This is as satisfying a finale as any devoted FFXIV player could reasonably have hoped for. [Issue#368, p.106]

It lacks the infectiousness of 80 Days, but as a story and a reckoning with history, it leaves most videogame fantasies in the shade. [Issue#332, p.120]

Nioh 3 is ultimately less of a leap from its predecessor than Elden Ring was from Dark Souls 3, but that's to be expected from a direct sequel versus the introductory act of a new franchise. [Issue#421, p.96]

It makes no spectacular breaks from the past, but it does reclaim the mood – if not the tone – of Diablo II. It's living proof that the values of 2001 still have worth over a decade later.

Isn't a game that does anything obviously or overtly clever or innovative. But any game that takes such a simple premise and polishes it, hones it and refines it until it's this engrossing, this absorbing, and this much fun, is quite obviously doing something very clever indeed. [Christmas 2003, p.114]

Levels feel more segmented and less regimented, and the better for it. There’s no cheap, wholesale reduction of difficulty, just what feels like a more balanced play experience. [Jan 2005, p.84]