A gritty, satisfying coda. [Apr 2015, p.118]

If nothing else, the wide-eyed manner in which Everything explores the interconnectedness of, well, everything feels faintly radical in these divided times - even when that means you somehow find yourself relating to a spiral of sentient poop. [June 2017, p.106]

Derivative and at times off-puttingly insistent and flimsy unlocks, it's nonetheless some of Infinity Ward's most considered design in years, and a sign it's ready to get back in the fight. [Issue#346, p.102]

If nothing else, Lost Judgment proves it would be a great shame if he didn't get another opportunity to find his niche. [Issue#365, p.112]

At its best it's a game of tactics for even the most casual player. [Issue#314, p.112]

There's a whiff of trial and error at times, but no puzzle's Eureka moment comes by accident. [Sept 2014, p.114]

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

While refinement might be the best way to make a good game better, it certainly isn't the best way to justify the cost of a second sequel in as many years. [June 2010, p.101]

Ultimate Carnage is a generous package that can be highly entertaining. But it’s a pity that it fails to apply a comprehensive design overhaul to FlatOut’s robust engine. [Aug 2007, p.91]

140 is a magnetically moreish experience: delicately balanced and well thought-out. If this is what the programmer can achieve during the downtime from his day job, Playdead’s enigmatic second project can’t come soon enough.

A game of this size may please those who equate volume with value, but despite a handful of sensational moments, Shadow of War mostly proves that more can be so much less. [Christmas 2017, p.112]

It is still a little deflating. While some detective work is engaging, too much of it is throwaway, repetitive and, worse, overused. Tailing missions are the worst offender, simplistic, overlong, tightly scripted and seemingly everywhere. In its cutscenes, its combat and its tales of the lives of struggling, troubled, randy everyday people - in all the tings that make it a Yakua game, in other words - Judgment excels. In the things that seek to make it stand apart, it disappoints. Whether this is a one-off experiment, or simply the first of many, remains to be seen; if it's to be the latter, much remains to be done. [Issue#335, p.102]

An astonishingly polished debut from Lego's new studio, and further proof that there's much, much more still to be made from the humble brick. [Issue#342, p.118]

There’s no way to sell unused cars back to the AI or to other players, no bespoke onscreen speedometers, no test driving a car before purchase, no kid-friendly Kinect steering or Kinect support in Forzavista, no opportunity to load a circuit-specific tuning setup before a career race, no exiting from a race series without loading up the next track, no unicorn cars, no ‘reasonably priced car’, no auction house, no storefront, and no surprise, really.

Contracts redeems Absolution, but it doesn't absolve it. The game has taken a unique formula and diluted it, allowing the fashionable trappings of other stealth titles to intrude upon a series that has always confidently eschewed convention.

While it's diverting, Planet Lana II never feels essential as a sequel, mechanically or narratively. [Issue#422, p.106]

The New Order is, above all, brave. Its odd mix of ’90s-style FPS excess and Nazi atrocities could have come across as outdated and crass. But MachineGames maintains just as much respect for its difficult subject matter as it does for its players, and the result is a game that indulges the mature and juvenile parts of your personality in equal measure.

So, then: the best expansion so far and the game at its worst. Such a contradiction could only be made by Bethesda.

While the specificities of lead developer Abhi's lived experience give Venba its distinctive flavour, they serve a story with which anyone can identify. [Issue#387, p.123]

A functional, pared-down JRPG and a feisty but flawed translation of the side-scrolling beat 'em up into the third dimension. [Apr 2010, p.94]

When so much work has gone into the game’s visuals and so much effort has been poured into the most insignificant cosmetic flourish, you find your patience for the hiccups that still plague many games is reduced to almost zero. [Christmas 2005, p.92]

A valiant modern parable that might also have been an exceptional puzzler, if only it had made its players a little less godlike. [Sept 2015, p.114]

Rock Band: Unplugged’s heart is genuine and soulful, evidence perhaps that, in game-making as much as music-making, it pays to never forget one’s roots.

Other M dabbles in cinematic tricks and sensational set-pieces, but its strength is in the foundations: it builds an enveloping 3D world from straight lines and right angles, and ups the gears of its rewarding basics constantly. It offers an uncluttered slice of sci-fi action, a singular take on the thirdperson adventure, and a combat system of pared-down beauty.

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]

That teetering battle between pride and strategy than ensues every time you decide whether to comprehensively flatten a villain with an unnecessary monosyllabic flourish or gamble on saving it for your next target, hoping the board doesn’t get scrambled before you get a chance to show off.

Gearbox has made a game that is stable and complete, if hugely unrefined in places, with an under-exploited but sound core of tactical squad combat. [Nov 2008, p.93]

Nuts & Bolts is a clever, colourful and witty game – one which deserves better than to be hidden behind stodgy tutorials, flabby interfaces and a host of loading screens. [Christmas 2008, p.84]