Next Encounter is one of the grandest and busiest console battlefields yet created. This is a spiritual update to Space Invaders, a one-trick pony that kicks harder than most FPS thoroughbreds, making the "Medal of Honour" series seem like a vain diva by comparison. [June 2004, p.109]

It's a vivid, rapid, entertaining strategy game, shot through with strikingly smart design decisions... It's problems are, inevitably, of balance. Developer EA Phenomic has accepted an impossible task - weighing all possible combinations of 200 units against one another. [May 2009, p.96]

Were it not for the rich, recognisable and beloved settings that fall over themselves to get to the player, this would be a desperately bland game. But the power of those settings simply cannot be brushed aside. [June 2006, p.88]

Though it occasionally goes pear-shaped as an adventure game due to the stinginess of its feedback, Botanicula is never less than a breath of fresh air.

Diverting and wonderfully weird as it may be, but Side Order doesn't supplant Octo Expansion as the series' singleplayer peak. [Issue#396, p.119]

Seeing the game from beginning to end reveals its true artistic merit: it never gets stale; every episode has been drawn with minute care and attention. It would have been an incredible achievement if the gameplay had matched the outstanding art direction. [Dec 2003, p.94]

Despite what Naughty Dog's crack programmers might think, you can't encode fun-ness into a videogame. Yes, there's lots of 'fun' to be had here, but is it really more fun than the original? Probably not. [Nov 2003, 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]

Titan Quest’s hyper-realism is, at least when above ground, dazzlingly picturesque, with lighting so natural you expect there to be an elemental resistance for sunburn. [Aug 2006, p.84]

Bad Company’s multiplayer happily checks off the expectations the series has created. [Aug 2008, p.90]

Ratchet & Clank 2 shows all the signs of a game that's been focus tested to death; at no point will you have to repeat a section more than three times. It's a frustration free journey but sometimes feels anodyne. [Dec 2003, p.97]

This is, after all, a game that goes out of its way to empower in a way few other games dare. [Jan 2016, p.102]

Underneath the mundane masculinity and grimy gun-toting clichés lies a heavily structured and well-considered score-attack game – one that’s worth excavating for all the short-lived interest it holds. [Feb 2008, p.88]

A revised, marginally stronger example of the virtual motorbike racing we’ve come to expect from the franchise. But owners of MotoGP ’06 may want to skip a year. [Oct 2007, p.96]

None of this matters too much when you're taking one gamble after another and they're all paying off. [Issue#376, p.108]

The springy physics are almost perfect, giving you just enough control even as you hurtle through the air at speed. [Nov 2016, p.118]

Any semblance of subtlety is abandoned entirely when it comes to the playable Hero and Villain characters. [Jan 2016, p.110]

Fortunately, the backbone of strategy means that behind every chaotic disaster lies the digestible conclusion that, with better planning, it could have been avoided. [May 2005, p.87]

Squeak Squad overall is a polished, impeccably designed pushover. [Feb 2007, p.84]

Hard-bitten graduates of "GTR2" and "GT Legends" would be smart to approach RACE with few expectations, or perhaps leave it to the newcomes it has clearly been designed to attract. [Jan 2007, p.81]

Crisp of cut-scene, blessed with a refreshingly light touch and low-key compared to the po-faced chest-beating of its peers, Second Sight could well be a high water mark in storytelling through games (as opposed to storytelling around them). [Oct 2004, p.104]

As a package, Black Ops III is a muddle. It is packed to the gills with things, certainly, but none of it joins up. [Jan 2016, p.114]

It's handsomely shot, produced and scored, solidly acted. [Issue#373, p.108]

Its fortunes rely on satisfying a burgeoning community of simulation racers, for whom authenticity is the top priority, and in that respect it’s a success. [Dec 2007, p.94]

Its biggest problem is its length, and that its formula can’t quite endure its sequel-dose duration. Whether or not it’s overlong in terms of play hours may be a matter of preference, but it feels slightly stretched during its final third, exposing its shallowness a little in the process. [Apr 2007, p.80]

It draws you in after your first few taps of the screen, and it's smart enough to keep things brief, topping off a short campaign with an endless mode and a limited selection of unlockables.

Production values are high, with iPad providing the best canvas yet for Level-5′s animation and colouring. And though the puzzles and narrative take on a different rhythm to the core series, the delicate balance in their concoction and the demands of their solution – requiring equal amounts of logical and lateral thought – echo those of father Layton’s finest.

A charming jaunt. [Sept 2009, p.94]