This is a vision of immense craft and feeling. Should there be more behind the curtain? [Issue#410, p.110]

Persevere, however, and you’ll find the kind of charmingly intelligent design that makes us hope Ambient can eventually realise some of its grander ambitions.

We don't mind seeing behind the scenes, since in a way the whole game is just that storycrafting system on a larger canvas. [Issue#386, p.123]

Certainly, it provides exhilarating depths for those willing and sufficiently talented to reach them, but the game's narrow and unforgiving constraints will repel far more than it entices. [Issue#389, p.102]

Peggle’s secret is the way it makes you feel about these successes – and it’s here that this most feels like a true sequel. Clear out a level and the resulting Ultra Extreme Fever is a bigger festival of light and colour than ever, and Xbox One’s Game DVR popup serves as an extra pat on the back. The accompanying crescendo is no longer limited to Ode To Joy either – each Master has their own piece of classical music.

The effect is simple but potent: this feels like a real place, and you feel like a real person. [Issue#392, p.108]

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

If Desert Storm 2 has one flaw, it's that there are only ten maps and these usually channel the player down avenues rather than provide ample playgrounds for strategic experimentation. [Nov 2003, p.100]

Dual Destinies is an Ace Attorney game, all right, and that’s perhaps the best result anyone could have hoped for.

Rebellion's not reinventing the wheel, then, but there's an admirable clarity of focus here from a studio clearly confident in its handiwork. [Issue#373, p.116]

While there isn't the sense of playing something that opens up a new era for a genre long written off as dying, there is a simple freshness and a delightful accessibility which might endear it to an even wider market. [July 2004, p.106]

This attempt to fuse two very different Mario worlds is more than the sum of its mismatched parts. [Jan 2016, p.122]

And while it's really more a snack than a buffet, it's one that will leave you full and contented, the acidic tang of competition cutting through all that sugar. [Issue#376, p.120]

As easy to misunderstand as it is to break, it again turns the best and worse of PC gaming into something extraordinary. [Oct 2008, p.94]

SimCity 4 might sit down among the many footnotes in the history of gaming, but it fills its remit with skill, creating a game that genuinely demands something of our oft-neglected intellect. [March 2003, p.101]

This is easily the better sequel, a firm improvement on "Warrior Within." So why the long face? For the simple and saddest reason of all: ennui. [Christmas 2005, p.100]

It's an 'experience' as much as a game, meaning that it will leave as many people cold as it grabs by the right half of the brain. Beyond good, then, but not quite excellent. [Christmas 2003, p.104]

Only a sense of familiarity dogs an otherwise engaging diversion: the Minis cover a lot of ground in these 180 levels, but at times it’s well-worn territory they’re walking.

Yes, perhaps Gris is a little big in love with itself. Maybe we should take the hint. [Issue#328, p.114]

If it doesn't always satisfy the more animal parts of our brain, En Garde! keeps the higher functions entertained, and provides some solid laughs. [Issue#389, p.114]

It’s wildly exhilarating, and it’s wildly exhilarating because it works, but that’s not to say it works perfectly... Persevere to perfect the right lighting conditions and learn the game’s slightly idiosyncratic perception of your movements, and it is an unparalleled experience, if a slightly shallow sports game. [Jan 2005, p.86]

In terms of creating an atmosphere and playing with it, there’s nothing quite like it on a handheld system. [Christmas 2007, p.96]

Something as transcendent and overwhelming as the game we hoped for – the infinite, mind-boggling space odyssey suggested so early on – doesn’t sell expansion packs. It doesn’t fit on to iPhone. It doesn’t fill the vacuum left by The Sims. [Nov 2008, p.88]

It also commits a few of the same sins: in particular, the deluge of gar drops feels vaguely insulting, conditioning the player to lust after items exclusive to the in-game store. It's lifted, however, by the relative wit and intelligence of its quest design, and the delicate notes of uncertainty and curiosity introduced by Exploration mode. [Christmas 2018, p.108]

And while its camera and controls are a huge improvement over its predecessors, the odd hiccup still persists. But most of the time, with the soundtrack - a mix of laidback house, hip-hop, and funk - doing its thing in the background, and the world gradually opening up to you, it's easy to fall into a pleasant trance for long stretches. [Issue#389, p.118]

Rivals’ systems show potential, but it is considerably less than the game it might have been.

Alien Hominid is just about an essential title for anyone who’s caught themselves yearning for a forgotten past, or to any young blood wondering what people mean when they say they don’t make them like they used to. [Jan 2005, p.97]

Like the flesh-merging virus, which exponentially heaps meat onto meat onto meat, Bloober's better ideas can get lost in the pile. That it still feels worth playing to its conclusion is proof of the fundamental strengths at Cronos' core. [Issue#416, p.108]