It's a game that rewards the long-haul with deep, inventive missions which eschew the usual fetch and kill structure, ensuring that the many hours spent in Fallout 3's wasteland aren't wasted. [Christmas 2008, p.88]

This isn't a deep game by any means, but it's colourful, noisy, and approaches iOS's limitations with cunning.

There’s little doubt that Sony has pulled out a plum – and given the PSP its first real mascot in the process. [Aug 2006, p.82]

Like an electrified baseball bat, The Beast is silly and perhaps disposable, but you can still have a great time swinging it. [Issue#416, p.110]

Plenty of games have flourished around the slaughter, scale and destruction of war, but few have managed to realise a soldier’s role and worth - disposable, vulnerable, pivotal - as well as this. [Apr 2005, p.100]

For those willing to invest in all of the paraphernalia required to experience it, Phantasy Star Online remains a beguiling prospect. [May 2003, p.104]

Black Box’s sequel ultimately struggles to offer any single compelling justification for its own existence. [Feb 2009, p.93]

There are dozens of puzzles, with a Resident Evil-like fetishism for clicking locks and mechanisms. [Issue#416, p.112]

A limited, but well-honed, experience. There's craft evident everywhere, from the stylised environments and the vibrant characterisation to the well-rounded storyline. A beautiful, enchanting and unusual game. [March 2003, p.90]

There's substance, too. [Issue#408, p.123]

The lack of instruction here is telling: Lucky Frame wants people to discover the joy of making music for themselves, and this stylish and entertaining curio represents a fine place to do so.

The pleasure of launching into a panoramic, dolly-zoomed abyss and triggering an implausible series of aerial gymnastics is as primal a thrill as it ever was. [Nov 2008, p.102]

There's also a sneaking sense that Origins is stuck in the past. As a reimagining of the original game with modern visuals, it's a triumph, but it doesn't do much to move the realtime tactics genre forward, with little of the innovation seen in, say, Mimimi's Shaodow Gambit: The Cursed Crew. [Issue#410, p.116]

With a much better camera and less of a fondness for gratuitously fussy challenges - and a tendency not to combine the two - this could have been a minor classic. [June 2017, p.96]

Like so many recent releases, Borderlands 4 has a magnetic, engrossing experience at its core that's been built on a hundred smart design decisions, but its performance on PC keeps you at arm's length. [Issue#416, p.114]

Fun fan fodder, but hardly revelatory. [Christmas 2009, p.102]

Stripped by necessity to its basest form to allow for the limited inputs of the handheld, and this time greatly enhanced and personlaised by character artist Gez Fry's gorgeous anime-inspired designs, Rebelstar may be their most accessible title to date. [Dec 2005, p.112]

It only betrays itself completely once – in a dismally conventional boss battle around halfway through – though at times Spartan threatens to become routine, it never does, thanks to its strong character, handsome looks and sheer, irrepressible verve. [Nov 2005, p.96]

Who knows how we got here, but Zombies is the most compelling reason to buy a COD game in 2018. [Christmas 2018, p.114]

For tenacious players and those inclined towards the genre, Fallblox could prove an irresistible draw, with clearing its parade of cryptic conundrums a delicious prospect. For others, the game's difficulty, and its visual and thematic linearity, will prove tiresome, their enthusiasm for its self-evident ingenuity petering out before each of its challenges has fallen.

Much to its credit, Backbone Vancouver has done a masterful job in taking the complexity of Ensemble’s original and stripping it to its bare essentials for portable play. [Apr 2006, p.95]

Mini Ninjas offers an assortment of simple pleasures and its tooth-rottingly sweet presentation wholly endears – but it isn’t sustained, and in places falls disastrously below the watermark.

Kids are often underestimated, but that doesn't mean their games should be. Lego Star Wars has an appeal that goes beyond age, even if it's one that rarely goes beyond 20 minutes at a time. [May 2005, p.84]

A couple of murderous boss battles spike the difficulty level during the second half, but what occurs for the most part is a largely cyclical, if inspired and infectious routine. [Dec 2006, p.83]

The third person action is surprisingly sturdy, while the clash of metal against bone and the confusion, blood and carnage of close combat has been captured spectacularly. [Nov 2004, p.109]

With a generous array of modes and some unexpected creative flourishes, this is certainly the best Mario Party since the GameCube era; perhaps even beyond. [Christmas 2018, p.120]

Lost Odyssey contains some of the most tender writing ever committed to a videogame. [Apr 2008, p.86]

Global Storm feels like the true heir to the Conflict: Desert Storm games in more than just surname, and remains a worthy war effort, despite there being other games that may do it grander or deeper. [Nov 2005, p.102]