While Rockfish has created an accomplished open-world experience among the stars, then, it really needn't take up quite so much space. [Issue#384, p.110]

Despite the game's lofty sky-mindedness, this is all about mastery rather than freedom. Thankfully, mastery brings with it plenty of its own rewards.

A puzzle game that's more puzzle than game, Huebrix is a quiet pleasure – a soothing rainy Sunday afternoon to Super Hexagon's hedonistic Saturday night.

As an RTS, Black & White 2 is less deep, but just as flexible and responsive – and when creatures, miracles, wonders and large armies are all in play it’s arguably the greatest show in gaming. [Nov 2005, p.94]

We need more games like this - ones that are confident and individual - but we need them to be less roughly hewn. The core of the game is solid, but the way it's applied throughout the levels just isn't interesting enough. [Mar 2004, p.98]

Death himself is an amusingly grumpy fellow, in constant need of a cup of coffee to stay motivated. [Issue#384, p.112]

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.

We can't shake the sense that we've trodden these paths before. [Issue#409, p.104]

There’s a polish here that belies the game’s browser origins, even if the Vita-specific additions – a tilt-controlled camera, rear touch for aiming grenades – are little more than token gimmicks.

In terms of quest interaction, there's simply not a great deal going on. Fable III largely gets away with it through sheer charm, and the infectious sense of fun in its detail. [Christmas 2010, p.80]

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]

It's simple, simple enough that a Bishi Bashi Special minigame had the basic idea years ago, but Match Panic does brilliant things with it. Every time you think you've got a handle on its workings, something changes up and confuses you for just long enough that the wrong thumb falls. It's a one-trick pony, but you should really see what she does with it.

Beyond the sharper picture quality, there's little here that couldn't have been done on DS, though it matters little in the face of such ageless design. Picross E may not do much more than the basics, then, but sometimes that's all that is needed.

Thanks to the feel, the car collection and the online toolset, FM achieves a victory by a fine margin. [Issue#391, p.110]

Guardians keeps you strapped in for the ride, and while it does dip once too often, the emotional highs outweigh the patience-testing lows. [Issue#366, p.108]

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]

While a game that tries to be something for everyone will always fail to be everything to someone, Riders Republic has that certain something that makes it hard to stop. [Issue#366, p.110]

Nippon Ichi’s disregard for the cult of stagnated updates is at once exhilarating and unnerving. It’s exhilarating because it leaves the player wondering exactly where these craftsmen of the strategy minutiae will go next, and it’s unnerving because Phantom Brave’s reworking is a bridge too far for all but the most dedicated of videogame strategists. [Nov 2004, p.100]

Gunplay is conveyed through some truly dazzling visual feedback and blare. But, once the smoke clears, it feels all too repetitive in terms of its deathmatch-style objectives. [Christmas 2005, p.109]

Sunrise does nothing truly brilliant, but does it with such engaging raw excess that it’s hard not to be sucked in by its fairground attraction. [May 2005, p.88]

The Atlus faithful who remember the anguish of Matador in Nocturne the first time will probably swallow their pride and press on, but newcomers who may confuse godhood with god mode are in for a rude awakening. [Issue#366, p.112]

Heavy Rain pulls off its branching narrative by donning blinkers and sprinting down the chosen routes. Countless permutations of each scene are allowed, safe in the knowledge that they will never be addressed again.

Runic Games has created something bright and punchy, if a touch aimless, which makes up for the lack of personality (and multiplayer) with a beaming smile and lots of encouraging pats on the back. [Feb 2010, p.90]

What was once a pleasing console compromise now seems overly restrictive post-"Knights of the Old Republic." Despite hints of moral choices and a dusting of side-quests, it soon boils down to a straight slog, mashing the 'A' button as you wander through prettily rendered - if largely linear - dungeons. [Feb 2004, p.100]

It's a quality RTS, then - though a few irritations sour the experience. [Issue#366, p.114]

It may not linger in the mind for too long once it's over, but it provides at least an evening's worth of quiet magic. [Issue#410, p.123]

This is a grand, unwieldy behemoth of a sequel, buckling under the weight of its features and bombast. In lacking a sense of direction, though, it sometimes delivers in unexpected ways. [Issue#413, p.102]

Even when it's going wrong, Twelve Minutes exerts an uncommonly firm grip. [Issue#363, p.114]