Shuggy's a clever game rather than a truly smart one – a smart game wouldn't do half as much to undermine itself along the way – but it's still worth sticking with to its bitter and infuriating end.

Reveals that the series can be both a chaotic toy box and a lattice of fantastical set-pieces that unfold meaningfully. [July 2011, p.126]

It can't entirely compensate for the lack of depth, but wading together into a throng of the undead, guns blazing and fists flying, leaving a trail of dissolving bodies in your wake, is without question a grisly pleasure.

We hate its impotence, its utter lack of a scare beyond an aversion to getting shot. And with its market-led features and Skinner-box mechanics, we hate that a series that began as a lesson in horror – of the B-movie kind, admittedly – now feels so afraid of the competition.

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.

The finely tuned platforming lays solid foundations for a leaderboard racer, and the custom leaderboards are well implemented, but this just doesn't feel like something you'll be playing in a month, never mind three years. You can't fault its ambition, and it may yet transform itself into an essential title, but presently, 1000 Heroz falls short of its lifespan.

What Dynamic Hunting captures is the back-and-forth rhythm of Monster Hunter fights, the swings between danger and all-out attack, the wounds and the frenzies.

It's a game built from pluck and resourcefulness, in other words: thoughtful when it can afford to be and stoically reliable – for the most part – when it can't.

Accentuat[es] Suda's often over-indulgent scriptwriting and accelerat[es] Mikami's brand of horror into a hyper-gothic, shock-free world of bright lights. With a little more restraint and focus on the core experience, Shadows Of The Damned could have been the action thrill ride Garcia Hotspur thinks it is. Instead the game – like Hotspur himself – is all talk.

It gets far more laughs than it should, and special mention to its credits song: perhaps the finest ending on the App Store. Original, funny, and intense: for a game based on Snake, not bad at all.

Its nonsensical charm – cartoon aliens, sweeties that make planets, and a robot T-Rex – as well as a winning extra mode (which basically makes planets into timebombs) after completion rounds off an original and deep hybrid.

Has enough in that expertly-pitched control system to keep you replaying the same courses over and over, relaxing into a groove before smashing through the score barrier on one perfect run. It's an iPhone game you'll come back to for the controls alone – and that's not something you can't say every day.

The game's visual and combative energy spark the urge to see where it goes next. If only there was something to do when you get there.

A convincing example of how 
motion control can breathe new life into a niche genre. 
More than that, it's a masterclass in audio design and the emotive power of CG imagery.

We at least have a chance to marvel at the hectic cost of ambition, and to be mystified, once more, at the strange, stupid, painful things that some of us will do for love.

Like a horse swishing its tail with futile persistence, Hunted never manages to rid itself of bugs.

The game's second half descends into a fiasco...One thing's for certain: if there's a great action game in Infamous 2, no one's actually built it yet.

Forget the artful placeholder nature of the title, then: the rotating octopus character moves through a meticulous game built with a rare sense of poise.

Rather than creating a character, you're stuck as the brooding, white-haired monster slayer Geralt. Anyone who enjoyed the role last time will be happy to bear with him while the game meanders to its point. Anyone else will need an extraordinary level of patience.

The fundamentals of the game are intoxicating.

A vast, almost encyclopaedic look at the united nations of rally, Dirt 3 doesn't feel definitive despite America – it wouldn't feel definitive without it.

The extra depth is arresting – combatants plunge from one part of a stage to the next, crashing through glass and tumbling down stairs. While its 3D arenas arguably make for a more fitting showcase of 3DS's capabilities than launch title Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, the two share a further thrill as you turn the 3D off and watch the framerate double.

Nonetheless, LA Noire is a success story. Over its 20-hour-plus length, it cuts a cross-section through the moral, social and geographical landscape of a city that carefully treads the line between a plausible '40s LA and the morally bankrupt City of Angels found in hardboiled fiction.

Nonetheless, LA Noire is a success story. Over its 20-hour-plus length, it cuts a cross-section through the moral, social and geographical landscape of a city that carefully treads the line between a plausible '40s LA and the morally bankrupt City of Angels found in hardboiled fiction.

But if you can ignore the plain looking game world and suspect AI and buy into the mercenary fantasy, there's enough fortune and glory here to give a warlord reason to make it a home.

Brink is not revolution. It might not even be evolution of the kind the FPS needs. If anything, it's an ideas board: a fun enough game in the short-term, but more valuable in the long run to better and brighter thieves.

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

If, like us, you're the kind of nerd who gets worked up by good interface design, Anomaly's swiftly accessed tactical map and upgrade overlays may just leave you misting up your monitor or touchscreen. [June 2011, p.103]