It delivers on its promise of realising pursuit scenarios in a fast-paced and energetic manner – it's a pleasing experience, but not exceptional. [Dec 2005, p.102]

The single-player campaign is fast-paced if rather unforgiving on occasion, and the online community is refreshingly vibrant given the game's steep learning curve. Recollection's only real problems exist in the form of a handful of irritating crash bugs and server disconnects, along with an unwelcome over-eagerness to drive you towards in-app purchases as you seek to bolster your sickly starter deck.

If the Crew's ultimate fate is to be a kind of racing game variety pack, the role seems to suit it. [Issue#390, p.126]

With a room of onlookers, it's certain to provoke some of the most raucous laughter you'll hear playing a videogame this year. [Issue#392, p.122]

This is a game for those who grew up in Hyrule but spent more time in Lordran in recent years. Some finicky platforming also frustrates, but then Link didn’t get an auto-jump until Ocarina Of Time.

It can be too obtuse at times, but the rewards are quite unlike anything else in games: the music peaks, a laser beam rockets off into the sky, and you turn, heading off after that distant synth, in search of your next project deeper in the neon unknown.

Playful touches abound. [Issue#379, p.120]

For the duration of its story, it grips like a grasping, otherworldly arm. [Issue#371, p.104]

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

Uprising may not break any new ground in a genre that is arguably an endangered species, but it does a good job of breathing life into the dying breed. It's a reminder that an artist's eye, when met by a designer's understanding of modern tastes, can revitalise a struggling brand and make the old feel new again.

Sin Episodes promised us one part of an epic, but we’re in danger of getting a generic formula over several iterations, ageing technologically each time. [July 2006, p.85]

It's doubtful you'll endlessly return past the few hours necessary to beat the game, but for now it remains both a welcome introduction to a new system and its own unique and rewarding experience.

It's in Mafia II's second act that it takes a real dive, and familiarity plunges into cliché. When the writers run out of literary coal, there's little to keep you on the rails, and nowhere to take a time-out. It descends into a festival of stereotypes and expletives, laying waste to the hints of narrative depth proffered earlier and offending beyond justification as it ticks the down-and-dirty genre boxes.

Namco’s design process seems so addled by the multiform calls for improvement – the aforementioned mission design, multiplayer modes (which remain entirely offline), storylines and sheer content volume all trailing expectations – that it’s momentarily lost its focus. [July 2006, p.88]

A finale that blends Lovecraft and Spielberg seals the deal. [Issue#346, p.106]

Right now, there's enough here to capture the imagination for a handful of playthroughs, but for The Wandering Village to go the distance, Onbu may have to shoulder additional burdens. [Issue#414, p.118]

While it lasts, it’s one of the better platformers available on XBLA, and the inability to die and general ease of progression make it ideal for very young gamers. [Mar 2009, p.92]

Raskulls is many things – racer, puzzler, platformer – but it struggles to be all these things at once, or to do them equally well. Beneath the charming, brightly coloured exterior, there's a fascinating twist on the block-based puzzler at Halfbrick's game's heart – but you might just miss it when blasting through at high speed.

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]

Despite the charm, and despite the sophistication, there’s no disguising that Elebits is a slightly thin idea. Although the locations get grander and the destruction more alluring, there’s little evolution in the task at hand. [Feb 2007, p.76]

After a clumsy opening, The Evil Within hits its stride towards the end and the fist act and the tension rarely lets up. [Christmas 2014, p.114]

The Full Metal Furies experience is as patchy in the hands as its attempts at humour. [Apr 2018, p.118]

As with Sony’s other long-awaited exclusives, Lair and Heavenly Sword, Folklore pulls its punches, and the romance of its vision ultimately all but vanishes in a puff of fairy dust. [Dec 2007, p.88]

The game’s depth is matched by a generous breadth of modes and options.

The levels can sometimes feel artificial and depopulated, the game neither recreating sprawling, unrelenting conflict, nor managing to suggest a greater world through the controlled cinema of more linear shooters. [Mar 2008, p.94]

Likeable despite its flaws. [March 2015, p.106]

Real strategic thinking is less useful than exploiting the single-mindedness of the enemy AI. That rings true of many SRPGs, but can leave a cheap aftertaste to an otherwise decisive victory. [Sept 2004, p.102]

Mercury exhibits a perfect hierarchy of challenge and reward... The pain becomes the pleasure because, in spite of the extraordinary degree of trial and error (practically requiring a degree in the subject), there’s never any moment that feels broken or exploitative. [June 2005, p.91]