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

The result is a game that, while built from familiar components, feels unique as a whole. The Farm 51 should be commended for its bold design decisions, and for attempting to create something that dispenses with videogame conventions. That it doesn't always hang together quite as well as it could is disappointing, but that doesn't make experiencing the studio's singular vision any less worthwhile. [July 2017, p.110]

If some activities are variants on familiar parlour games, they’re enlivened by creative twists and side objectives, while others are brimming with invention.

One thing is certain: Concrete Genie's identity crisis proves its creators still have some maturing left to do. [Issue#340, p.106]

The faults are present at the glamorous, high-stakes launch party and, as a result, Hitman is once again prevented from defining the genre. [May 2016, p.112]

As for a return trip to hell to see how alternative choices might have played out? It would have to freeze over first. [Issue#139, p.116]

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]

Bridge Crew transforms an ordinarily isolating technology into something irresistibly social: it's an anecdote generator par excellence, and a VR experience that handily overcomes its limitations as a game. [Aug 2017, p.119]

The premise may be wild-eyed, but the systems that fire it are robust... Deserves the small but vociferous following it will no doubt find. [Apr 2010, p.95]

Showdown is not just a party game, nor is it the limp refurb you might expect this late in a console life cycle. It feels like something as crucial to Codemasters Racing as any of its predecessors – less a spin-off than a deliberate change of tack.

Like the movies that doubtless inspired it, Shank ultimately has more style than substance. It looks fantastic but it's hardly a lengthy game, and it does little to trouble your brain. As throwaway entertainment goes, though, it's solid popcorn stuff.

Despite the game's uncluttered arenas, the camera regularly manages to find a way to flip out and point you in the wrong direction. [Dec 2009, p.101]

Nearly all enemy behaviour consists of direct charges, calling on the butt of your gun as frequently as its barrel. While it's undeniably intense, it soon becomes apparent that this intensity is the only string on the designers' banjo, plucked with increasingly feverish rapidity instead of ever-changing chords. [Nov 2005, p.105]

Its game may rarely do anything you haven’t seen done better elsewhere, but the developer knots a slew of disparate elements together with no little skill, leaving the whole feeling irresistibly fresh.

The pretty basic minigames are bland, and the worst, such as Pot Luck, are based on blind, dumb chance. So are the best, sadly. They’re fun with four people, but what isn’t? [June 2007, p.92]

What will stop you in your tracks is the scale, detail and beuty of the environments. Even after repeated play it's impossible not to pause and breathe in the magnificant view from the top of the Deep Amazon Temple. [May 2004, p.94]

In refusing to let the PSP’s home-console-style graphical capabilities dictate the nature of its gameplay, Acid is a valuable blueprint for future PSP development. [Feb 2005, p.77]

Like a kaleidoscope, El Shaddai offers a constant variety – sometimes confusing and out of focus, but often sparkling brilliantly. So long as you're not looking for any deeper meaning, you'll find plenty of novelty and beauty here, if not quite an eternity.

Beneath The Dishwasher's grungy surface is an original and polished take on a genre that may yet have its best years ahead of it. [June 2009, p.96]

The most contagious thing about Echoes Of Time is its humour, and there's no shortage of intrigue and mishap in the quests to come. Nor, however, is there a surplus. [May 2009, p.96]

When you do surrender to Echoshift's world of relaxation, time management, and jarring cruelty, however, time - like your many lives - files by. [May 2010, p.104]

Ultimately, setting out to critique and parody so studiously such a hidebound genre has brought The Bard's Tale too close to what it was trying to distance itself from. This is a conventional, likeable dungeon crawl whose flashes of brilliance distract you from its accomplishments by hinting at how much more it could have been. [Christmas 2004, p.93]

In your travels you'll stumble upon and unfold an intricately spun web of character interactions, warmly drawn personalities every bit as rewarding to explore as the physical environments themselves. [Sept 2005, p.86]

It's almost as if Capcom has distilled its Onimusha series, extracting the two core components of the franchise ' epic, fierce confrontations, and puzzle-pocked exploration of lavish settings ' and given each more room to breathe, with their own character, style, atmosphere and pace... Fresher, but not better. [Jan 2005, p.82]

For all its delightful art and writing, the cold logic in its Gordian design is unrelenting. [Sept 2014, p.115]

It may not be enough to rouse those with shooter fatigue, but this is a terrific genre piece: there’s a pleasing sense of weight and feedback in its gunplay, levels are snappy and replayable, while collectible cards offer an education in the real history of the era.

It's a smart concept, skilfully realised in the main, and yet it's compromised by a truly boneheaded piece of design: the default perspective offers such a limited view of the field of play that you're forced to squeeze the zoom button throughout to make it playable, with no option to toggle it.

In every sense, the pleasure here is in the playing. [Issue#315, p.122]