Although inadequacies prove more memorable than the game's positive features, dig deep enough and there's and enjoyable game. It's just that finding it sometimes proves unnecessarily arduous. [Nov 2003, p.102]

It’s very easy to while away the time just terrorising the populace of each level in an increasingly destructive fashion, but to actually care enough to contribute anything to a completion percentage is another matter entirely. [July 2005, p.86]

There’s a workmanlike simplicity to the core of Arcen’s game, one that lets down the powerful atmosphere suffusing it.

While there is scope for each skirmish to play out differently, it's simpler to respond in kind to cheap deaths by lobbing pre-emptive grenades into scripted entry points - and in doings so, you're not so much numbed to the shock of Killzone's war as anaesthetised. [Christmas 2004, p.84]

"quotation Forthcoming"

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.

A beautiful disappointment – a great look in search of a great game to go with it. The genre template may be rock solid, but the end result is an adventure that's been strung across a fault line.

It takes the best and worst of Resident Evils past and present, and spot welds them together unevenly. If the designers had committed wholeheartedly to either polarity of action or horror, Revelations may have been a headshot, but what we're left with is more like a glancing blow. [Feb 2012, p.112]

For a reinvention, it has an almost parodical lack of surprises: You’ve seen every abandoned village, sacked castle and anachronistic laboratory before, with the more striking imagery suggested by the game’s plague of tainted cherry blossoms all but ignored until the final stage. [Apr 2006, p.80]

This inability to decide where World Tour lies among the many paths the series has taken previously is the game’s true problem. It demonstrates both why Camelot is so trusted by Nintendo, and why it has been stuck making sporting spinoffs for so long. Camelot seems unsure of whether it would prefer to be held by the hand or simply set free, and ends up putting the player in that same awkward middle ground.

Ironically, it’s people who haven’t played Champions rather than veterans who could find the most to like, given that it’s a year’s worth of tweaks and polish on that game’s largely positive foundation. [Apr 2005, p.105]

It offers one of the most beautiful worlds ever created on a console, heavy with atmosphere and wonder, laden with the treasures of the Final Fantasy heritage. However, it asks too much expense and hassle and it inflicts too many setbacks, frustrations and restrictions to come close to being a fair exchange.

It helps, too, that the story is surprisingly engaging. [Issue#413, p.116]

Gearbox has made a game that is stable and complete, if hugely unrefined in places, with an under-exploited but sound core of tactical squad combat. [Nov 2008, p.93]

Things pick up considerably in the game's final third, when the excessive exposition has at last been laid to rest and you've learned how to best work with the disobliging visual language. [Issue#424, p.104]

Unlike PSP competitors Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea, this game lacks the colour and complication to really drag players into the depths of its strategy. [Jan 2008, p.89]

As a platformer it's not Ravenous' best, and as a puzzle game Infestor doesn't quite provide enough material for its parasitic premise to build on.

A collection of ideas executed with variable success, which at times coalesce to form an effective whole, and at others feel like flashy distractions from an otherwise unambitious central formula. [Christmas 2010]

True, there is little here that should deter the Souls veteran in search of a new challenge to add to the ever-growing pile. And while we may never be quite as interested in uncovering the backstory of our mute amnesiac as in retailoring her skillset or wardrobe, Wuchang does a commendable job of draping the Soulslike in eastern garments - provided the red mist doesn't have you tearing them asunder. [Issue#414, p.104]

Its rudimentary puzzles may not satisfy point-and-click fans, but those who enjoy interactive drama will be happy to tune in for Episode Two after this solid season premiere.

At its best it's an engaging spectacle, but when it falters Lost Planet 2 is a gamble that doesn't pay off. [June 2010, p.94]

That player-considerate attitude is offset by less reverential treatment of its inspiration, however. Ittle Dew isn’t really a parody, more a loving pastiche, but its gently sassy mockery of Zelda’s conventions ties with the beautiful, vibrant art to ensure that while this really is mostly block puzzles, they’re some of the best presented ones you’ve ever played.

A curiosity. An inferior imitation of a two-decade-old series, it's nevertheless delivered with obvious affection for its inspiration and considerable charm of its own. [June 2010, p.105]

Proving Ground is, at best, a functional sequel. It gives the fans what they want, throws in a handful of awkward or undeveloped ideas, and leaves it there. At worst, it’s a poor entry to the Tony Hawk’s lineage. [Christmas 2007, p.91]

True, Splitgate 2 does a decent job implementing the fundamentals of a firstperson shooter, and occasionally makes a deeper impression with flourishes that can't be found elsewhere. But in moving too far towards established tastes, it more closely resembles what its creators profess to fight against. [Issue#413, p.120]

Don’t Starve is by no means a bad trial run for Klei’s new way of working, but it’s a pursuit for those with a wealth of patience and an appetite for pain. Klei may have modelled Hell brilliantly, but that doesn’t mean we want to live there.

Throw in a few low-level technical glitches - occasional stuttering, the rare enemy frozen in a T-pose in a doorway - and it's hard not to feel underwhelmed. [Issue#414, p.108]

A slick production, but its rewards can feel outstripped by the effort required to play it. [Christmas 2016, p.118]