While the logic-based puzzles are never too perplexing, they can require a little too much back-and-forth travel between adjacent rooms, occasionally wearing out the good impression made by each gorgeously rendered setting.

Feeling the buzz of Genji’s countering system is the key to enjoying it, making the eastern promise of demanding play feel attainable, if less exotic for those already well-versed in mastering such endeavours. [Sept 2005, p.92]

It's a game whose very structure serves to undermine its often excellent writing; that, in the end, is what really stings. [May 2018, p.118]

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.

Magicka delivers splashy nonsense of a gleeful kind, and somehow its delight in chaos and willful stupidity buoys it some way above its faults. [Mar 2011, p.95]

There's promise in The Turing Test's constituent parts, but considered as a whole, it fails the imitation game. [Nov 2016, p.110]

Too brainless for adults, and increasingly too frustrating and needlessly obtuse for children, Lego Batman makes the simplest mistake any franchise title can: it serves the licence, and nobody else. [Dec 2008, p.89]

Singleplayer is weak - despite well-worked tutorial and mission modes it always feels like target practice for combat with friends - and the lack of online support disappoints. But despite a potentially hazardous dimensional switch, it remains as appealing a way of antagonising your friends as ever. [Dec 2003, p.108]

For all the gags, Astrologaster is a romp with no little substance. [Issue#334, p.120]

It's hardly the deepest strategy game around, but it effectively sets up the loop these games revel in, one thing feeding into another so you can never quite find the right moment to put it down [Issue#341, p.110]

If you can forgive the over-reliance on certain tropes and endure some short spells of tedium, this is a genuinely grisly, surprisingly deep hybrid of survival horror and FPS. [Issue#421, p.114]

Though perhaps it's the constraints that give this striking noir - the most invested we've been in the Tron universe for 40 years - such a strong identity of its own. [Issue#385, p.122]

It's just a shame that this unique combination of still-alivers didn't result in something truly innovative.

Attempting to race beyond its own predetermined speed limits only results in frustration, but given the time to slow-burn and settle in at its own tempo the immensity of its offerings will rarely disappoint. [Aug 2006, p.87]

So despite the winner podiums and big sponsorship contracts and – yes – even the hours you'll spend in this askew universe, Grand Prix Story feels more like deja vu than entertainment. The formula is rapidly palling.

Indeed, Tactica is very much a Persona 5 game, with all that entails: conceptually sound, visually stylish, lovingly assembled - and needlessly drawn out. [Issue#392, p.116]

You can't just mine your inspirations; ideally, you should build on them. [Issue#392, p.120]

What could've been a new high-water mark for horror is weighed down by a litany of clanging missteps, but while the game's many problems conspire to tarnish its innovations, the latter are so far ahead of other games' tricks that they dazzle nonetheless. [April 2016, p.115]

Tourist Trophy is never anything more than you, a motorcycle, and the quest for the racing line. It’s more than accomplished enough to fulfil fanatics of bikes and simulations, but too dry for anyone else. [Apr 2006, p.86]

Despite its unreserved nature, and being about as tightly tethered to reality as the Burnout series, Ridge Racer 6 hasn’t floated away from its roots. It’s content to sink into its well-established furrow of soaring slides and skids, and it still feels crisply satisfying with it. [Jan 2005, p.82]

Imagine building one of the most visually arresting games in recent memory, infusing the track design with genuine ingenuity, then having your work cruelly undermined by a learning curve shallower than a hill in Holland. RE is simply not challenging enough. [March 2003, p94]

In music, bad tribute acts play pubs and weddings: in games, they sit at the top of the charts.

The mix of leaping and pushing blocks forces you to exercise thumbs and prefrontal cortex alike, but jumping between the two can jar. [Issue#363, p.123]

It's worth rolling on to the end, but you might find yourself wishing it had more of the concision of its cinematic inspirations, rather than the drag of a family game of monopoly. [Issue#364, p.123]

As well-intentioned as its encouragement to slow down and sniff the flowers may be, we can't help but bristle when the process is so leaden that it rarely feels like a relaxing meadow stroll. [Issue#404, p.120]

The game's intended target audience is likely to respond to the beautifully animated pets with squeaks of delight, though exposure to the Edge test family did result in two children vying for the attention of a camera that would one accept one of the little terrors at a time. [Christmas 2010]

The amount of material here, familiar though some of it is, and the consummate presentation means that this is the most exhaustive Katamari to date, if not the finest. [Nov 2009, p.97]

Lit is consistently rewarding for its duration, the lack of handholding and clue-giving heightening the thrill of finding a solution, regardless of whether it was thought through or merely stumbled upon in the dark. [Christmas 2009, p.100]