Other than some disappointing visuals, there's little to complain about in arcade, exhibition and mutliplayer modes. [July 2004, p.109]

It’s a game of light and shade, sure, but there’s a little too much of the former seeping through the cracks.

If the result sometimes feels more like a robust proof of concept than a complete game, it's a reasonable outlay for an afternoon's fun. [April 2017, p.121]

There's an interesting personal story here, yet when it comes to the work itself, we can't help but feel we've gone a little too far back in time. [Issue#411, p.123]

Umurangi Generation is a game of jagged edged, in many more ways than one. We just with that didn't apply to how it so often feels in the hands. [Issue#361, p.119]

As with any rollercoaster, you can never quite recapture the giddy pleasure of that first ride. [Issue#367, p.121]

It’s insight into what lay beneath GoldenEye’s unforgettable skin is commendable. But the subsequent attempt to update and embellish the formula is, while a gleeful pleasure, not wholly successful. [July 2005, p.88]

Where FlatOut felt like racing in a field, FlatOut 2 feels like racing on a film set. It has been reshaped into the archetype, competent arcade racer. [Aug 2006, p.89]

There was never any doubt that Total Overdose would fall foul of one of its genre's various pitfalls, but it's unfortunate that it ultimately had to be one as irksome as excessive length... At its best, the game still shakes up a loud and spicy Mexican cocktail, but what it’s added to the mix has been more than enough to weaken the taste. [Nov 2005, p.103]

It's an all-too timely (big) mood piece. [Issue#361, p.120]

With better class implementation, carrying through into PvP, it might have been able to assert its own identity. [Issue#333, p.116]

Action Forms’ moments of ingenuity and the sophistication of its writing demonstrate that it could do great and yet more terrifying things with a more intimidating budget. [Apr 2009, p.124]

Dap runs out of steam some way before it wraps up, but this abrasive, distinctive game lingers in the mind, haunting you like the ghosts of so many fallen Pikmin. [Issue#367, p.122]

Among this "grab-bag of myths and masks" are moments of genuine intrigue, but its vague storytelling lacks the specificities that would make it universal. [Issue#361, p.121]

The game is at pains to highlight its lack of tutorials or explanations, but outside an intriguing opening, its conundrums are unlikely to leave you stumped for long, a result of the ship's compactness and the robot's inability to carry more than one item at once.

From bedrooms containing clever and mysterious moving panels to a 'Land of the Giants'-style pool challenge, each section delivers something new and exciting to motivate deeper exploration. [Apr 2004, p.110]

With design lifts from here, there and everywhere peppered throughout, it’s safe to say that the developer has rather appropriately played things by the numbers. [Mar 2006, p.88]

Whether you view the appearance of a game like this on the DS as a crucial step in conserving gaming’s heritage, a convenient nostalgia fix, or a total reversal of everything the machine was supposed to deliver, you’ll most likely greet Bub and Bob with little more than familiar affection. [Feb 2006, p.92]

All too often you’re baffled as to how your slick 180° spin failed to satisfy the marking criteria, only to pass on the next attempt with a clunking three-point turn. [Oct 2007, p.94]

This characterful, sprawling throwback might well have been considered a classic two decades ago. But, as its creators have patently discovered, it isn't 1997 anymore. [June 2017, p.86]

The Warrior's Code essentially has forgotten when to say no. Pulling itself outward in every direction at once, it stretches thin where it should be richest: at its core. [June 2006, p.95]

Ninety-Nine Nights deserves a better score... That's a strange ways to put it, but it comes from the fact that its most grating flaws occur at such a fundamental level that it's a mystery they were ever tolerated at all. [JPN Import; June 2006, p.89]

It's a sparse recipe that makes for a sometimes infuriating, but always compelling, puzzler which is spiced up by the inexorable progress of your dot.

Its scenarios are striking in scope, but its gunplay can’t quite keep pace. It features some moments of truly cinematic vision, but the technology and framework can’t quite do them full justice. [Christmas 2007, p.90]

Approached as the latest work from one of the industry's favoured fathers, The Cave could seem like a tourist trap, packed with old ideas to lure in passers-by. Taken for what it is – a simple, characterful adventure game from an independent developer – it offers just enough to be worth the price of admission.

With its unusual blend of Kinect and controller – of simple missions and complex control – Heavy Armor is a modern rarity: a game designed to be hard work. Whether that translates directly into it being a game for the 'hardcore' is debatable, but From Software has made the best of a bad situation and, aptly, delivered a game that asks you to do exactly the same.

In many ways, Trash Panic represents the kind of inventive, inimitable Japanese release that comes all too infrequently – but here, such creativity has not been enough to turn an interesting idea into a brilliant one.

Reduced to its simplest terms and stripped of its highly aspiring overtones, Rising is essentially a competent shooter with its heart in the right place, and a ton of ideas that never gel into any cohesive whole. [Aug 2005, p.92]