The game's world of desperate survival is much more effectively painted through its mechanics. [Issue#386, p.112]

The game’s ambition reaches further than perhaps its budget could reach, thus failing to either deliver or explore its ideas as they were no doubt envisioned. [Nov 2008, p.95]

Alienation sort of stops when it really should be getting going, routes closing off as they should be opening up. [July 2016, p.118]

While some poorly designed systems and mechanics chip away at your patience, the feeling of flying seamlessly from space down to a peninsula you spotted from orbit never fails to enthrall. [Nov 2016, p.106]

It's a pity that Remedy seems intent on making you eat your soggy story vegetables before tucking into American Nightmare's only real confection.

Tengami’s world is as rich and stimulating as any you’re likely to find on iOS, but there’s something missing. Like an origami crane, it’s an admirable piece of craftsmanship, but the result remains rather flimsy and lightweight.

This is not, as it needed to be, the Pro Evo of mixed martial arts. [Dec 2010, p.94]

The game's huge assortment of side missions and time trials, along with Gridnode runs, represent its most appealing offerings as you hone your route and - for the most part - focus on nothing but running. [Issue#296, p.108]

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

Sadly, that fresh new take on combat is hamstrung by a camera that can’t keep up with the elaborate effects, animations and blistering speed.

A little slicker, and Pandora's Tower could have provided a surprisingly effective alternative in the character-action genre. Its blend of pointer controls and button-based combat begs to be further explored. But as it is, this a clunky action title – albeit one with a flicker of genuine emotion at its heart.

That speed and flow, ultimately, is a fantasy - one that's ever harder to appreciate when you're constantly being knocked off course by rockets. [Issue#376, p.104]

Pac ‘N’ Roll is regrettably short and, with few rules to master, its replayability is quite limited. With the DS’s library rapidly expanding beyond minigame collections and touchscreen experiments it’s a tough sell, but as a fast, cheap diversion there’s enough simple fun in exploration to make it worthwhile. [Nov 2005, p.113]

Coupling this mostly successful strategic management to a realtime 3D world is unconvincing. More than that, the places where the RTS bits meet the shooting bits exist on some weird fringe of reality, where the symbolic shorthand of tactical games clashes absurdly with the pavement-pounding veracity we've learnt to expect from open-world crime. [May 2009, p.91]

A frustrating step backwards for a studio that can do better. [July 2016, p.122]

Sure, Three Fields might not have the resources its founders once did, but it feels as if the studio was in rather too much of a hurry to get this one out the door. [Issue#323, p.122]

It's a firstperson co-op adventure that hardly disgraces the Metroid name it should never have been lumbered with. [Nov 2016, p.114]

The waywardness of the physics and AI are easier to forgive in a game with such a taste for ludicrous knock-on effects. [Issue#328, p.104]

Thanks to a thoughtful, witty localisation, Yo-Kai Watch proves to be a kids' game that's capable of winning over adult players, too. [July 2016, p.123]

While there are some concessions in place for the mere mortals among us, there aren't quite enough. [Nov 2016, p.116]

Yes, Justice’s new shriek adds a new trick to his repertoire, but besides this and a few new touchscreen forensic gizmos, this there is little change from the GBA ports. [Apr 2008, p.95]

It can't entirely compensate for the lack of depth, but wading together into a throng of the undead, guns blazing and fists flying, leaving a trail of dissolving bodies in your wake, is without question a grisly pleasure.

As much as Firmament highlights the skills and importance of industrial labourers, then, it also brings with it some of the tedium of the real work - which surely wasn't part of the blueprint. [Issue#386, p.118]

If action games are at their best when experienced in a flow state, then Atlas Fallen's attempts to harness and bottle this magic are a creditable experiment. It's just a pity it sacrifices so much in pursuit of this ambition. [Issue#388, p.112]

Area 51 is entirely without inspiration, an exercise in slick, crowd-pleasing cookie-cutter cliché from the Jerry Bruckheimer school of entertainment manufacture. It is absolutely not bad, almost never broken, and usually a good deal of fun. [July 2005, p.92]

It’s sweet stuff, but repetition quickly sets in.

With combat that feels lightweight and inexact by comparison, in service of a broader structure which doesn't quite suit the core mechanics, the game's strengths - in particular, that winning, distinctive aesthetic - don't provide enough of a spark to let Ashen find its own way in the dark. [Issue#328, p.108]

It sounds as if the cast are having more fun than we are. [Issue#388, p.122]