The Wonderful 101 draws on ideas from Kamiya’s previous games – Viewtiful Joe’s cartoonish charm, Okami’s brushstroke mechanic, Bayonetta’s setpieces – but in concert they’re messy, hamstrung by cluttered visual design and a clumsy central mechanic. Stretched over a large frame, they wear thin quickly. There’s a good game in here, but it’s smothered by the need to conform to its host platform’s feature set, and a distorted concept of value for money.

Even at maximum velocity it fails to stir the blood like the games to which it's most indebted. [Feb 2016, p.120]

Scribblenaut's levels have gone from being unfocused sentences in which a few choice nouns can dominate to rigid, over-punctuated impositions on player creativity. [Dec 2010, p.93]

But if you can ignore the plain looking game world and suspect AI and buy into the mercenary fantasy, there's enough fortune and glory here to give a warlord reason to make it a home.

There are plenty of smart ideas here, but a fair bit of dreck, too. [Oct 2016, p.120]

There is a tremendous amount going on, to the point that it's all too easy to miss a mission-critical SOS. [Nov 2014, p.108]

Antichamber is many things – a remarkable technical achievement, a smart subversion of its genre, a game that plays you as much as you play it – but you're more likely to respect it than enjoy it.

The meetings themselves are well realised, with the developer putting considerable effort into evoking the right kind of atmosphere. [Christmas 2007, p.99]

As the adrenaline fades, disappointment always creeps in, that meeting this creature more up-close than ever before might have actually, finally defanged it. [Issue#407, p.98]

A more joined-up package than many games of its type. Unfortunately, it's just a rather limited one. [Christmas 2010]

An impressively comprehensive, reasonably captivating though ultimately flawed experience. [June 2005, p.95]

As the clear standout elements in a shooter that otherwise feels like it's been drafted out of pre-existing parts, we'd like more change to actually play with our cards after tearing the packet open. [Issue#410, p.118]

A scary, vicious, visually progressive if rather hollow next-gen showcase that doesn’t outstay its welcome. If you want to spend a night or two in the company of the future of horror videogaming, you could do a lot worse. [Christmas 2005, p.94]

The game's fusion of rhythm-action and RPG never quite fits as neatly as you'd hope. [Nov 2014, p.115]

While Cargo Commander might be an occasionally limited platform game, it's nonetheless an entertaining ode to the simple pleasures of an honest day's work.

The moments that make Biomutant worth playing, intermittent as they can be, exist not in spite of the game's muddled identity but because of it, sitting right at the junction between its janky mechanics and outright bonkers fiction. [Issue#360, p.108]

It's much like Twitter itself - raucous and ridiculous, funny but infuriating. [Apr 2015, p.122]

The voice acting, dialogue and narrative itself are all weak, thereby demanding that the underlying systems do all the heavy lifting in terms of player engagement - something they sustain, but only to a certain point. [Aug 2010, p.97]

Unlike a good spy, however, it flubs its final execution. [Nov 2014, p.116]

Sometimes a lazy afternoon's worth of slow-release serotonin is all you need, and this soothing backrub of a game delivers on that promise. [Issue#359, p.117]

Fans of Westeros will likely be delighted by Telltale's exploration of a formerly undocumented northern clan, but there's nothing here yet to match up to the greatness of The Walking Dead. [Feb 2015, p.112]

It may lack the emotional heft of darker epics, but it remains a tightly plotted confection with charm to spare. [Jan 2009]

While the game delivers its smooth-edged package efficiently enough, it never manages to raise the pulse like its predecessor, and like an ancient tomb, close inspection reveals some worrying cracks. [Feb 2015, p.114]

Lego finally has creative expression in videogame form. [June 2017, p.104]

There's a solid adventure title here, but it's spread thin over a densely written airport thriller. [Feb 2011, p.102]

An overall shoddy feeling to the production spoils a great deal more. Where there should be panache, there are rough edges. As a comedy, it achieves much. It is funny. But as a sports game a great deal more polish is required. [Sept 2004, p.106]

This once-forgotten game deserves its redemption arc. [Issue#359, p.121]

The memories of that abysmal story mode soon fade, and those prepared to put the hours in by themselves will find a game as fluid and flexible as any on the market. [Dec 2017, p.110]