Sonic Unleashed isn’t quite the spectacular return to form promised, but it’s a hell of a lot closer than Sega’s other recent efforts. [Jan 2009, p.89]

It still has much to do. But for the first time in a while, Destiny 2 players have finally been given something to be positive about. [Issue#315, p.116]

It's a detour into new territory that will satisfy co-op players as it maintains, rather than distills, the essence of its ancestry. [Dec 2011, p.122]

You'll find a number of technical issues plaguing the game, from scenery clipping to inconsistent collision and some hideously low resolution textures. But the game's relentless dedication to giving you violent bangs for your bucks goes some way to compensating for them. Because Twisted Metal at its best delivers exactly what it sets out to: a messy, manic and tasteless treat.

A good all-round introduction to the tactical FPS. Glitzy and attractive, but ultimately a little empty, there’s also no doubt that it lives up to its name. [Christmas 2006, p.79]

Rather than developing the original’s ideas, it’s content to simply reuse them. Zipping around via a network of boost tiles no longer carries the same thrill, and though squeezing the shoulder button as a monster passes by a translucent platform remains one of the most deliciously cruel ways to dispose of an enemy, repeating the trick diminishes its impact.

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 like watching penguins in an Attenborough documentary turning from ungainly waddlers into torpedoes. [Issue#397, p.114]

Like so many of its class of 2019 contemporaries, The Blackout Club attempts to turn a traditionally solitary genre into a shared world of sorts. Also, like so many contemporaries, it doesn't find a compelling reason for doing so. [Issue#337, p.118]

It's good to see Inman opting for something other than a straight sequel, but this is one space odyssey that won't last you much longer than a pleasant hour or so.

More intelligent than your average online shooter, ... this quirky concept deserves recognition. [May 2004, p.108]

There's nothing to stop a dedicated RPG fan from having a thoroughly good time but the Arc the Lad games have always had a derivative heritage and this is competent but sadly no different. [Sept 2003]

A thrilling ride, but with so little strategic variety, and without the benefit of multiplayer, a certain sameness takes hold and unfortunately cuts short what could have been a fantastic portable shooter resurgence. [Christmas 2005, p.111]

Here's hoping we have bigger and deeper globe-trotting adventures with them in the future (provided we live to see it). [Issue#371, p.118]

A game this difficult, with everything to lose from permadeath, should at the very least feel fair; without any balancing of enemies against your character's progress (something that Upstream Arcade has seemingly done none of) West of Dead does not. [Issue#348, p.100]

Something of a quirky offshoot than a bold new puzzling dawn. [Jan 2007, p.83]

An acceptable game rising from the foundations of a great one. Hutch has proved it can do amazing things with Apple's touchscreen but, this time at least, it's provided dubious implementation of almost everything else.

With its extravagant art direction, Samurai Warriors was the obvious franchise for Koei to debut on Nintendo's new platform. The surprise is how well the simple combat and new ideas work as a portable experience. [May 2011, p.105]

One supposedly shocking reveal is so transparent a five-year-old could guess it. [Nov 2018, p.112]

Like the first game, it remains a competent but ultimately restrained title. [June 2004, p.111]

It's more sopping than soppy, then - despite and abundance of salt water, a game we had pegged as a surefire tearjerker never really comes close to making us well up. [Issue#371, p.122]

Multiplayer’s not much better, and is a rare area in which Shadow Fall suffers technically, the action slowing to a crawl when things get busy thanks to an unlocked framerate.

Though still unique, Patapon's crisp, minimalist art design and central mechanic is no longer a strong enough draw to excuse its repetitiveness and price tag. [May 2011, p.99]

This is a deeply flawed game, but a fascinating one which makes you think as much as wince. [Christmas 2008, p.99]

Thoughtfulness pulls Toy Story 3 form the Pixar game mire. [Sept 2010, p.101]

Puzzles are too child-friendly, their solutions more fiddly than mentally taxing. The pleasure earned from cracking Miymoto’s designs is instead targeted by flashy 2.5D level design – snaking sights that admittedly look wonderfully crisp on Wii – and set-pieces for the impatient. [Mar 2009, p.95]

The eventful, minute-long matches and frantic to-and-fro make Mario Strikers a suitable curtain-raiser for online gaming on the Wii, but a balanced and deep extreme sports game this is not. [June 2007, p.87]

Taken in isolation, there's no denying Cold Fear's panache - RenderWare has rarely been used to such strong visual effect - and there is a fair helping of survival horror entertainment to be had here, it's just that you have to dig through several layers of frustration to get at it. [Apr 2005, p.96]