Viking’s shortfalls just seem so peculiar when compared to the surging competency of its strengths. [May 2008, p.90]

Opoona has enough character that, combined with its innovative combat and leisurely pace through an interesting world, it is comfortably its own experience. [June 2008, p.93]

Team Ninja's finest, most intelligent game since Ninja Gaiden Black, it leaves high hopes for the imminent 360 sequel. [June 2008, p.92]

Crisis Core gets arguably the most important thing right: its story is often expertly engineered and delivered, and despite the odd misstep (Genesis becomes especially tiresome as the game wears on) is some achievement in itself. [June 2008, p.86]

Sega Superstars Tennis is well-crafted, lovingly garish, and it plays a solid game. [Apr 2008, p.97]

With "Denied Ops" dropping the Conflict ball and "Call Of Duty 4"’s snappy splendour drowning any tactical sense, it’s a likeable and distracting continuation, but one that won’t be difficult to usurp. [Apr 2008, p.90]

It’s too fantastical, its violence occurring anywhere and everywhere to ever-decreasing effect. [Apr 2008, p.88]

In quests played with up to three friends the experience improves, but the game does nothing clever, original or compelling enough to recommend local questing over MMOs. [May 2008, p.95]

Puzzles are of the ‘give doughnut to the doughnut-desiring character’ variety, rarely extending beyond chores. [May 2008, p.97]

Aside from the occasional hiccup with collision detection, and some uninspired boss battles, Nanostray 2 does enough to gain an honourable mention in the genre. [May 2008, p.98]

Super Smash Bros is a series that has often been unfairly derided as button-mashing, largely thanks to its surface sheen of cutesy characters, but it has one of the most enduringly innovative and deep systems of any fighter. [Apr 2008, p.84]

Army Of Two is relatively straightforward thirdperson shooter, focused on large-scale skirmishes and the dynamics of a two-man team. It’s serviceable enough in some regards. [Apr 2008, p.91]

That it feels so leaden despite its busyness, and fails to ignite despite all its gunpowder, is impossible to ignore. [May 2008, p.99]

At the halfway mark, Chains is so tremendous, striking an almost perfect beat of difficulty spikes, weapon upgrades and stupendous visual reveals, that you have to question its endurance. And, sadly, it flounders right on cue. [Apr 2008, p.92]

In terms of the game’s central challenge, it excels at dividing the player’s attention between ambitions for continuous expansion and the manual maintenance of the empire as it stands. [Sept 2007, p.97]

It all feels like a bit of a hassle, and that, presumably, is not the message the WWF would like to convey about saving the environment. [May 2008, p.98]

Shiren The Wanderer still has its own charm and deep and lasting individual value that, for all its abstract irritations, surpasses many more modern gaming experiences. [May 2008, p.96]

While the likes of Call Of Duty 4 and Halo have made console joypads feel snappy and responsive enough to challenge the PC mouse and keyboard, Turning Point has sloppily regressed the cause by a few years. [May 2008, p.93]

Lost feels truncated to the extreme, a grand tutorial to island living violently cut off when the credits roll after four hours. [Apr 2008, p.93]

The level of personality in the Patapons and their world makes up for any disappointments - and your involvement in their story becomes huge. [Mar 2008, p.99]

The levels can sometimes feel artificial and depopulated, the game neither recreating sprawling, unrelenting conflict, nor managing to suggest a greater world through the controlled cinema of more linear shooters. [Mar 2008, p.94]

Mission design feels particularly lazy this time round, Locomotive seemingly jotting down amusing cutscene scenarios before finding tenuous ways of tying ‘destroy this’ or ‘abduct that’ tasks to the constant stream of ooh-er references to ‘big willies’ and ‘meat’ in the dialogue. [May 2008, p.97]

Underneath the mundane masculinity and grimy gun-toting clichés lies a heavily structured and well-considered score-attack game – one that’s worth excavating for all the short-lived interest it holds. [Feb 2008, p.88]

Underneath the mundane masculinity and grimy gun-toting clichés lies a heavily structured and well-considered score-attack game – one that’s worth excavating for all the short-lived interest it holds. [Feb 2008, p.88]

Underneath the mundane masculinity and grimy gun-toting clichés lies a heavily structured and well-considered score-attack game – one that’s worth excavating for all the short-lived interest it holds. [Feb 2008, p.88]

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]

This is revitalisation, a fresh surge of life for the long-serving warhorse. By any typical measure of gaming it's not grand advance, but for those whose fingers have long been drilled by the brawls of Koei's sprawling riots, it's as worthwhile and frenzied as it's ever been. [Mar 2008, p.96]

Fundamentally, combat feels feeble and insubstantial - partly out of aesthetic failure to convey power, but mostly out of a design choice to limit the effectivness of your weaponry (see 'Gun Damn'). [Mar 2008, p.95]