Not for the first time, a Miyazaki game has arrived and the landscape appears transformed. As you play, there is a sense of plates shifting beneath you, of the T&Cs of game development being hastily rewritten. We haven’t felt this way since “Breath of the Wild.” Here, as there, an open world means freedom and fresh air. [Issue#370, p.96]

Naughty Dog has delivered the most riveting, emotionally resonant story-driven epic of this console generation. At times it’s easy to feel like big-budget development has too much on the line to allow stubbornly artful ideas to flourish, but then a game like The Last Of Us emerges through the crumbled blacktop like a climbing vine, green as a burnished emerald.

No one makes worlds like Rockstar, but at last it has produced one without compromise. Everything works. It has mechanics good enough to anchor games of their own, and a story that is not only what GTA has always wanted to tell but also fits the way people have always played it. It’s a remarkable achievement, a peerless marriage of world design, storytelling and mechanics that pushes these ageing consoles to the limit and makes it all look easy.

Take away the branding and there remains a core of irrepressible imagination, the fuel of so many great games, that is anything but robotic. [Issue#403, p.92]

Yes, there's still the freedom to cause havoc, and inevitably you do; the difference is that you’re no longer impelled to toy with GTA IV's world in quite the same sadistic way - you live in it. [June 2008, p.82]

It all adds up to what is easily the best and most progressive rhythm-action game ever made, if that label even applies anymore. [Christmas 2010, p.76]

Like Breath of the Wild, Odyssey is a new entry in a long-running series that belies its age with sprightly invention, taking big risks with an established formula, and having all of them pay off handsomely. Mario might be getting on a bit, then, but a dinosaur? This astonishing adventure proves he's anything but. [Dec 2017, p.98]

Sega's loss is Nintendo's gain: Bayonetta, twirling away from a gigantic demon's maw and smacking the highest choir of angels on the nose, has just given Wii U its first true classic. [Nov 2014, p.100]

As a whole it is almost overwhelming in its depth, irresistible in value and certainly, unreservedly, brilliant. [Dec 2007, p.82]

A beautiful and graceful fighting game that lets imagination loose, and winks before slapping Dante, Kratos and every other hero back to the drawing board. [Christmas 2009, p.90]

It’s a multiplayer riot, a visual landmark, a feat of engineering, and one of the most charming games ever made. But even those accolades are dwarfed by its scope, its potential, and the apparent endlessness of them both. [Dec 2008, p.76]

Half-Life 2 is a first-person shooter. But in action, storytelling, technical achievement, atmosphere and intensity it has far outdone its peers. Valve just hit the top note no other PC game developer could reach...The excuse that 'it's just a game' won't cut it anymore. [Dec 2004, p.102]

The result, for all the longevity of its series and the familiarity of the open-world genre, is a game that evokes feelings we haven’t known for 20 years. Not since Ocarina Of Time have we set foot in a world that seems so mind-bogglingly vast, that feels so unerringly magical, that proves so relentlessly intriguing. Plenty of games promise to let us go anywhere and do anything; few, if any, ever deliver on it so irresistibly. Nineteen years on, Ocarina is still held up as the high-water mark of one of gaming’s best-loved – and greatest – series. Now it may have to settle for second place. [April 2017, p.104]

How apt that this ultimate tale of hero-making should see Nintendo's hardware become the console it was always meant to be.

In substance it's nothing new, merely a magnificent, beautiful monster of an FPS sequel. In concept and execution, though, Halo 3 is the future. [Nov 2007, p.80]

Since the end of the N64 era, as Nintendo has explored new pastures and methodically tended old ones, it’s been easy to forget the times when every major release from the company felt like this. It’s a bravura piece of design that pulls off stunts no one else has even thought of. [Christmast 2007, p.76]

For all the delicious brain food it serves up, this astonishing game - a new high bar for creator and genre - never stops reminding you of the human beings at the heart of the moviemaking process, and the very real cost of their art. [Issue#375, p.106]

As a whole it is almost overwhelming in its depth, irresistible in value and certainly, unreservedly, brilliant. [Dec 2007, p.82]

If an RPG is measured by the temptation to explore elsewhere before heading to the next objective, this is as great as any. We stall for hours finding and investigating one magical environment after another. It's bliss. [Issue#411, p.100]

We think about exactly what it means for a PS4 game to have cracked open sculpting, composing, coding, performing, curating, cinematography and game design for more players, more kinds of people, all at once to a nearly unlimited degree - alongside a philosophy that might encourage the most reluctant to consider what they might be capable of, and what it might mean to them. How does it all stack up? It feels almost silly to ask. [Issue#344, p.106]

A dazzling work of dank, abject horror that cements Miyazaki as one of the all-time greats. Sixteen months after PS4's launch, the new generation has finally begun. [May 2015, p.112]

Baldur's Gate 3 leaves you with as many ideas it it does memories. That, surely, is the soul of roleplaying. [Issue#389, p.98]

This isn't a game that redefines the genre: this is one that rolls it up and locks it away.

It's a game of restraint, but with some brutal sucker punches; the tale of a one-man cowboy army who is nothing without the people around him. It's a game about the fear of the future that reaches astounding new technical heights, and makes Rockstar's previous games look and feel like ancient history. It's a resounding triumph to which there is only one reasonable response - and an appropriate one, too. Hats off. [Christmas 2018, p.104]

Yes, there's still the freedom to cause havoc, and inevitably you do; the difference is that you're no longer impelled to toy with GTA IV's world in quite the same sadistic way - you live in it. [June 2008, p.82]

While certainly being Treasure's most fragmented game, there’s a sense that the lack of narrative, character and even proper framework makes this its most raw, pure and delightful. [June 2008, p.95]

Crazy as they may seem, it's these musical dreamers that ensure Kine makes your heart skip as your head rings - wrong notes and all. [Issue#139, p.114]

Windjammers 2 also cements Dotemu's position as the premier upholder of exquisite and sympathetic sequels to discarded classics. A triumph. [Issue#368, p.118]