It's a peculiar idea to grasp, but it's impossible to argue with how successfully Game Freak has taken one simple design decision and made it integral to movement, combat and puzzle solving. [Mar 2006, p.95]

In your travels you'll stumble upon and unfold an intricately spun web of character interactions, warmly drawn personalities every bit as rewarding to explore as the physical environments themselves. [Sept 2005, p.86]

It’s still a hardcore sim at heart – forgiving lower difficulties, sexy day/night effects and emotive cars aside – and those that rush in may miss the point. But explore and savour each passionately sculpted track and car, either solo or in the 16-player online mode, and there are few games to touch it. [Nov 2005, p.111]

If there’s one thing that 25 To Life gets to do right, let it bring an end to this destructive preoccupation with the cross-media lure of gritty, crime-flavoured urban violence, and the unacceptably low standards it so often brings with it. [Mar 2006, p.89]

If there’s one thing that 25 To Life gets to do right, let it bring an end to this destructive preoccupation with the cross-media lure of gritty, crime-flavoured urban violence, and the unacceptably low standards it so often brings with it. [Mar 2006, p.89]

By far the most slickly produced and gorgeously rendered version of the series, the pacing this time around is even more fluid than its predecessors – less an open-ended matter of hide and seek, and more focused on the stylish, dramatic pursuit and capture that its TV and silver-screen themes would seem to require. [Oct 2005, p.89]

If there's one thing that 25 To Life gets to do right, let it bring an end to this destructive preoccupation with the cross-media lure of gritty, crime-flavoured urban violence, and the unacceptably low standards it so often brings with it. [Mar 2006, p.89]

The more it seeks to challenge the player, the more likely it becomes for the game to fail to provide either an enjoyable process of trial and error or a legitimate test of aptitude. [Aug 2005, p.97]

This stands as software that will give back to the user as much as they are willing to put in. Without goals, with nothing there to ‘win’, Electroplankton is its own reward. [June 2005, p.93]

With it’s limited range of costumes (broadened with lazy palette swaps) and unambitious Tag and Team battles, DOA4 remains as familiar as the mild disappointment it delivers. [Feb 2006, p.84]

Sorrows is a hollow experience, misinterpreting the original as a sheer numbers game rather than one of constant risk and reward. It’s an issue made more glaring by an unsatisfying combat system, paying lip service to counters, juggles and combo strikes even though endlessly repeating the same moves is just as effective. [Feb 2006, p.88]

Sorrows is a hollow experience, misinterpreting the original as a sheer numbers game rather than one of constant risk and reward. It's an issue made more glaring by an unsatisfying combat system, paying lip service to counters, juggles and combo strikes even though endlessly repeating the same moves is just as effective. [Feb 2006, p.88]

At worst, it feels like a hollow exercise in brand extension, a game where the brand itself is utilised to provide a recognisable veneer, and nothing more. It’s an amiable but unremarkable card-battling title, a robust but unspectacular game. [Feb 2006, p.93]

The inheritance of wearisome combat, embarrassing characterisation and impoverished audio now joins a bevy of PSP-specific issues... Revelations does succeed in living up to its name, but we’d hoped that such disappointments weren’t the surprise it had in store. [Feb 2006, p.93]

In practice, Tokobot offers so little to challenge either the reflexes or the mind that it boils down to one long, plodding, gentle ushering from one side of a large, mostly vacant level to the other, with nothing to reward self-determined exploration and an identical series of Pavlovian cues to let the player know that it’s time to switch to the next formation. [Feb 2006, p.89]

Despite the familiarity, the longer you spend in your scaled-down village, the more you’re soothed into a gentle, constructive daydream which is every bit as charming as in all its other incarnations. [Jan 2005, p.89]

This is easily the better sequel, a firm improvement on "Warrior Within." So why the long face? For the simple and saddest reason of all: ennui. [Christmas 2005, p.100]

This is easily the better sequel, a firm improvement on "Warrior Within." So why the long face? For the simple and saddest reason of all: ennui. [Christmas 2005, p.100]

This is easily the better sequel, a firm improvement on "Warrior Within." So why the long face? For the simple and saddest reason of all: ennui. [Christmas 2005, p.100]

This is easily the better sequel, a firm improvement on "Warrior Within." So why the long face? For the simple and saddest reason of all: ennui. [Christmas 2005, p.100]

The story is inventively fantastical but ridiculously so, like a child’s weightless daydreaming, and its shallowness is made all the clearer by Agetec’s lifeless and laborious translation. [Feb 2006, p.92]

Often, it can be enough for a sequel to deliver more of the same, but in Superstar Saga’s case, when what the first game delivered was such a powerful sense of freshness, more of the same – which Partners In Time certainly delivers – inevitably feels like less. [Feb 2006, p.86]

This dazzling, determinedly populist experience was not made according to the standards other games are made by, and when judged – or even just described – by those standards, it might seem slender to the point of frailty. [Christmas 2005, p.101]

This dazzling, determinedly populist experience was not made according to the standards other games are made by, and when judged – or even just described – by those standards, it might seem slender to the point of frailty. [Christmas 2005, p.101]

Wideload has placed a welcome knee in the groin of the status quo, but by taking its subject too lightly it’s also failed to turn an adventurous prototype into a durable production. [Christmas 2005, p.102]

This dazzling, determinedly populist experience was not made according to the standards other games are made by, and when judged – or even just described – by those standards, it might seem slender to the point of frailty. [Christmas 2005, p.101]

This dazzling, determinedly populist experience was not made according to the standards other games are made by, and when judged – or even just described – by those standards, it might seem slender to the point of frailty. [Christmas 2005, p.101]

Maddening moments are far enough between to be only a minor blemish on an otherwise fantastic portable action game. [Jan 2005, p.90]