This is a game that’s as riotously entertaining as it is viciously random... It’s gleeful automobile slapstick, but not for anyone who values skill and achievement more than taking a wrecking ball to their opponents’ racing lines. [Dec 2005, p.114]

This is a game that's as riotously entertaining as it is viciously random... It's gleeful automobile slapstick, but not for anyone who values skill and achievement more than taking a wrecking ball to their opponents' racing lines. [Dec 2005, p.114]

It’s difficult to shake the sensation that Killer 7 is an important production, as paving for future creative leeway if nothing else. But its likely love/hate status is testament to just how adamant it has attempted to be in its flair for extraordinary presentation. [Aug 2005, p.84]

It's difficult to shake the sensation that Killer 7 is an important production, as paving for future creative leeway if nothing else. But its likely love/hate status is testament to just how adamant it has attempted to be in its flair for extraordinary presentation. [Aug 2005, p.84]

With the exception of the three bosses, there are no escalations or climaxes, no set-pieces, ambushes, chokepoints or challenges that involve anything more than the eradication of a roomful of enemies by way of laboured strafes and hops. [Sept 2005, p.98]

The surprise that Meteos brings is the satisfaction of its physics. There’s real weight in the way an underpowered meteor chunk sinks down to earth, and a sense of dynamic propulsion as you flick together a cluster of gravity-defying rockets. [May 2005, p.91]

The game’s inimitable character bursts at the seams of what was clearly a limited budget. There is none of SquareSoft’s dull-eyed cinematic waste here, which will no doubt alienate swarms of both genre fans and critics. But the charm of the title coupled with its breathtaking breadth and depth will win over more discerning gamers. [Aug 2005, p.91]

It isn’t any kind of reinvention, but a revitalisation, with a style so rich that it becomes an integral part of the game’s substance; Psychonauts breathes imagination and individuality as effortlessly as most games steal from one another. [July 2005, p.84]

It’s very easy to while away the time just terrorising the populace of each level in an increasingly destructive fashion, but to actually care enough to contribute anything to a completion percentage is another matter entirely. [July 2005, p.86]

A much-needed statement of authority for PC - an online spectacle that eclipses the grand rhetoric volleyed back and forth between the manufacturers of tomorrow's super-powered consoles. A new level of multiplayer combat begins here and now, with shock and awe.

This wasn’t a game created to win any design awards. It was created to give any DS owner the power to turn a roomful of friends into squealing, scheming, cursing, laughing Bombermen, and as such, it’s hard to imagine why anybody would want to be without it. [Aug 2005, p.96]

As a complete game package Conker: Live & Reloaded is tremendously good value. Significantly, it also shows a company finally back on form. [Aug 2005, p.93]

It's very easy to while away the time just terrorising the populace of each level in an increasingly destructive fashion, but to actually care enough to contribute anything to a completion percentage is another matter entirely. [July 2005, p.86]

Where the game really succeeds, however, beyond providing a robust and solid, if unassuming model of explorative stealth and attack, is in fulfilling that old and oft-forgotten criterion - putting the gamer inside the movie. [Aug 2005, p.95]

Where the game really succeeds, however, beyond providing a robust and solid, if unassuming model of explorative stealth and attack, is in fulfilling that old and oft-forgotten criterion - putting the gamer inside the movie. [Aug 2005, p.95]

Where the game really succeeds, however, beyond providing a robust and solid, if unassuming model of explorative stealth and attack, is in fulfilling that old and oft-forgotten criterion - putting the gamer inside the movie. [Aug 2005, p.95]

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

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

While it is a little hampered by it’s scale and scope, Kirby remains imaginative, detailed and demanding... It’s exactly the kind of game that Nintendo promised the DS would deliver. [June 2005, p.90]

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

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]

European Assault is one of the ugliest current-gen games we’ve seen. Boring textures, a weak palette and a flimsy design ethic all round make it appear like slightly dressed up PSone data. The animation seems inspired by amateur puppetry and even the menus look like they were knocked up in the last day before submission. [Aug 2005, p.94]

Western is an old-fashioned game about an old-fashioned time, and although it may not possess the swaggering production values or wit of "Red Dead Revolver," it’s a thoroughly guilty pleasure. [March 2005, p.90]

European Assault is one of the ugliest current-gen games we've seen. Boring textures, a weak palette and a flimsy design ethic all round make it appear like slightly dressed up PSone data. The animation seems inspired by amateur puppetry and even the menus look like they were knocked up in the last day before submission. [Aug 2005, p.94]

European Assault is one of the ugliest current-gen games we've seen. Boring textures, a weak palette and a flimsy design ethic all round make it appear like slightly dressed up PSone data. The animation seems inspired by amateur puppetry and even the menus look like they were knocked up in the last day before submission. [Aug 2005, p.94]

It demolishes PC gaming’s dubious tradition of applauding technical ambition above all else with all the grace of a narcoleptic piling face first through a coffee table... A cold and flawed sandbox shooter, a rudimentary RPG and, for most, an almost unplayable experience. [July 2005, p.93]

Reduced to its simplest terms and stripped of its highly aspiring overtones, Rising is essentially a competent shooter with its heart in the right place, and a ton of ideas that never gel into any cohesive whole. [Aug 2005, p.92]

Over-levelling all too easily threatens to undermine Fire Emblem's unique place in the genre. It's a problem easily side-stepped by both choosing an appropriate difficulty level and tempering your levelling, but nevertheless the option is unwelcome. [Aug 2005, p.90]