With its robust clan support MAG still offers a cooperative experience on a rare scale for bands of dedicated players willing to weather the unnecessary confusions and ungenerous structure of the early game. For the rest, MAG rarely deals out the empowerment and clarity of purpose that other team shooters, like the forthcoming Battlefield: Bad Company 2, offer from the get go. It’s not quite ‘welcome to the suck’, but gamers may wonder if MAG’s a battle worth fighting.

It shows that this most predictable of genres is still capable of throwing out interesting surprises. [Mar 2010, p.97]

Somehow, Dark Void just about rises above its faults, but it's hardly at rick of flying too close to the sun. [Feb 2010, p.86]

This is as good as you'll find on DSiWare at the moment, and it'll likely stay that way until Q-Games comes up with another mini-marvel. [Feb 2010, p.95]

It’s still a classic, then, but one you’d be wise to play in brief installments. And with no real plot to lose yourself in, no breadcrumbs to follow, and very little else to bother yourself with besides headshots, perhaps this is Serious Sam as he’s always meant to be encountered – as a palate-cleansing blast of pure four-colour chaos to enjoy between other courses.

As adequate an expression of the genre as it is, it somehow can't quite conjure those high notes of enthusiasm - akin to the way in which a whiteboard diagram of demographics and key features fails to inspire heart palpitations. [Feb 2010, p.84]

Smarter, faster pacing could have made all the difference. When it isn't intentionally hobbled, the combat is spectacular and unique. [Feb 2010, p.88]

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]

For all its polish, Reflect Missile has managed to retain the loose energy of a quirky prototype: a 500 Nintendo Point exercise in pure mechanics that is lithe – and slight – enough to suggest that a talented designer may have knocked the whole thing up over an inspired series of lunch breaks.

Stray from the beaten track and Crystal Bearers is a different game...That it is so oddly buried is inexplicable, but you can't deny the fun of excavation. [Feb 2010, p.94]

Repetitive and simplistic, Alien Breed Evolution may remain true to its inspiration, but this first episode does no more than reinforce Team 17's reputation for serviceable but uninspiring updates of past glories. [Feb 2010, p.91]

Shooter feels accomplished and robust, a rounded and consistently enjoyable achievement. [Jan 2010, p.94]

The Saboteur is an awesome display of clichés, stereotypes, shortcuts and failures in logic. [Jan 2010, p.86]

Smart Remote-pointer-based controls and Mason's nimble pace around the snowy locales ensure Shattered Memories is not a disagreeable six hours, but it is very rarely scary or spooky. [Feb 2010, p.93]

Spirit Tracks' aging tricks continue to carry you cack into the narcotic realms of pure ritual, until you're deep in the caverns yet again, holding the magic yellow boomerang once more, and wondering what quirky brilliance it will bring with it this time. [Christmas 2009, p.92]

Quietly competent to the very end, Avatar's certainly not the disaster you may have feared, but it can feel patronising, pompous and a little unnecessary. [Jan 2010, p.84]

Even if the DNA of its forebears is barely apparent, such a bold, brilliant transformation certainly involves something a little like magic. [Dec 2009, p.100]

A stern, if unspectacular, challenge. [Jan 2010, p.94]

It's easy to assume that Gyromancer is a clone of Puzzle Quest...The truth, perhaps, is that it's simply an improvement on the formula. [Jan 2010, p.98]

It's easy to assume that Gyromancer is a clone of Puzzle Quest...The truth, perhaps, is that it's simply an improvement on the formula. [Jan 2010, p.98]

Certainly, Ubisoft Montreal has succeeded in welding a game to what once felt like a proof of concept, and without overshadowing its many strengths. Much devolves into mere stuff – one sword is much like another; a painting’s easily bought and just fills a hole in the wall – and once the story is over there’s little reason to replay it. At the end of it all, though, you’re left with that setting, those cities, and Ezio, and they lend the experience a substance that endures.

Fun fan fodder, but hardly revelatory. [Christmas 2009, p.102]

The root problem is that the board controller is poorly conceived. The notion of mimicking while stationary an activity entirely reliant on motion is deeply flawed. [Jan 2010, p.88]

If L4D2 is sometimes over-complicated by its glut of small innovations, then it also substantially rewards the player with its few large ideas: confusion gives way to depth and dynamism, grander thrills and starker dramas. We’re still interested in the fate of the original game’s heroes, but this sequel affirms that the way ahead is due south.

In the original, full-sized LBP, creating more than a few seconds of playable level was a significant and time-consuming effort. Here, with slightly reduced options and at a near microscopic scale, it's much, much harder. [Jan 2010, p.93]

If L4D2 is sometimes over-complicated by its glut of small innovations, then it also substantially rewards the player with its few large ideas: confusion gives way to depth and dynamism, grander thrills and starker dramas. We’re still interested in the fate of the original game’s heroes, but this sequel affirms that the way ahead is due south.

The sport's on-track jousting is potentially some of the fastest and most exhilarating source material around, but by default developers appear to struggle to present it in anything other than a dry and overly technical fashion. [Jan 2010, p.91]

What it didn't factor into the design is that kleptomaniacs rarely bother collecting items without emotional gravitas, and this oversight becomes immediately obvious when you compare Rumble to its source material. [Jan 2010, p.98]