A grubby looking, badly conceived and hastily programmed game that does nothing for the genre except add unnecessary limitations. [Apr 2005, p.110]

Another unfortunate example of a classic game that has been marred by a shoddy modern redux. [Issue#106, p.124]

With core mechanics this flawed, no amount of cut-scene-laden story modes, create-a-move editors or unlockable extras will make up for what is a truly putrid videogame. [Aug 2006, p.127]

True, Beat Down isn't entirely without potential, but the execution is woeful. For your own sake, avoid it at all costs. [Nov 2005, p.104]

Cumbersome controls and an ornery camera make any intriguing ideas irrelevant. [Apr 2009, p.115]

Contrived shooter with little to no depth... This is as generic as they come. [July 2005, p.122]

Despite the bright colours, cute simians, jolly music and overarching joyous abandon, Super Monkey Ball Adventure is a tremendously difficult videogame. And phenomenally frustrating to boot. [Aug 2006, p.130]

It’s an unparalleled mess of a game that manages top bore and anger in equal measure, exhibiting the occasional glimmer of a good idea only to snatch it away and laugh in your face. [Apr 2005, p.116]

So unoriginal, it'll be tough to restrain yourself from rolling your eyes. [Issue#148, p.108]

It’s good stuff, but not good enough to keep you playing for long without having to stifle a few yawns. What you’re looking at here is your standard hack-and-slash adventure that’s been brightened up with some impressive visuals. [March 2005, p.116]

It's a shame the buggy controls make fighting through it a chore. [Issue#139, p.115]

Postal hasn't aged well at all; not a good thing when it didn't look or sound too good, or play that well six years ago. [Dec 2003, p.127]

A grubby looking, badly conceived and hastily programmed game that does nothing for the genre except add unnecessary limitations. [Apr 2005, p.110]

Stops short of truly bad, but also some way short of recommended. [Issue#118, p.108]

It’s a fun, frothy take on a scene that could have easily led it to drown in detestable ghetto references and urban nods, but even though B-Boy manages to avoid travelling that dangerous path, it remains no more than a guilty pleasure. [Oct 2006, p.121]

Curling and figure skating, as engaging as they are, are not sufficient to rescue this sub-par package from non-league status. [June 2008, p.116]

Though an overall shallow affair, Marvel Avengers: Battle For Earth displays lot more polish, flair and finesse than your average movie tie-in title, but like those Skrull impostors, it can't escape its true, uglier nature for too long.

Neither offensive nor agreeable. [Issue#167, p.88]

It's too easy to get comfortable in the routines Reservoir Dogs offers and as such it feels like going through the motions. [Nov 2006, p.125]

Settle into the initially jarring pace of the game and it eventually becomes the sort of RPG that you simply play for the sake of playing, immersing yourself in the world and discovering its many surprises as you go. [Sept 2008, p.108]

When accurately describing videogames, we tend to use the word 'dross' rarely, but this particular X-Men title has forced the word from us in a spectacular fashion. [July 2006, p.130]

The central mechanic barely works. [Sept 2014, p.122]

For hardware nuts, Final Fantasy obsessives and PS3 owners, FFXIV does offer a fairly distinctive MMO experience. [Christmas 2010, p.94]

A poor script and worse voice-acting. [Issue#107, p.94]

Cheap on every level. [Issue#139, p.116]

Ease of play combines with the game’s slow pace to undermine all Taito’s good intentions. [Aug 2006, p.128]

Namco Museum Remix is an insult to retro enthusiasts and a cynically designed waste of the Wii’s potential. [Jan 2008, p.131]

Light ends up feeling like a proof of concept, an unfinished prototype with some decent ideas that either lack depth or don't quite hit the mark. Ultimately, strong aesthetics can't compensate for that. [Sept 2014, p.126]

Awful controls overshadow everything. [July 2018, p.80]

The game feels more like a boss-rush version of a big action game that it does a traditional fighter, and somehow comes off as the best 3D Castlevania game Konami has produced so far. [Jan 2009, p.110]

Calling's biggest failing is that you never ever feel scared. [Issue#95, p.124]

Every single component of this detestable mess is aggravating enough to put you off gaming for life. [Apr 2007, p.102]

There's just uninhibited hubris masquerading as knowing, swaggering braggadocio, a technological Frankenstein's monster. [Issue#111, p.98]

The 3D effect itself, cheerfully rotating its wheels in the background, does absolutely nothing. [Issue#108, p.116]

There are times when nostalgia wins out; when you realise this is an actual Cannon Fodder sequel, but that's quickly squashed down and washed away by a glitchy, boring and hugely underwhelming experience. In fairness, it's nowhere near as bad as might have been expected. But saying that about a game doesn't mean it's at all good.

Entirely unremarkable. [Issue#182, p.81]

A competent shooter marred by bad writing. [Issue#175, p.76]

Salvation is too derivative, too short, and too repetitive to be a worthy recommendation. It feels the very definition of an easy movie cash-in. [July 2009, p.124]

Developer Killaware has managed to whittle interactivity down to its barest form, reducing the medium's defining characteristic to little more than a progression through text boxes. [June 2009, p.126]

Lococycle is initially very enjoyable due to its marriage of different elements from popular genres, but the ideas unfortunately soon run dry. [Issue#142, p.93]

Certainly, many of Colonial Marines’ flaws could have been excusable back in the early days of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but now, when every title is polished to a near excruciating level of quality, it just doesn’t cut it.

It's just a shame that its later stages don't make good on the genuinely entertaining gameplay that it initially promises. [Issue#104, p.119]

A disappointment. [Issue#143, p.119]

Not fixing the irritating failures of past games, however, is inexcusable at this point and indicates a game produced only to sell a few units in the Christmas rush. [Issue#156, p.124]

A tiring slog of a game that doesn't offer enough reward to justify the energy expenditure required to play it - even if it does keep account of how many calories you burn throughout. [Christmas 2010, p.113]

A grubby looking, badly conceived and hastily programmed game that does nothing for the genre except add unnecessary limitations. [Apr 2005, p.110]

A very sensible card-battling system with a theme that should be pleasingly familiar to seasoned gamers. [July 2007, p.120]

Getting to the handful of good puzzles Syberia 3 has isn't worth it for all the rubbish you'll have to wade through. This is a jittery, stuttering, mess of a videogame. [Issue#188, p.80]

True, Beat Down isn’t entirely without potential, but the execution is woeful. For your own sake, avoid it at all costs. [Nov 2005, p.104]

A woeful misstep into the pantheon of disposable first-person shooters, and a balsa wood ghost town of a game that no amount of support patching could possibly shore up. [Issue#113, p.96]

Every hour, you are presented with the ideas that the developer had but simply couldn’t afford, and that only serves to make Legendary’s unrelenting run-and-gun approach harder to swallow. [Christmas 2008, p.96]

One or two puzzles aside, there’s no ‘wrong’ response to anything asked of you, and no advantages to being right first time, completely negating any kind of satisfaction you might have gleaned from figuring out each case. [Sept 2008, p.112]

Misguided, unfair and boring: a poor mix. [Issue#200, p.76]

The design of the islands, which seem to have been put together with a random level generator, adds to the sensation that Wing Island is more of a tech demo than a carefully planned game. [Apr 2007, p.119]

The story is much the same as the game itself, and while there are moments when it seems it could be picking up, it shoots itself in the foot. Normal enemies that take full clips to dispatch, 'puzzles' that make Doom look like a brainteaser... the potholes are all too common and apparent. [Nov 2003, p.127]

A poor Tenchu wannabe that simply fails to deliver enjoyment. We played it because we had to - you don’t. [May 2005, p.96]

Shows some potential, but ultimately uninspiring. [Issue#149, p.122]

Destiny is so bad that it could force players to question their cherished memories of Eternal Darkness. [Issue#115, p.106]

With core mechanics this flawed, no amount of cut-scene-laden story modes, create-a-move editors or unlockable extras will make up for what is a truly putrid videogame. [Aug 2006, p.127]

Just don't expect it to live up [to] the potential of the D&D license. [Issue#111, p.112]

A poor Tenchu wannabe that simply fails to deliver enjoyment. We played it because we had to - you don't. [May 2005, p.96]

The biggest question you'll be left asking is why the Amazing Spider-man 2 exists. [Issue#148, p.102]

What would make it better? If it had wheels. [Issue#91, p.118]

Weirdly attempting to serve two masters, Supermini Festa tries to add both casual fun and hardcore depth to the original formula, with mixed results. [Apr 2010, p.130]

The real tragedy of it all though, is the relative simplicity of the formula required for a once-and-for-all cure - less of the Z-axis, more of the Sonic. [Christmas 2006, p.104]

Despite all of its problems, you’ll almost certainly have a great deal of fun playing Donkey Kong Taru Jet Race. [JPN Import; Sept 2007, p.118]

This could have been so much more, but the shoddy engine and woeful AI let down some fairly solid and slightly confusing concepts. [Nov 2005, p.125]

This could have been so much more, but the shoddy engine and woeful AI let down some fairly solid and slightly confusing concepts. [Nov 2005, p.125]

Gameplay is standard stuff, and very little imagination seems to have been given over to making the mini-games feel engaging. [Nov 2009, p.120]

It's hard not to wonder just what exactly High Voltage Software is trying to prove. [Issue#99, p.114]

Despite glaring issues with aliasing and shaders, Sniper is a technically adept game. [Issue#99, p.126]

A fairly competent twin-stick competitive shooter. [Issue#109, p.122]

Controls feel a little unwieldy. [Issue#160, p.105]

Ninety-Nine Nights 2 is not a bad game; it's merely one whose appeal is limited to those blessed with saintly patience, an insatiable need to play every fantasy game, a penchant for mass genocide or some unlikely combination of the three. [Issue#101, p.106]

Main Man can only be recommended if you enjoy to run around and shoot things for no real reason, and there are countless other games that do better without the annoyances that accompany this stereotypical title. [Dec 2006, p.127]

Let's hope Namco has a patch in the pipeline. [June 2008, p.124]

An overpriced, underdeveloped disappointment. [Issue#199, p.79]

Even though each puzzle is explained before it gets tough a few stages down the line, there are still a few that are a little too complex for their own good (as if the game wasn’t frustrating enough already.) [Aug 2005, p.96]

Somewhere buried within The Sky Soldier is the kernel of an idea that defies gravity, as well as our expectations. Sadly, despite Naka’s best intentions, Rodea never hits those heights.

It’s a perfectly playable game, but a frankly boring one that quickly becomes a chore to play. [Christmas 2008, p.102]

Street Trace boils down to a mostly random arena shooter where victory is assured through lucky button mashing rather than any kind of skill. [Nov 2007, p.126]

This has little of the charm that make its games so enticing, nor does it offer much in the way of entrancing solitude. [Issue#180, p.48]

An anemic release, even for a budget title. [Issue#119, p.100]

The game is a shambles aesthetically. The visuals are perpetually murky and washed-out, and there’s barely any sense of attentive design; dim corridors lead to dim rooms that lead to more dim corridors.

If only the developer hadn’t completely messed things up with its restrictive camera angles and unfair challenges then it could have had a uniquely fun DS game on its hands. [Mar 2009, p.120]

Combat is surprisingly basic given that this is from the man behind the Ninja Gaiden games. [Issue#165, p.86]

It is without a point. It fires its Uzi rounds aimlessly and manages to hit nothing. It’s not bad, it’s not horrific, it’s not reprehensible and it’s not memorable either.

Even at a budget price point, this is one slip-up that can't be blamed on banana skins. [Issue#112, p.120]

Erase those memories of halcyon days spent nurturing your arthritis with the original coin-op, because Streetwise does it no kind of justice. [May 2006, p.124]

Thanks in part to an atrocious camera, extremely dislikeable characters and a handful of amazingly frustrating sticking points, all this iteration of Sonic The Hedgehog manages to achieve is a yearning for the old days. [Apr 2007, p.129]

In the process, it becomes less of a game and more of an anger generator – that’s anything but a recipe for fun.

Rise Of The Dark Spark feels rushed: a mess of half-baked ideas and sloppy execution that’s put Transformers on the same track as the Spider-Man games, approaching the point of no return.

Even if you could play Funk Of Titans on your phone, for free, it is so ludicrously sketchy and tedious that it would still be impossible to recommend. So on Xbox One, for the positively gaudy introductory asking price? No way, José.

Occasionally playable, but just mostly horrible. [Issue#108, p.116]

Reprehensible on both qualitative and thematic levels, Naughty Bear is a downright disgraceful attempt at a game. [Issue#99, p.116]

With combat relying on clever use of items and plenty of RPG-esque searching and equipping, Rengoku does show some potential, but it’s far too little, and with so many better-quality titles already on the market, it’s definitely too late. [Mar 2006, p.116]

Still thinking of buying this? You must be out of your mind. [Issue#106, p.106]

As the game shifts from its early crew introductions, it’s obvious that the layers of game mechanics underlying the experience are either incompetent or awkwardly implemented. For instance, stealth is required in a handful of missions, but the act of navigating between cover is frustratingly cumbersome, occasionally exacerbated by your partner claiming the next vital protection point.