As a catalogue of all the errors you can ever expect to see in a clunky first-person shooter Fall Of Liberty excels. [May 2008, p.120]

It’s hard to understand why the game exists. Did Gaiman desperately want to attach himself to an ugly, boring puzzle game? Did the Odd Gentleman really think this was the best way to display his work? It’s more of a mystery than the actual story of Wayward Manor itself.

Things On Wheels is too pedestrian to catch on in the demanding Live Marketplace, and too frustrating to be fun. [Feb 2009, p.121]

A tech demo for the Move controllers disguised as a VR Game. [Issue#180, p.48]

It's not broken, it's just dull. A disservice to the excellent franchise. [Issue#143, p.119]

A lazy attempt at translating farming tasks to trivial gameplay. [Issue#140, p.119]

It could be worse. Hugh Jackman could be in it. [Christmas 2011, p.120]

A lifeless carcass in the FPS mould lies in its wake. [Issue#109, p.104]

The sluggish fighting feels surprisingly weighty. [Issue#115, p.102]

There's simply not enough material here to justify the asking price, and the small amount on the disc is sub-par entertainment on almost every level. [Dec 2009, p.111]

An affront. [Issue#96, p.114]

At least Resi can't get any worse than this. [Issue#177, p.78]

A fumbled attempt at an interesting yet obviously tricky fusion of genres and no amount of laughs - intentional or otherwise - can save it. [Oct 2009, p.131]

Even at the bargain-bin price that Rock Revolution is undoubtedly going to hit mere weeks after it is released, the game is an irredeemable waste of time. [Feb 2009, p.114]

Rather than being encouraged to play, it often feels like Bandai Namco is actively discouraging you from Lost Swords. [Issue#148, p.124]

It highlights Kinect's flaws rather than showcases its strengths, sending out one, clear, reverberating message – Kinect simply isn't refined enough to unite the hardware with the hardcore.

Poor graphics and tedious gameplay. [Issue#164, p.93]

Had the handling and collision detection been improved, then Wheelspin might actually have been a good game. [Issue#91, p.114]

Our review code froze four times during play, each occasion coming as a blessed relief, a welcome respite from the tedium. [Issue#101, p.111]

It’s a solid FPS, but its failure to provide a truly original take on an ever-tiring genre or something even vaguely resembling half-decent AI means that it could never be considered anything better than plain average. [Aug 2007, p.114]

You’ll likely find that the motions are easily confused and unresponsive, with some situational moves, such as weaving, next to impossible to pull off with the degree of consistency that would make their inclusion worthwhile. [Apr 2009, p.122]

It's not a game. [Issue#118, p.106]

Kung Fu Rider remains virtually the same from the first moment until the last, and singularly fails to justify its frankly baffling price tag. [Issue#101, p.126]

The huge, sprawling levels, multiple routes and breadth of choice on offer may be countered by awkward controls and uninspired vehicle sections, but there's a modicum of entertainment beneath the obvious design flaws if you look hard enough. [Aug 2009, p.114]

Levels are exercises in banal repetition. [Sept 2014, p.106]

To say that the gameplay feels clunky is a huge understatement. Throw in a cover system that defies belief, which is often essential for boss encounters, and it's a tiresome slog. [Oct 2009, p.128]

There are some laughs to be had at its expense, and everything here works, but that's absolutely all it does. [Issue#122, p.110]

To judge Enemy Front as a sum of its parts reveals it to be an FPS fraud - a pretender. [Sept 2014, p.104]

It's only when the game reaches Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, the weakest of the movies, that the game boasts moments of genuine enjoyment. [Issue#146, p.119]

Multi-player over Xbox Live … is the only reason anyone should consider investing in Bomberman Act:Zero. [Oct 2006, p.132]

If Amy ever had a chance of keeping its head above water and surviving these problems, the awful checkpoint system ensures it drowns in them.

Overall, Farming Simulator does not feel like a simulator – if the point of the game is to offer a realistic experience of what it’s like to run a farm, the game fails: people never fatigue (your staff will work straight through the 24-clock if left unattended), livestock produce is harvested by AI automatically and there’s a few game-breaking exploits that completely undermine the game.

Declassified is a sorry way to end 14 years of coding history at Nihilistic. The kindest thing you can say about it is that it's a reasonably authentic facsimile of the Call Of Duty blueprint, yet it feels like the work of an artist who is painstakingly tracing a masterpiece but lacks the craft to replicate the magical that made the original so attractive in the first place.

In practice, Gundam: Crossfire is barely playable. We blame the game’s frame rate which we reckon must run as low as 10 fps and only as high as what looks like about 20fps. [Jan 2007, p.103]

This fun mockery of a bygone age becomes nothing but a regrettably cumbersome slog. [July 2008, p.120]

It's as if the developer simply ceased to care, or ran out of time, or both. Who knows? What we do know is that Terminal Velocity has crafted something truly loathsome and undeserving of its heritage. [Issue#135, p.108]

We Rock: Drum King proves that drumming simply doesn't satisfy without the acknowledging thwack and rebound of stick meeting skin. [June 2009, p.118]

Activision and Robomodo should, frankly, be ashamed of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5. If promises to fix the game are met and it, eventually, becomes a more faithful entry to the classic series, the Birdman’s last outing will still go down in history as an absolute hatchet job.

Dull, repetitive and boring. Don't buy this. [Issue#177, p.81]

Like booting up a mediocre run-and-gunner from the mid-Nineties. [Issue#109, p.114]

The cut and paste character models, with their misshapen limbs and dead eyes, together with the inconsistently sampled audio, combine to provide a experience that frequently feels cheap and in places is just downright nasty – a VHS knock off when, in this day and age, you would at least have expected a DVD remaster.

What would we change? Just about everything. Rogue Warrior isn't broken, but it is bland and characterless. [Feb 2010, p.128]

Tedious, clumsy and uncomfortable to play, Box Office Bust is one of the least enjoyable platform games we've been subjected to this generation. [June 2009, p.123]

Fighter Within nearly manages to unravel all its hard work with a few misplaced punches to the groin. [Issue#143, p.108]

Let’s just hope that if the team release a second shoot-‘em-up they look for inspiration from current Japanese shooters and not an ageing Amiga blaster that wasn’t particularly impressive in the first place. [Feb 2008, p.128]

On an objective level, Frog Minutes is hardly the sort of game that's going to establish the iPad as a hardcore games console, but it does have a strange hypnotic charm that makes those minutes tick by rather enjoyably.

There's definitely enough to do while we're waiting for that multiplayer update. [Nov 2011, p.113]

Like the best iPhone puzzlers, this is a collection of original challenges, uncluttered by unnecessary extras. [Issue#119, p.119]

If you can find a steady stream of people to play against, you'll discover Gun Monkeys to be tremendous, if rather basic, fun. [Issue#138, p.116]

Give it just the briefest of opportunities and it will manage to keep you hooked for hours. [Issue#143, p.114]

The first great sniper-themed shooter still hasn’t arrived.

Like any good arcade game, it's best enjoyed in short bursts. [Sept 2014, p.107]

It wears its heart on its sleeve and has a decent stab at striking a fine balance between the sublime and the ridiculous. [Issue#153, p.123]

The narrated "found footage" was a novel idea, but the developers should have held onto it until they had something interesting to say. [Issue#157, p.126]

Despite its clever purpose it's lacking in execution and duration. [Issue#162, p.105]

This sense of discovery is enhanced dramatically via a graph system, too, a means by which you are scored on the total number of blocks you’ve used, the footprint or size of the factory itself and the number of cycles you have to run through to create ten of your required object.

Promises more than it can deliver. [Issue#166, p.98]

It will certainly give your grey matter a workout, but it's clear that this would be better suited to mobile. [Issue#166, p.99]

Promises much, but just doesn't deliver. [Issue#170, p.94]

A good proof of concept for VR RPGs. [Tested with HTC Vive; Issue#176, p.83]

Fun that's over way too fast. [Tested with HTC Vive; Issue#176, p.84]

A nicely put-together game with a slightly mixed message. [Issue#183, p.75]