It is just an extension of PGR3. The shift in style, the new vehicles and weather, they could never hope to revolutionise the franchise in the way online has. [Nov 2007, p.124]

A refined step forwards, but not a perfect one. [Issue#105, p.83]

When you're sat next to someone, playing ARMS in local multiplayer mode (or Ranked, once you finally get it unlocked), is absolutely brilliant. It's as likely to get you screaming at your pals as Mario Kart, but it also possesses the depth and strategic options you associate with the best fighting games. [Issue#189, p.75]

A safe bet for those who missed it the first time around. [Issue#136, p.116]

Heartily recommended to anyone yet to spend time in Puma's company. [Sept 2006, p.114]

Sands of Time is very much a 21st century product - sumptuous visuals, intuitive control and many unique ideas. Buy it, play it, love it. [Dec 2003, p.92]

Between a clever mixture of single-player only score-chasing, fun co-op modes, light karaoke functionality, and a levelling-up system that’s incremental and actually pushes you out of your comfort zone, this is a game that repairs all the wrongs the peripheral-based rhythm action genre fell foul to last gen.

This is only Act 1, of course, as an agonising cliffhanger reminds us, and as such this can only be regarded as a very promising start.

The rebirth of true role-playing in games. [Issue#105, p.84]

What Warp lacks (or, perhaps, borrows) in personality it more than makes up for with gameplay that's so finely honed, it proves impossible to put down until every corner of its cutesy horror has been uncovered. [Issue#120, p.109]

There’s definitely a special vibe about Microsoft’s next first-party racing game, and it’s taken a solid leap over the inaugural Forza title. [July 2007, p.100]

A real tour-de-force for both a developer best known for comic mischief and a franchise that seemed doomed to eternal mediocrity. [Issue#114, p.92]

Everything about it feels lovingly crafted. [Issue#168, p.88]

Killzone 2 is a gamer’s game. And although it fails to go beyond the confines of the genre, we wouldn’t criticise it for being anything other than a wonderful example of what can be achieved within them. [Mar 2009, p.108]

Electronic Arts has managed to fire yet another positive shot in the football sim battle. [May 2008, p.117]

A very good rhythm-action game, and a confusing but compelling RPG. But, above all else, it is a nostalgic anniversary package that will be adored by Final Fantasy fans and sets a new benchmark for interactive celebrations.

PES 2016 is inconsistently superb, but it can no longer be ignored. Football fans have a difficult choice to make this year. You can follow the money and glamour of FIFA or embrace the grassroots love of the game in PES 2016. Neither choice seems wrong to us, but neither is perfect yet either. What we do have finally though, after a decade or so of waiting, is a real contest.

Small, affordable, and utterly absorbing. [Oct 2008, p.121]

A genuine triumph as a team experience, mind, Splash Damage has proved that it has a serious knack for creating videogames that require so much more than becoming skilled with a trigger finger. Smart, robust, exciting and always ready to play with the original template, Brink is a welcome surprise in a genre that has started to become very close-minded.

Online play, pleasingly, holds up its end of the bargain. [Issue#135, p.118]

For now, Hearthstone is very much a triumph, and with a mobile client rolling out there’s a sense that we’re at the beginning of a phenomenon rather than in the midst of one. Yet again, Blizzard seems to have played its cards absolutely right.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of Pokémon Conquest, however, is that it made us want to go back and play one of Koei's earlier, duller and more convoluted Nobunaga games. And any game that can make us feel that way is worthy of high praise indeed.

Another unmissable release from Relic Entertainment. [Issue#137, p.110]

DICE offers a brief taste of a Battlefield game driven by story and characters, where the completion of objectives signifies more than reaching a dot on the radar without dying, but delivers a product that leaves you feeling much the same as any of its ancestors. [Aug 2008, p.94]

Minor flaws, but still a contender for JRPG royalty. [Issue#168, p.92]

It could be argued that Pandemic's extra-terrestrial effort is a little on the simple side, but in terms of sheer playability, scale and freedom - albeit within fairly limited areas - Destroy All Humans! is a class act indeed. [July 2005, p.96]

You’ll see and hear a lot of things your senses weren’t prepared for and revisiting a more traditional RPG afterwards is like walking out after an all-night party and going straight to the local library... A wonderfully pleasant and refreshing surprise. [March 2005, p.112]

A simple setup that gives way to complexity the more you experiment with the game’s higher levels of play. [Apr 2009, p.120]