Downpour is an engrossing, eerie play, but it's simultaneously empowered and constrained by its necromantic heritage. There are two sides to every Silent Hill, and like every studio since Team Silent, Vatra hasn't brought enough to the party.

There's promise but The Technomancer just can't get away from well-worn genre conventions. [Sept 2016, p.84]

For all its shallowness, I couldn't help but fall for Zoo Tycoon. While its charms may indeed be too quickly exhausted, they're potent while they last, and there's an overpowering wholesomeness that's difficult to resist. There are a lot of great ideas, wonderful moments and potential memories to be made here that make it more than worth a look, but much like my experiences with real-life animal parks, Zoo Tycoon becomes less likely to delight upon each subsequent visit.

Like an everlasting gobstopper, you can buy Cloudberry for peanuts and certainly get your money's worth in terms of quantity. But play it just long enough, and it quickly loses its flavour.

Not bad if you can bring the skills. [Nov 2009, p.95]

Track editors looking for new tools might want to buy, but otherwise try the community courses. [Nov 2015, p.89]

A satisfying if uninventive tribute to the new era of dark, narrative platformers.

The Kinect controls for all these activities feel intuitive, accurate, and responsive. Considering the range of gestures, there's impressively little frustration involved.

Looks flashy, and fun but ends up being a shallow, repetitive trawl.

Ironically, in trying to cram loads into Blitz: The League II, Midway has actually made it less enjoyable. The tacked-on mini-games only delay the proper action. That's not to say it's not a fun game: it's just not consistently fun. Shame.

A meticulously designed Live shooter...Few multiplayer FPS games furnish you with unique anecdotes about valiant last stands and over-the-trench assaults but Brink is full of them.

Everything's improved except the controls. [May 2010, p.87]

It’s the perfect fan service addition to the Ghostbusters canon, and regardless of the all-female reboot or upcoming Ghostbusters 2020, this still stands up as that ‘third film’. The fact that it’s also a very good game frankly makes our toaster dance. [Issue#184, p.82]

We say the gameplay is 'deceptively simple', because there's effectively two buttons. [Nov 2007, p.106]

Even with its signature gimmick disabled, it's actually not too bad.

Magical game fun for kids; brief fun for adults. [Aug 2007, p.99]

Clearly designed for the world of mobile devices, Cubot is the kind of thing you've probably downloaded for pennies, many times, and played for half an hour before getting hopelessly stuck and abandoning it. [March 2016, p.87]

If you demand polish, this-gen graphics, and spoonfed plots - well, maybe you need to move briskly along. [Issue#65, p.90]

We're actually more fond of how The UnderGarden looks and sounds than how it plays.

Playable, but no real advance on the original. [Oct 2010, p.100]

A quintessentially average 'alright for a one-night stand but don't even think of proposing' game that your Xbox 360 has had the pleasure of experiencing at least a couple of hundred times before.

A huge action RPG that is bursting with love and detail. And a fair few bugs, too.

There's plenty to do, two whole islands to explore and, if you can persuade the game to connect you with a mate or two, hours of pleasingly aimless road tripping to do. But when a game built for release in 2011 on a foundation of socialising has such an obtuse system for connecting with other players it's something a teaspoon of sugar in our petrol tank.

Hardcore fight fans are going to love it, but Arcana Heart 3 makes no real concessions to more casual players.

It's just simply not as good as the large number of awesome driving games that are already on Xbox 360, and, in current form, it's always going to come in behind the pack. [Nov 2007, p.100]

Immediately intense, but no long-term appeal. [May 2011, p.101]

It's pretty ropey, and there's little satisfaction to be had from getting through one door only to find more of the same in the next area. [Apr 2016, p.90]

This GTA-a-like will make you nostalgic, and grateful that AI is a lot better now. [Issue#179, p.86]

Button bashing by the numbers and very repetitive. Only superhero fanboys need apply to this Justice League. [Jan 2007, p.125]

A well-polished movie tie-in that will keep undemanding kids amused for a weekend or two. [April 2006, p.88]

The problem is, we have real friends who'll accompany us to real pubs with real tables on which we can play real pool. So why do we need a slightly sterile virtual version? [Feb 2015, p.83]

But if you want to lose weight, and your mind throws a fog of delusion and twisted justifications in your path, then the numbers and tips of The Biggest Loser might just break that spell.

The best fitness title on the Xbox 360.

Tons of official content make for an authentic racer, but there are visual deficiencies. [Christmas 2016, p.77]

In terms of what you actually do, though, Burial at Sea is fairly tepid stuff - a fetch quest followed by shoot-outs that introduce Infinite's Tears and Skylines to Bioshock 1's Splicers and turrets, a puzzle that involves finding a new Plasmid, a puzzle that involves doing X of Y, and a boss encounter that's all about attrition.

Get past the faintly patronising tutorial, and resist the slightly disappointing final battle, and stay in the brilliant, rich middle. This is an adventure that rewards the curious and the explorers.

Ballsy cartoon guts and supersploding stupidity. [March 2013, p.89]

Rough around the edges but with a very shiny centre, and the toughest race on Xbox. [June 2018, p.88]

Even though it's a bit of a flashy game, Ninja Blade is surprisingly shallow. It's not particularly long either - you can see everything in less than 10 hours, which doesn't help much with replayability. Worst of all, the novelties it wants you to like, it shoves in your face quite rudely many times over - resulting in a hack-and-slash that could have ultimately been a lot, er, sharper.

Brilliant, bite-sized entertainment. [Dec 2011, p.101]

Imperfect but surprisingly pleasant. [May 2011, p.103]

MotoGP 08, like Casey Stoner's Ducati, isn't quite as staggeringly fast as last year's model, but it's still a great bike racer. It also lacks some of the shine and party atmosphere that the fantastic THQ MotoGP series had.

While the game itself is never diffi cult or badly designed, it consistently contrives to point out its restrictions: neither controls nor narrative are ever slick enough that you ever feel immersed.

A smartly turned-out squad-based cover shooter, not to mention an authentic-feeling and authentic-looking period piece, The Bureau might not be as good as Enemy Unknown, but it certainly has a style and a charm of its own. The years of development hell have been worth it.

Tweaks and changes have successfully fixed most of EDF 2017's problems without damaging any of the dodgy aspects that made it so wonderfully wonky. If you're in the market for some mindless co-op nonsense, Insect Armageddon's comes highly recommended.

As it stands, we've rarely been so bored when travelling at 150 miles per hour, less inspired by a police chase or less interested in the plot of a videogame. In the end, the game's only held together by staples of the series, namely a huge complement of cars and no-nonsense grippy physics. That's just enough to elevate it to the status of competent racer, but definitely not enough to earn a recommendation.

Untangling this new world's intrigues, both political and personally for characters, is unreasonably complex. New terminologies and faces are thrown at you at such rapid pace in the first few hours that you find yourself not caring.

They need to start working on their polish and QA. [May 2014, p.91]

A giant but vacuous superhero battle frenzy that disappoints in many areas. [Sept 2017, p.85]

A brave attempt at making an epic experience, but it was never going to be the game it so desperately wanted to be. [April 2006, p.90]

A jaunty, fairly interesting collection of mini-games, but it's been done better a hundred times before. [April 2006, p.89]

Barely worth splashing out on. [May 2012, p.95]

Most story missions rely on hefty amounts of trial and error, but getting it right doesn't even feel satisfying: it's like playing cards against someone who cheers every time you win, but refuses to teach you how to play. Everything you do is tied back to the multiplayer - a mighty clan-based system that impresses, but adds even more complexity. Armored Core V's initial ease turns out to be a token gesture. This is hardcore.

Innovative co-op...shame about the rest. [Sept 2008, p.92]

Although this simple brawler has some intriguing multiplayer ideas, the solo game's repetitive and the Crusade metagame is hard to invest in. [Dec 2013, p.87]

Short but still ass-kickingly sweet! [Sept 2007, p.110]

It's consistently hilarious. [Christmas 2013, p.111]

For obsessive kit hoarders only. [Apr 2009, p.86]

Nostalgic fun that's aged badly. [Apr 2012, p.105]

An enjoyable shooter with hidden depth. [June 2012, p.103]

A game that may tickle your fancy. [July 2011, p.101]

The great and the rubbish at a price that's definitely not right.

A pleasantly straightforward and playable racer, Gravel is capable but ordinary. [May 2018, p.80]

An unremarkable shooter by modern standards, but the satisfaction of its cinematic kills is hard to deny. It's just a shame that these moments are encased in a generally shoddy gameplay experience.

As much fun as you'd expect from vermin. [Nov 2013, p.96]

Not Nierly as much fun as we'd hoped. [July 2010, p.96]

Sadly, it runs out of ideas by the halfway point (there's no online play), offering little more than increasingly steep medal targets that put you at the mercy of the game's rather inconsistent physics. Worse still, some levels have very rigid solutions, which sit awkwardly next to the knockabout, anything-goes approach of the early game.

The wrestling is superb - but its teething problems must be patched quickly.

From hiding in crowds to hush-hush neck stabs, the Assassin’s Creed formula fits so snugly that China feels like the series' starting point - but at four hours it might prove too short for some.

It's still the ever-compelling plot that reigns supreme, and whilst they're not giving anything away until the final episode there's definitely enough going on here to ensure a thoroughly enjoyable romp.

It may lack in variety, but the core conceit of Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut is both sound and consistently enjoyable. Swoop in with your ship, turn into a robot, destroy everything, get the hell out. It's not subtle, but it is good, wholesome, dumb fun.

The ultimate Sega party game. [Apr 2008, p.90]

Losing Kinect doesn't lost the joy of this ride. [Aug 2012, p.107]

An ambitious study of crime and race slightly spoiled by niggling bugs and menial missions. [Christmas 2016, p.74]

A few action-related missteps don't stop this being a decent first season. [Feb 2017, p.86]

Once you've clocked enough playthroughs to upgrade your character's stats and worked out each enemy's attack patterns, the game starts to open up and you'll find yourself enjoying the run-throughs.

An accomplished shooter on the whole, and a fittingly thunderous send-off for current gen Resident Evil. The next instalment needs to tighten the focus, deciding which ideas are worth sticking with, but this could be the definitive videogame blockbuster - huge, colourful and surprising.

Surprise attack from some chopsy 'copters. [Aug 2013, p.91]

Although it has a fresh approach to platforming, Schrödinger’s Cat is let down by a rollercoaster difficulty curve, randomly-generated repetition, and an unsettled tone.

Massive, rubbish but strangely compelling. [Feb 2011, p.94]

Nails the atmosphere of the films, but falls horrifically flat in gameplay terms. [Issue#183, p.77]

A decent enough game with a crazy design and the best Xbox Live Vision Camera integration yet, but with a rabbit-sized lifespan. [June 2007, p.90]

Fun for a while, but difficult, repetitive and marred by the controls. [July 2018, p.82]

id Software's take on hell might be a little two-dimensional, but if you don't have the patience for the likes of Dead Space, this should scratch your diabolical itch.

Basic rally racing with some strong track design, but there's little else worthy of note. [Dec 2018, p.88]

The problem that this and indeed any retro shooter has nowadays is Bizarre Creations 2D tour de force, Geometry Wars. Still one of our Xbox Live download favourites, Galaga by comparison is a poor substitute.

Fine combat, badly balanced. [Dec 2012, p.103]

A stunning audio and visual presentation doesn't cover the cracks at the core. [Jan 2018, p.75]

GRAW is brimming with atmosphere, has brilliant, open levels and challenging AI that will put your shooting skills to the test. [April 2006, p.74]

The game plays better with a mouse but this is still the full Sims 4 experience. [Jan 2018, p.80]

Mindless fun, best played with mates. [Christmas 2009, p.104]

Without the sharply deduced cases or clear focus of Crimes & Punishments, Frogwares’ latest is a damp squib of a detective. Though its open-world city has a grimy appeal, and the odd “ah-hah!” moment satisfies, this snoop is sunk by its own uneven, outstretched ambition. [Issue#180, p.77]

In terms of graphics, in terms of variety, in terms of accessibility, it’s a failure on both 360 and PC. Overall, we’re coming down on the side of foolhardy over brave.

A very generous, but slightly broken MMORPG that can't quite stand on the shoulders of the PC-based giants. It does, however, prove that the genre's systems can translate onto consoles intact.

Hits an unexpected sweet spot of Hollywood-style bombastic entertainment. [Dec 2013, p.86]

An energetic, skillful action-platformer that rewards experimentation and practice...but frustrating scenarios encourage neither. The core of a great game is here, but hidden. [Apr 2016, p.83]

Its predecessor had better scares, pace and atmosphere. In short, it was better. [Jan 2008, p.96]

As it is, there's a fundamentally exciting and feature-heavy driving game here, but one burdened just enough by small niggles to bring us down. [Issue#65, p.92]