Better than Episode 1, but still not great. [Christmas 2008, p.98]

Quirky, funny and colorful, Root Beer Tapper is both cheeky and challenging and a cheap distraction on a Wednesday night. [Feb 2007, p.101]

A conspiracy barely worth uncovering.

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith isn't terrible; it's just by no means an essential addition to the series. Hardcore fans will be left feeling short-changed when it comes to the complete band experience, while others will wish they could buy the support tracks as DLC.

Average racer with smart tech. [Apr 2010, p.101]

If you want to spend that much time perfecting your balance and looking silly, you can buy a real skateboard for much less.

More tedious the longer you play. [June 2016, p.82]

Crimson Dragon entertains most when it's the power fantasy it wants to be - when you're mopping up streams of curious beasts from an early level, with credits and items flying into your backpack as you 100% a level. When you're beset, besieged, and bullied by streams of incoming missiles, you feel cheated rather than challenged, and the beckoning gem shop makes the process feel dirty.

Though it looks good and plays well, the use of DC heroes is lacking and the levels are too obscure at times. [Jan 2015, p.79]

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]

So, no major surprises then, and ultimately Cars is a mediocre racing game for anyone over the age of about 13. But taken on its own terms, as a game geared towards pre-teens and fans of the movie, its flaws and shortcomings don't matter one bit and will probably pass young 'uns by quicker than Lightning McQueen himself.

Great things are expected of the Eragon franchise, but this could be a thousand games we've played before. No single feature stands out as special, and the gameplay is all far too familiar.

A functional if predictable four-player beat 'em up. Does everything you'd expect from a Turtles game, but nothing more. [April 2006, p.88]

Fine in multiplayer, but endless tricking makes games against Xbox tiresome. It's slow-paced novelty basketball. [Aug 2006, p.66]

A generic shooter at best. [Oct 2006, p.76]

Jaws Unleashed isn't a terrible game, but it's riddled with control, camera, and difficulty issues that take the fun away. [Nov 2006, p.74]

Alright by budget standards, but with dodgy controls, cheap AI and buggy Live modes there are far better alternatives. [Aug 2006, p.70]

Feels unfinished. [Jan 2015, p.84]

Passable, but there are better alternatives. [May 2008, p.92]

Conan is like a bad exploitation flick. It's lurid, crass, dumb and looks like sh*t. However, strange as it sounds, these are exactly the kind of things that might just keep you playing. [Dec 2007, p.104]

Cutesy gore and not a lot else. [Christmas 2009, p.94]

An over-ambitious episodic series that struggles to live up to its own opening. [Jan 2017, p.82]

A fun concept, but the lack of depth turns it into a snorkelling trip rather than an undersea odyssey. [Aug 2008, p.95]

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

Too slow and dull for shooter/sci-fi fans. [Sept 2007, p.5]

It's flawed and frustrating at times, but worth seeing through to the end. [Jan 2017, p.90]

There's nothing super about it. [July 2012, p.107]

Without any visible reinvention or revolution, WRC 3 is left looking embarrassingly dated. The WRC license has been recreated with impressive accuracy, and there's a serviceable sim underneath the awkward handling, but the entire package is painfully weak compared to its competition. If this is rally, feel free to count us out

Spills more brains than it actually has. [Aug 2013, p.89]

Certainly not a game for anyone expecting a challenge or long-term entertainment. [Oct 2007, p.86]

It feels vague and unfocused. [Dec 2014, p.87]

Thankfully, the trusted combo-move heavy, cutscene-riddled one-on-one scraps also return. [Dec 2014, p.87]

Scrappy and limited, this is a disappointing return for a gaming classic. [Sept 2017, p.89]

There's only one number that reflects this perfectly average experience.

Proof that in life, you get what you pay for. [Feb 2009, p.91]

Initially quite interesting but ultimately frustrating and unsatisfying. [Sept 2017, p.91]

Those gamers who check out Penny Arcade daily will be playing to see the reappearance of iconic characters and to laugh at the in-jokes dotted throughout the game. But even they would have a hard time swallowing the 1,600 MP price tag (around £15) for five hours of gameplay - gameplay that isn't heavy on replayability.

Not nearly enough fun. [Aug 2008, p.93]

We could almost believe that this was liberated from Shinji Mikami's bin in 1996. [May 2017, p.79]

A scabby swab that plumbs the depps. [July 2007, p.100]

If Costume Quest is a success, it's because it looks cute, it's instantly appealing, and it's very funny. But it's not a very good game. [Issue#66, p.88]

Struggling with the camera ruins the imaginative ideas at the core of this Lego installment. [May 2017, p.88]

Obscure, irritating and redeemed a little only by its addictiveness and the variety of the Bionicles that you control. [Christmas 2006, p.98]

Loss of (creative) control. [Mar 2010, p.96]

You're expected to know who these characters are, you're expected to know why certain plot twists are a big deal and you're expected to be excited when a character from Zeta Gundam interacts with one from Turn-A Gundam.

Another cheap money-spinner. [Nov 2007, p.107]

Where the mild things are. [Feb 2010, p.111]

Too punishing to recommend. [Mar 2011, p.100]

It's all very limited and mind-numbingly repetitive - but the game's also challenging. [July 2007, p.105]

A decent but unremarkable game, tied to a wan Lovecraftian setting.

A bot-standard, rusty platformer for kids. [Sept 2008, p.86]

Annoying rather than quirky and appealing. [Apr 2008, p.99]

Hit The Mitts shows you what Zuffa could have done - a mini-game that reacts well to your punches.

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

Beware the caustic pink mist of nostalgia. [Apr 2013, p.81]

The few saving graces offered by the inclusion of a scrotum-seeking pooch do little to alleviate the more fundamental problems the game faces as a third person shooter. Dead to Rights: Retribution is a load of balls in exactly the way Volatile Games didn't intend.

Not as special as it thinks it is. [Apr 2013, p.89]

The career mode is a repetitive series of unlocked events and the addition of an extremely rudimentary Trick Battle mode doesn't do much to break the tedium. At the very most, this is no more than an afternoon's entertainment.

Existing fans feel free - newcomers, beware. [Apr 2013, p.89]

A fun party game with limited appeal.

Button-mashing action without depth. [Christmas 2010, p.93]

It's abysmal in singleplayer, elevating itself to merely dull and forgettable in co-op and multiplayer. Welcome to a zombie game that's as lifeless and ragged as its primary antagonists.

A glaring oversight. The turtles all differ, but there's no multiplayer option in the game, either in the main adventure or a separate mode. [May 2007, p.92]

A jack of all military trades that could have been master of one. [July 2017, p.79]

Bang goes the potential. [Sept 2012, p.103]

Not a patch on the big screen version. [Jan 2010, p.115]

More bogus than Bogart, White Night fuses the disparate worlds of cultured noir and trashy supernatural. The result? An inconsistent – if visually striking – trudge. A true hammy horror.

Can't compete with "Elite" or "Colony Wars." [July 2010, p.103]

Updated but still dated, this feels like a step back to a more boring time and doesn't add anything new. [March 2014, p.80]

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]

More than ever, Dynasty Warriors feels like an uncomfortable timefart.

This leaves a loving homage to Castlevania which doesn’t really advance its ideas. It’s faithful to a fault, right down to the bars that run down either side of the screen, locking it into the aspect ratio of a boxy cathode-ray TV. Timespinner could easily be a long-lost classic of the 16-bit era, a cartridge exhumed from a dusty storeroom and ported to Xbox. If you’re in need of a blast from the past, that could be perfect – but don’t expect something that can compete with the best modern Metroidvanias. [Issue#180, p.90]

You've already played the best bit. [Sept 2013, p.102]

Yet no matter how hockey mad you are, there's no denying that the controls are too muddled and the game not quite deep enough to really tickle.

Idea-free shooting. With dinosaurs. [Mar 2008, p.90]

A cheap and cheerful sim at a luxury price. [Oct 2012, p.97]

It isn't entirely awful - even dodgy MOBA games can provide a lot of fun - but the myriad flaws suggests that it's badly misunderstood its audience. It's like being handed a love letter that was written by someone who had Googled 'seduction'. The effort they've put in is clearly endearing, but sorry - we're just not interested.

Neither assaulting nor heroic. [July 2008, p.96]

More old than wild wild west. [Aug 2007, p.98]

An interesting concept and setting, held back by its rather lacking execution. [Issue#177, p.78]

An average party game regurgitation. Not at this price. [Oct 2012, p.101]

Repetitive and rather mindless gameplay make playing Putty Squad an experience we're unlikely to return to. If nothing else, it's a stark reminder of just how far games have come. [Sept 2014, p.87]

More wet slap than knockout blow. [Oct 2012, p.101]

A tired sports game with wasted potential. [Dec 2007, p.109]

The good, the bad, and the abysmal. [June 2012, p.93]

It's three hours you won't want back. [Oct 2010, p.106]

Glorious art is a feast for the eyes, but if you've ever played a platformer, you won't be able to shake the feeling you've seen this all before. [Nov 2015, p.80]

The dogfights in the skies are a lot of fun, but they fly a fine line between tense standoffs and frustration. Achieving a five-star rating and a better designation of your flight rank just doesn't have the same sense of achievement as other games out there.

If you can swallow the pad-mashing mechanics and wince your way through Silicon Knights' ham-fisted attempts at delivering back-story, there's a certain satisfaction to be had replaying to unlock new suits and powers.

Guilty pleasure - with emphasis on guilty. [Oct 2010, p.111]

The Lost Archive will blast an evening from your life, and give you something minor to chew on until Assassin's Creed 3. But this udder sac is pretty much drained.

The game has an admirable variety of modes, from career to arcade to quick play, but with a basic mechanic this crappy, all the variety in the world can't save it. [Feb 2007, p.100]

It's a decent tribute to an overrated series, and the ports are accurate - to a fault. [Nov 2015, p.87]

The new competitive focus and enhanced graphics engine are welcome, but it still feels underwhelming. [Jan 2016, p.88]

Heavily inspired by Hotline Miami, but sadly with none of its precision, purity or style. [Issue#178, p.84]

Charming but flawed, and lacks ambition. [May 2011, p.101]

A mostly forgettable, by-the-numbers JRPG which can try the patience. [October 2018, p.84]

How many more filthy, blood-spattered mess halls, garages and control rooms must we trudge through, in search of loot drops and audio diaries? How many more vents and sinkholes must we wearily inventory on entering an area, in readiness for the moment when the soundtrack jack-knifes and the undead pop into view? Awakened doesn't have answers for these questions.