Facile puzzles. [Nov 2015, p.87]

An attractive barfly that never really engages. [Dec 2007, p.108]

A tiresome Diablo pretender that's somewhat elevated by a fangs-sharp script. [March 2018, p.80]

Sloppy effort. Such as disappointment. [Sept 2007, p.104]

Okay for kids, but they could do much better. [Sept 2010, p.101]

One good mode can't stop this getting pinned. [Nov 2008, p.96]

Great songs, shonky game. [Feb 2011, p.97]

A sub-par game that hasn't aged well. [Sept 2010, p.103]

You'd do better to get Kinect Sports instead. [Feb 2011, p.99]

It's such an empty, floating and bewildering mess that it's impossible to enjoy. [Issue#67, p.103]

Not quite evolved enough, sadly. [Feb 2010, p.112]

Lacking tension, variety and punctuation, Blade Kitten is a pretty cutscene sandwich with no filling. [Issue#66, p.101]

The Raven simply doesn't understand how logic in point-and-click games works. [Feb 2014, p.87]

A game that's playing very hard to get. [Feb 2011, p.99]

A poor excuse of an FPS makes for an adequate, if pointless, adaptation of a sport better experienced in the real world. [April 2006, p.92]

Good ideas are drowned out by a confusing story and frustrating controls. [Sept 2017, p.72]

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

Speeder Bikes are unresponsive to the point of fury, and the one-on-one duels don't respond to your attacks in anywhere near as satisfying a way as the exploding droids. The assault courses are fine, but easily rehearsed, and there's nothing in this game that convinces me that anyone making it thought it was actually a good idea. There are flashes of inspiration that make it genuinely likeable - but it fails, and hard, as a forty pound game.

Breakpoint is huge and meaty, but fundamental flaws suck most of the fun out of it. [Issue#184, p.65]

It's business as usual for dear old Sonic. Which isn't necessarily a very good thing. [Jan 2018, p.82]

An intriguing premise with flawed execution. But what does it all mean? [Issue#181, p.85]

A sorry mess at the time of launch, but worth persisting with if you’re a series fan. [Issue#184, p.73]

A belated hit-and- myth successor to a SNES cult classic that doesn’t quite hit its mark. [Issue#181, p.79]

Waters down the Sacred formula until it has no taste at all. You'll spill more grey matter than you'll actually use playing it.

Unfortunately, there are two key aspects of the Lego games that The Infinity Gauntlet fails to emulate: their sense of humour and their lifespan.

A promising start for the Bat. If only it didn't run like a dog. Telltale: sort it out for part two. [Oct 2016, p.94]

Beautiful graphics do not a good game make. [Oct 2006, p.104]

Badly scripted, plotted and acted. [Nov 2007, p.90]

Less "more of the same" and more "less good." [May 2012, p.95]

It's fun for a little while, but is precious more than a weekend's worth of entertainment. [July 2006, p.86]

Better than the first, but still not brilliant. [Mar 2009, p.93]

Time to reassess everything about 2001. [Christmas 2012, p.99]

The only thing this is good for is scrap. [May 2012, p.97]

Only the most patient and self-flagellating need apply. [Sept 2015, p.108]

Offering neither the thrilling gymnastic momentum of Prince of Persia, nor the flexible sneaking of its superstar sibling, ACC: India finds itself spinning off into a cul-de-sac. [March 2016, p.76]

[A] musty romp. [Feb 2016, p.87]

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

Half precision-shooter, half-acid trip, We Are Doomed is like two ends of different cars shunted together by an unscrupulous dealer. Sadly, it’s likely to fall apart around you when the going gets tough.

Drearily predictable stain on the franchise. [Apr 2008, p.88]

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.

Disappointingly average. [July 2007, p.92]

Nice idea, but Toy Soldiers does almost all this does, bugger and better. [March 2016, p.87]

Senko No Ronde can be amazing to watch, but it simply doesn’t make enough effort to make itself intelligible to a Western audience and there’s not enough variety in the gameplay, despite the selection of combatants. We can see the parallels with rounders immediately.

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]

Plenty of expense spared, we think. [Sept 2015, p.111]

Exactly like the original, and that's a bad thing. [Dec 2008, p.94]

If you want, say, entertainment, then do like they do in real life and move from Superbikes to "MotoGP." [July 2008, p.92]

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 tantalising world and systems are fine in their own right, but shoddy car handling saps any desire to play beyond a few minutes at a time. Dock a point if you don't have likeminded pals.

A spin-off that unfortunately fails to scratch that irritating Saints Row itch. [Nov 2017, p.85]

A comprehensive intro to Magic, but Duels is hardly the showcase it needs to be. [Oct 2014, p.92]

The whole time you're playing Warfighter, just behind the sofa, there's a camouflaged Call of Duty-sized elephant sitting in the room - busying itself by practicing scope kills with its trunk. To go up against that beast Warfighter needed to impress on its own terms, and really deliver something new and exhilarating. Instead we got a cloning experiment that went badly awry.

Grimly coining it in, this feels wretched. [July 2013, p.79]

Platinum is great; this game is not. [Xmas 2014, p.79]

Flying is fun, but flimsy presentation clips its wings. [March 2015, p.78]

Lots of items, not much excitement. [Nov 2009, p.108]

Still feels as shallow and monotonous as ever. [Apr 2014, p.89]

The problem with this is that Spark is relentless at throwing a huge number of beasties your way, crowding you into a corner and ripping you to shreds. There's not enough breathing space for you to heal yourself and absorb energy to use it effectively as a defensive measure. To say this had us throwing the controller at the telly and cursing is an understatement.

This is one unnecessary relic that can be safely re-buried. [Apr 2014, p.89]

Warriors Orochi 2 isn't short on content, but it's unlikely that many will want to persevere past the staggeringly poor frame rate and distinctly old-gen graphical flaws.

Does a few good things, but is horribly basic compared to other big sporting titles. [Christmas 2017, p.90]

Alas, the dancing is as spotty and unrefined as ever. [Xmas 2014, p.87]

Seriously, there's nothing incredible about this. [Aug 2008, p.79]

It's impossible to overcome the tedium after the first few hours. [July 2010, p.103]

If this was a bargain-bin title we might be inclined to be slightly more forgiving, but as it is, this is 35 pounds for a game you've likely already played a far better version of. [Xmas 2014, p.87]

A confused step for a game that's already suffering from a minor identity crisis. Disappointing. [March 2015, p.87]

It's easy to accredit the success of Telltale's original Walking Dead to the strength of the fiction it's working with, but this flat opening salvo lacks the same nuances. [Apr 2016, p.77]

It isn't a complete mess, but it's hard to imagine just who it was created for. [Christmas 2013, p.107]

Sadly, we've Scene It all before. [Apr 2010, p.107]

A distinctly sludgy shooter. [June 2011, p.102]

The lack of Xbox Live play kills it dead. [Nov 2011, p.107]

Activision's Transformers adaptations shed a little more charm and fascination each time they transform. This super-lean take feels like the last OK offering before the rot truly sets in.

Not a great value package, really. [Apr 2016, p.90]

There's a general technical ropiness. [Nov 2018, p.80]

This is never going to be the game that sets the world alight or is a critical success - but it is far from a cheap cash in like many party games, and might just prove the right direction for Rare's misjudged franchise.

When a game functions better as a tache-cleaning sim, you know you're in trouble. [Apr 2016, p.91]

A puzzler homage to Portal that’s arguably better to read than it is to actually play. [Issue#186, p.83]

How does it manage to be over too soon and still find time to recycle levels? It has to be witchcraft. [Apr 2016, p.92]

Numerous bugs and frustrating glitches cause Jalopy to stall, splutter and conk out. [Issue#186, p.89]

It's somewhat understandable that the sequel struggles to find new directions to take the game in, but failing to live up to the original? That's a real crime. [Issue#65, p.93]

Decent idea, but far too fussy to be fun. [May 2013, p.85]

A classic, but one best left to history. [Oct 2009, p.95]

Unrelenting and vicious: this pitiless survival game is not for the easily frustrated. [March 2017, p.83]

Creative, but a long way from divine. [Feb 2010, p.102]

The real horror is that a great story's been swallowed by a need to scare instead of intrigue. [July 2016, p.83]

But their utter linearity wears the patina thin as the same ground is covered again and again; the really exciting scenes wilt into mindless reaction games, and even the best part - the fistfights - become stale after a few repetitive bouts.

A strange concept in an evocative landscape that's in search of a better game. [March 2017, p.89]

Flesh and Blood is compelling in its own unhappy way, but this is far from a horror essential. [Issue#67, p.101]

It's just a bit shallow, and technically flawed with it: the frame-rate is nowhere near as solid as you'd expect from a game that looks only "all right" and the physics system is prone to craziness. Despite all the time in development, it lacks polish. [Feb 2008, p.96]

The sole selling point of Devil's Cartel is the fact that you can blaze through it in a haze of blood and brick dust in the company of somebody else. It's never bad enough to truly offend, but it's never good enough to justify its status as a full-price game.

A very limited online shooter with a somewhat superficial design mode. Shame. [July 2018, p.87]

A sharp heroine and supporting cast, blunted by time constraints and uneven pacing. [July 2016, p.86]

Dull genre-bender with more features than fun. [Christmas 2011, p.110]

Only hipsters and farming fetishists need apply. [Nov 2013, p.91]

Not too substantial, but surprisingly polished. [Apr 2009, p.91]

A game so middle-of-the-road it ends up as roadkill. The ideas in here are solid, but simply refuse to go anywhere over its three-hour duration.

And as for those critical issues that dogged the last game and made it almost unplayable? Yep, they're still here too, joined now by an ability to perform the same move over and over to defeat your opponent simply because they can't react to it.

Critical flaws in every major respect, then, and yet it just about hangs together. There's an affecting moodiness to it, a real satisfaction when you do chain together several silent kills, and the low-tech 1940s setting lends a refreshing purity to the sneak 'em up genre. With a little more polish, further adventures for Violette could well be to die for.