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

Ready, Deadie, Gone. And don't come back. [Sept 2013, p.93]

And there's no sign of GLaDOS either. Boo! [Sept 2013, p.93]

Gently frustrating but well put together. [Sept 2013, p.93]

The best D&D experience on console. [Sept 2013, p.91]

Lock it to a railing and leave it there. [Sept 2013, p.91]

Excellent tutorial for beginners. [Sept 2013, p.89]

A startling glimpse into true hell. [Sept 2013, p.86]

As an exercise in carrying triple-A bloat gracefully, however, it's among Ubisoft's finest efforts. Fisher might look like the world's grumpiest, most grizzled ninja, but he's proving quite the crowd-pleaser.

It's possible someone who doesn't buy into the Saints Row universe with such enthusiasm will find Saints Row IV exhausting and boring. Might we suggest those people attend a local museum, where the paintings of flowers might be more to their taste. If violent psychopathy is the price we have to pay for a world of awesome harmony, sign us up.

It's just too easy to forgive Payday 2 for looking shonky though. This game isn't about appearances; it's about the tension and excitement and thrill found in the heat of a moment. It's about hard work and co-operation and a well-placed bullet coming together to pull off the perfect crime. If you've got a tight team of four bank-busting buddies ready and raring to go, and you can overlook some below-average scenery, you're in for a hell of a time. Mask up.

It's a faithful remake, but it dredges up a lot of what was wrong with the original game, and the fun lasts barely as long as it'll take you to hum the theme tune.

It's depressing to see a developer that applied so intense a spotlight to existing practices and archetypes resort to so generic an expansion.

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.

Good, but doomed by indifference. [Aug 2013, p.103]

A fine tweak on an established theme. [Aug 2013, p.91]

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

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

Sadly, the one time we really enjoyed ourselves was watching a bullet sink into a camel's buttock. [Aug 2013, p.87]

Colourful but uninspired. [Aug 2013, p.87]

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

With around 50 levels to chew on, the game is substantial but no banquet, and the later levels don't really build on their predecessors in any mind-blowing ways. It's a welcome break from the frenzy elsewhere on Xbox Live, but it never threatens to become a fixture.

It'd suit the adversarial nature of this review if I came out of DW8 feeling as stubbornly indifferent as I have the last few games. But annoyingly, this is the first time Dynasty Warriors has made me want to play on.

Most free to play games are engineered for compulsive play, but Spartacus Legends is about as addictive as swallowing sand. Thumbs down.

All that said, Scourge is cheap, and if you're looking for a no-frills co-op shooter to keep you and three friends mildly entertained, you could do worse.

DARK is frustrating, because that initial feeling of being a zippy blur of a vampire in a world of neon-lit night never leaves you. It's just swamped in frustrating design decisions, a script that lurches from passable to laughable, weak enemy AI, and a vortex of a lead character who's impossible to like or hate.

400 Days is by no means an essential purchase - it unfolds so quickly that you don't have that much needed time to mull everything over. But for 400MP, it's a perfectly decent-sized bite that should whet your appetite for Season Two, adding welcome layers of intrigue and complexity to an already exceptional series.

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