A competent, if soulless, city builder with delusions of grandeur. [Christmas 2009, p.90]

This is the fifth incarnation of a Lego license game and it hasn't moved on. [Feb 2010, p.94]

Diplomacy, sea battles, trade, construction - it's all here, but sadly it never quite gels to fulfill East India's potential. [Oct 2009, p.96]

Minor tweaks to a solid but dull money-spinner. [Nov 2005, p.92]

Unimpressive sim that misses a chance to impress with groovy visuals. [Jan 2005, p.94]

So nearly entertaining, but the controls are just too crummy. [March 2005, p.96]

There’s little new that stands out in Icewind Dale II to recommend it. There's a lacks the style and emphasis on story that characterises the genre’s best.

There is amusement to be found here, for those with low expectations. [Oct 2005, p.91]

A big disappointment after a promising preview. Far too simplistic and generic to hold anyone's attention for any length of time. [Oct 2008, p.104]

Ditch your standards and enjoy shaping a mediocre world to your will. [Dec 2006, p.105]

There's no heart in the design. It's a beautiful world with enjoyable characters and it's engaging for a while, but it runs out of ideas way too soon to be any lasting fun. [Jan 2005, p.89]

Offers much of the pleasures of the original...and yet nothing has really been improved. [Sept 2007, p.62]

This is an expansion pack for Dungeon Siege II, and little else. [Oct 2006, p.96]

Christ on a bike, though, it's ugly. I mean like school bus traffic accident ugly. [June 2007, p.52]

Poor controls and too much reliance on trial and error in order to progress within the game. Hacking up the zombies is good fun, though. [Sept 2008, p.102]

The main problem though is that this one features too much aimless wandering, and nothing like enough danger or excitement. [Mar 2008, p.109]

Were NecroVision to turn up on Steam for less than a tenner, then it'd be worth considering. [Apr 2009, p.99]

Despite its fantastic visualisation of Wonderland, repetitive gameplay means it fails to muster a chortle. [Sept 2011, p.100]

While certainly more approachable than its US Election themed follow-up "Political Machine," TCM is a much older game and really doesn't have the same smoothness or fun value. [March 2005, p.113]

Solid but wholly uninspiring. [Aug 2005, p.95]

Not awful, but there's not enough crack in the world to choose it over "GTA." [Christmas 2006, p.101]

As before, there's nothing here that's massively wrong, but nothing exactly right either, and in particular, nothing that "Diablo" didn't do just as well. [July 2005, p.99]

The game itself is too lightweight to stand much repeating, leaving two possible outcomes: you'll become a paranoid conspiracy theorist, or get bored, shoot the driver, and watch them all perish in the resulting crash. [Feb 2005, p.93]

It's a mix of disappointment at missed opportunities, and general boredom because of the stagnation of ideas. [Feb 2008, p.112]

A bad trip down memory lane - this is the FPS circa 1996 incarnate. [July 2006, p.95]

Brazen plagiarism it may be, but this shooter is a worthy tribute to its forebears. [Nov 2006, p.103]

It's certainly not worth more than a third of the asking price. [Apr 2008, p.115]

It's a better game than last month's "Moai Better Blues," if only because the ever insufferable Bosco is missing in action. [Apr 2008, p.113]

Good ideas buried under several layers of below par execution. [Christmas 2005, p.101]

Diverting mob brutality, but nothing like the films, and downright ugly. [May 2006, p.95]

A bit like listening to Radio 3. [Aug 2008, p.107]

Watch a Bourne movie instead. [Aug 2010, p.95]

A bit like Paul Daniels, its magic is only really going to work on the kids. [Aug 2004, p.86]

So, there are short bursts of charm, interspersed with long sections of tedium. [Dec 2005 p.89]

Reasonably entertaining space-shooty madness. [Dec 2004, p.104]

It's completely let down by the actual developers. [Feb 2010, p.94]

If you want an RPG or an MMO, you can do better. Greater focus might have saved this shambles from total mediocrity. [Feb 2007, p.62]

Bad translation... If you can speak German, get the native version. [July 2010, p.100]

Mindless hack-n-slash nonsense, in a very pretty world. [Jan 2009, p.98]

Fails to be what it sets out to be – a game. But still manages to be a charming journey for anyone with plenty of patience.

The puzzles aren't that bad either, gently ramping up from fairly easy to mentally taxing. [Oct 2008, p.114]

There is little new here that would make you choose this over the demonstrably superior games from Creative Assembly. [July 2007, p.72]

An ordinary platformer that struggles with expectations.

Just another game MIA in the jungles of Vietnam. It's adventure, but just not adventurous enough.

It's the same old game with prettier graphics and a half-decent story. Settlers-heads will love it, but best wait for it to appear on budget. [Nov 2007, p.52]

With the combat interminably dull and the story unintelligibly delivered, this isn't the triumphant return of the space shooter we'd hoped for. [Dec 2007, p.62]

It's a pretty sexless affair nonetheless, and as such, it just doesn't float my amphibious landing craft. [Jan 2007, p.68]

Hard to get your head around, and not rewarding even if you stick with it. [Aug 2006, p.96]

Essentially just "THUG 2" with corridors, and Elephant Man-ugly, too. [Apr 2006, p.89]

A solid, if unspectacular hack and slasher. If you're looking for colourful, mindless fantasy action, this is yer man. [Oct 2007, p.56]

A game destined to be forgotten. [Sept 2011, p.98]

Ultimately, the lack of a convincing "feel," combined with a predictable and rather uninspired selection of weapons mean War World is never going to grasp you by the imagination and shake you with a hydraulic arm until you lie limp and broken. [Oct 2005, p.98]

Tries to include facets of two genres, and feels confused and compromised. [May 2006, p.94]

Its three hours of solid combat with identical soldiers gets wearing extremely quickly with nothing else to distract you.

Slog through the first few hours of Need for Speed: Undercover and you'll find something worth playing. But should you have to? [Feb 2009, p.96]

A pleasant little game, but far, far too little of it released at this price. [Christmas 2005, p.62]

Good, but without the "must keep playing" factor. [April 2006]

A bog-standard, enjoyable romp with enough skills and spells to challenge most but nothing to distinguish it from the crowd. [Nov 2006, p.104]

Not so bad that you'll want to pluck your own fur out, but that's all. [Nov 2004]

You're better off tracking down a copy of "Red Alert 2" on its own. [Sept 2006, p.101]

A game that feels a bit like what Lord of the Rings would have been if Tolkein had decided to write it on an Excel spreadsheet. [May 2008, p.113]

Tired-looking. [Christmas 2009, p.88]

Weary-feeling zoo sim with little new on offer. [Christmas 2005, p.102]

Confusing, often nonsensical execution, and a bit slow on the draw. [June 2006, p.91]

For a fiver, it's not too bad - a little different, at least. But that's all. [Sept 2008, p.116]

An opportunity wasted. [Oct 2009, p.98]

It works, and it’s playable, but its remarkable fighting isn’t enough to pull it out of the mire labelled average.

Likely to remain a bog-basic, reassuringly free shooter that you might just pick up and play in an idle moment on your laptop. Very, very occasionally, in other words. [Apr 2007, p.72]

Neither disastrous nor memorable, which is certainly a disservice to a once-proud Nazi-bashing legacy. [Nov 2009, p.92]

The relentlessly brain-dead action gets a bit dull after a while. [Feb 2005, p.85]

Utterly credible action-adventure with an arbitrarily varied difficulty level. [Feb 2005, p.89]

When blowing up a car by dropping a boat on it becomes boring, you know there's something fundamentally wrong. [July 2010, p.94]

A splendid idea hampered by an average execution and a hideously uninteresting setting.

Pleasant enough, but it feels like little more than a glorified iPhone game. [Christmas 2009, p.95]

This is totally outclassed by new stars like "Company of Heroes,", "Faces of War," and old favourites like the "Close Combat" series. [July 2007, p.68]

Highly implausible, but not entirely fun-free. [May 2006, p.90]

Gory and pointless – just one more tedious stealth game.

Glossy but vacuous; a short-lived, slow-paced distraction. [Aug 2004, p.91]

Hour after hour of repetitive gameplay. In space, no-one can hear you snore. [Aug 2006, p.99]

It's not awful. Just empty. [March 2005, p.106]

It's actually very well put together, with all the right voices, but suffers from an over-profusion of sub-aquatic advertising taken from the film. [Christmas 2004, p.122]

An amiable enough RPG, once you escape the first two hours, but it's let down by an appalling translation and glitchy combat. [Christmas 2007, p.58]

It definitely simulates railways, for better, but mainly for worse. [Christmas 2007, p.68]

Repetitive action and a poor engine ground this flyboy. [July 2006, p.102]

Ostensibly worthy, but fundamentally uninspiring – the only value is the size.

A decent low-cost dabble if you've grown out of painting little lead figures. [Christmas 2004, p.122]

Ambitious and complex throughout, but lacking the fun factor. [Dec 2006, p.109]

The adamantium claws sure are sharp, but are they really all you have? [Christmas 2005, p.96]

The gaming equivalent of Flight 1549: starts well then mercilessly plops into the Hudson River of bad flight sims.

Merely average. [Feb 2010, p.88]

Just too short and too shoddy. [May 2008, p.106]

Intriguing plot and visuals, but we've had enough of these lazy adventures. [March 2005, p.104]

Fun for video nasty fans, but move along gamers, there's nothing to see here. [Christmas 2005, p.92]

A promising shooter which ultimately ends not with the final movie, but an impassioned cry of “What the hell were you thinking?!”

Like a clapped out Huey returning from its final mission - ugly, rusted, outdated and just so shot shot full of holes. [Feb 2005, p.82]

Not so much heroic as the world's most violent way of developing RSI. [Christmas 2005, p.97]

Just another lazy-port-slash-cheap-cash-in that is designed to fleece fans of the film, who in this case are mostly children. [Oct 2008, p.114]

Come on EA, give us something new to write about with your next release. [Jan 2005, p.90]