Despite its flaws, Joan of Arc has an unmistakeable pick-up-and-play factor, coupled with a learning curve that makes it very enjoyable, especially acquiring many rare items from the slew of side quests.

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]

Five or six hours of totally joyless shooterage. I played this game so you don't have to. Don't let it all have been in vain. [Feb 2008, p.110]

It barely raises a smile, reducing most gamers to a grim comatose zomebie-state, the only sign a life now a dull flicker of hate in their glazed, cold eyes. [Christmas 2004, p.107]

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 half-decent game at a bargain price. Which doesn't, unfortunately, make it a wholly good game to actually play. [Mar 2009, p.96]

Fun while it lasts, but alas hit 'n' run is about all you get. [Mar 2010, p.95]

Let's hope that The Old Republic gets is right in the many, many places where The Force Unleashed II gets it wrong. [Feb 2011, p.104]

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]

It may not be particularly beautiful to look at, but it's tactical and challenging enough to keep you occupied. [June 2007, p.64]

Merely average. [Feb 2010, p.88]

Stick with it through those slow, opening Hobbiton chapters and you’ll be immortalised in the terrible poetry of Elvensong. No doubt.

As an alternative to "The Sims," only the abundance of nipples saves it. [Apr 2005, p.104]

Leaves on the line may cause brain delays in strategy management.

It's managed to create a whole new genre: the untactical shooter. [Mar 2006, p.104]

Crude and boring. Stick a cork up Larry's ass and his game in the bin. [Christmas 2004, p.120]

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.

While it may be all kinds of multiplayer fun, either in deathmatch or co-op, it does get pretty old pretty quickly. [Aug 2007, p.62]

Pretty but tedious, Alpha Prime is a solid but supremely derivative shooter that's more often a chore than a pleasure. [June 2007, p.60]

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

An excellent though rather bland-looking 'copter combat sim. [Sept 2007, p.56]

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

Frustrating array of random pointing and clicking.

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]

Half a game. [Sept 2010, p.96]

Five years ago it might have been average. [June 2009, p.100]

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

In equal parts frustrating and rewarding. [Aug 2009, p.97]

With the lack of a more complex skill development system, I found the clicky happy combat became repetitive fairly quickly. [May 2007, p.69]

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

Conflict: Denied Ops goes through the motions of first-person-shootage well, but ultimately feels mechanical and outdated. [Mar 2008, p.102]

Adds nothing to a formula that was already looking like a severely ropey one. [June 2008, p.111]

A largely by-the-numbers real-time strategy effort that twinkles but never shines. It's just a little bit too irritating to score highly. [Apr 2007, p.63]

On PC, however, it's an utter travesty. You'd have to be crazier than the Rabbids themselves to buy the PC version of this game. [Feb 2007, p.68]

Boog, the 900lb grizzly bear, would make a good rug and nothing more. [Christmas 2006, p.96]

"Black & White" without the creature, the plot or the bugs. [Dec 2004, p.102]

A film tie-in that's above average for tie-in games, but that only means it deserves to be quietly de-razzed. [Mar 2011, p.108]

An ugly WW2 RTS. Full of text-based mission intros and no joy whatsoever. The controls are clunky, the unit models are thoroughly basic and utterly devoid of any graphical niceties. [May 2007, p.68]

All our fond memories shattered in a heartbreaking instant. [Aug 2006, p.97]

So much jetpack promise, but it's a game seeking a third act. Wait for Just Cause 2 if you fancy absurd airborne adventures. [Feb 2010, p.84]

A reasonable amount of content, but lacking in genuinely new features. [Mar 2006, p.96]

Tolkien must be revolving speedily in his grave. [Apr 2009, p.48]

Dodgy story, also lacking the 3D punch of Homeworld, but a satisfying space opera nonetheless. [May 2007, p.66]

Solid and full of promise, but it never quite delivers the goods. [Christmas 2006, p.96]

As a distraction, it's passable enough, at least at this price. [June 2008, p.112]

Leaves little up to the player apart from pulling the trigger. Repeatedly. [May 2006, p.96]

Challenging, but not always in the right way. Invade elsewhere.

Tense, drawn-out battles ahoy! Combat at sea has never been such fun. [Sept 2006, p.96]

Despite the heavy emphasis on replayability, only the most die-hard fans of the original series will be happy to chase the same car over an identical track again and again for the meagre promise of TV stills and rehashed video clips.

Perfect for people who hate helicopters and simulations. [Dec 2004, p.104]

Nice ideas, poorly executed in the main. Shows some promise online. [Dec 2005, p.96]

If there is an intriguing idea buried within RF Online, it's suffocating. [Apr 2006, p.94]

I could have forgiven this for being a superficial Trek-based shooter if it was at least fun. It's not. [Feb 2007, p.58]

It's riddled with bizarre mini-games. [Dec 2007, p.62]

This is a blunt bronze dagger to the shining steel halberd of "Rome: Total War." [Jan 2005, p.92]

The game boils down to hammering the hit button until all the identikit bad guys have turned red and vanished. It's cack. Avoid. [June 2007, p.64]

Many other games do this better. Play them. [Sept 2010, p.98]

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

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

When you factor in the poor translation, the stupid difficulty and the poor controls it's as much fun as the black death. Hard to be a good game, more like. [Apr 2008, p.115]

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]

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

A textbook - not to mention chastening - exercise in making something inherently fun no fun whatsoever. [Sept 2007, p.60]

Brilliant, human-chewing fun if you like lots of blood and dismembered bodies, with some puzzle-led misiony stuff thrown in. [Feb 2007, p.67]

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

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

A love letter to PC gaming, scrawled in crayon by an alcoholic bigot. Wait for the bargain bin to say goodbye to Duke. [Aug 2011, p.98]

Bluntly, the problem with EA's Create is in the title. It suggests you'll be creating things, with all the imagination and excitement that implies. Instead, Create feels like Little Big Planet, as copied by a robot that one day hopes to know what love is.

Yet another unnecessary and unwarranted poker game. Avoid. [May 2007, p.69]

There's nothing to see here whatsoever. [June 2008, p.111]

Genuinely uninteresting racing. [July 2009, p.94]

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]

Ignore the media furore, and enjoy this as a standalone puzzler. [July 2006, p.97]

It's an awkward strategy game that tries to step out of the turn-based frying pan and ends up in the unplayable-pap fire. [May 2006]

Web of Shadows aims for a sandbox GTA-style open environment, but has neither the verve, nor the technical ability to pull it off. [Jan 2009, p.101]

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

Includes everything you'd want from a game about the 2008 Olympics, apart from the fun gameplay and repression of Tibet bits. [Nov 2008, p.108]

A solo Nightcrawler game could rock, but this team effort is cash-in gibberish. [July 2006, p.100]

In short, just don't. [Oct 2007, p.64]

Like anything this complex, it is by turns brilliant, incredibly frustrating and boring. There's too much information to cope with. [Christmas 2004, p.111]

Gloriously silly. [Oct 2009, p.99]

Darkest of Days has this whole time-travelling, setting-right-what-once-went-wrong schtick. Oh boy. [Dec 2009, p.99]

Eragon bored me almost to tears, and the limp plot utterly failed to keep me pushing on through the pain barrier. [Feb 2007, p.68]

Every bit as boring as it should have been awesome on toast. Button mashing, blandness, and dodgy controls. Zzzz. [Aug 2008, p.105]

Just manages to scrape into the "different enough to be interesting" category. [Oct 2004, p.100]

It's cute in an exploding flatulence kind of way, but the actual gameplay itself is pretty tedious and repetitive. [July 2007, p.70]

You can't out-Diablo "Diablo," so don't try. [Oct 2005, p.92]

If you find your trigger finger itching, you'd better buy yourself a WWII or sci-fi shooter to sate your appetite, because Kuma/War manages to get it very wrong. In every single sense. [Dec 2004, p.101]

A thorough and comprehensive sim. [Oct 2007, p.65]

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

"Prince of Persia's" ugly second cousin. Does not get invited to royal functions. [Nov 2004]

It wasn't fun. [Jan 2010, p.93]

Basically it's not a game, it's still just a tech demo, and a pretty unsuccessful one at that. [July 2007, p.64]

In an age when intelligent, engrossing first person shooters rule the roost, Legendary feels positively ancient. [Jan 2009, p.100]

It looks lovely, but plays like an out-of-tune banjo, thanks to the notorious trial-and-error gameplay. [Sept 2006, p.104]

The game is incredibly awkward to play. [Oct 2004, p.99]

The film tie-in adds interest, but it's too linear and we've seen it all before. [Nov 2006, p.102]

Would have made 70% if not for the atrocious control system.