Dumbed down; drawn out; deeply annoying. [Jan 2009, p.84]

The explosions and spells look lovely, but the game itself is drudgery. [June 2009, p.89]

Spoiled by repetition and muddle. [Jan 2007, p.100]

Dark, moody, and full of hate. Your reviewer the day after the diary puzzle. [Aug 2008, p.89]

Lots of swearing as you protect a world that hates and fears you. [Aug 2006, p.85]

Pointless but not worthless. [Jan 2008, p.74]

Basically eight new maps for Majesty 2. [July 2010, p.91]

Night of the living dud. [July 2007, p.86]

Same old niche, now with less freedom. [July 2008, p.74]

A free MMO whose ingenuity does little more than simply streamline what we've seen elsewhere. [July 2010, p.104]

When a game makes you alternate between screaming and laughing out loud at its faults, the rewards aren't worth the struggle. [Apr 2008, p.71]

It's repetitive, mindless, claustrophobically linear, over-stylised and incoherent. [June 2009, p.93]

Dull sporting minigames, not made for the PC. [Nov 2008, p.93]

Disjointed and muddled, wth embarrassingly bad acting. [May 2007, p.83]

Too clever for its own good. [Jan 2008, p.80]

Too tough for tykes, too dull for adults. It's not a looker either. [Oct 2008, p.78]

Depressing, derivative movie cash-in. [Sept 2007, p.88]

Despite its clumsy handling of some issues, Journal has clever moments. [May 2014, p.91]

Four pretty but stale multiplayer arenas. One comedy zombie map. Eleven of your pounds wasted. [Nov 2011, p.122]

An idea tangled in shoddy design. [Oct 2006, p.86]

Badly ported and badly dated. Not a game for the PC at all. [Oct 2008, p.91]

Pretty, but frustrating pokery fiddliness wrecks this game. [Aug 2007, p.81]

The bulk of JULIA feels like an attempt to pad out the story. [May 2012, p.111]

The worst thing is that you can't skip the dialogue. [July 2010, p.91]

And now, dressed up in this sorry state, trying to excuse itself like a dad in a night club, there's not even that to defend it. [May 2006, p.97]

This game has been spread too thinly: while initially engaging, it quickly becomes repetitive and dull. [June 2012, p.87]

A tragically flawed LucasArts tribute. [Jan 2009, p.80]

It's got decent spaceship sections and charmingly bad dialogue, but don't expect quality or compelling action. [Apr 2011, p.96]

Bluntly, depth doesn't automatically mean satisfaction, and even within this very small strategy niche, "Europa Universalis II" is a much better choice if this is the kind of warmongering that floats your trireme. [May 2006, p.93]

It's distractingly unrealistic rather than joyously cartoonish. [July 2007, p.89]

Even if the final chapter justifies the journey, this leg of it is sadly lifeless. [June 2013, p.97]

What Chaos Unleashed adds is solid, but there's nothing essential enough to warrant fighting against the game's lazy matchmaking system. [Mar 2012, p.117]

Even the best moments of parody are undermined by the fact that it simply isn't as good as the games it mocks. Shame. [Feb 2012, p.101]

Another fine idea choked by the grind. [Christmas 2006, p.72]

The result is the entire game feeling like a tutorial, with only one proper level to play at the end. [June 2009, p.93]

The big picture is impressive, but if the devil is in the details, this is his pitchfork jabbed right up your fundament. [Aug 2009, p.86]

Bizarrely creaky tech masks nice ideas. [May 2009, p.66]

This is a weak port. [Feb 2010, p.85]

A delightful dream devolves into a nightmare of poor controls and awkward movement. [Dec 2009, p.92]

Just as frustrating is the shoddy timing and placement of enemies. [Dec 2006, p.74]

A wheezing hybrid that can only frustrate. [Aug 2007, p.70]

Order of war is irrefutable proof pretty Panzers are no longer enough. [Dec 2009, p.91]

Another middle-of-the-road glimpse of the future. [Feb 2009, p.71]

Remarkably basic. [May 2012, p.105]

A waste of time; dull and shoddy, Back to the Future fails to deliver on anything that made the movies so much fun.

Too much is crude or dysfunctional, and with no stellar ambition to justify it. [Christmas 2013, p.83]

Red River takes all the things the Flashpoint name is associated with – creative, emergent destruction and go-anywhere realism – and lets them wash away. It tries to be a bombastic shooter, but dodgy AI, a warren of bugs and an unpleasant tone mean the few gulps of fun you could draw from its waters are to be taken in multiplayer only.

An attempt to remake the pretty-looking shambler - with no effort to improve the balance of game systems or iron out bugs. [July 2013, p.80]

A big, detailed database wrapped in a friendly UI, then wasted on an unresponsive and inaccurate pitch simulator. [Jan 2012, p.122]

A by-the-numbers cover shooter punctuated by mind-numbing hacking minigames and woeful space combat. [July 2013, p.92]

Fails to excel. [Nov 2014, p.95]

Extreme patience and a deep seated conviction that life is cruel will dig through to layered and varied experience. [Aug 2009, p.89]

Despite a respectable turn-out by the film's cast for new voices, none of Pixar's magic remains. [Apr 2006, p.95]

Stuffy science fiction nonsense without a scrap of humour. [Sept 2008, p.91]

Disappointment. [Sept 2010, p.103]

Great style but absolutely no substance. [Christmas 2006, p.70]

You've no reason to buy this. [May 2006, p.88]

The puzzles are mediocre, the controls are too sluggish, the animal behaviour too abstract and the humour either non-existent or gratifyingly dad-like. [June 2009, p.101]

It's sterile, it's empty, and has no sense of fun. [June 2011, p.95]

This promising material is all remorselessly forced through the sausage-grinder of inept execution... About as much fun as having your ear cut off. [Nov 2006, p.77]

Occasionally satisfying combat can't overcome a bland world, unbalanced skills and obtuse crafting systems. What a mess.

Dull, repetitive missions and a whiny hero. Super this ain't. [Jan 2009, p.89]

A ghastly mess of bad design decisions that brings out the worst in user-made content. Not worth it. [Sept 2009, p.78]

Ancient oriental arts turned into a pointless pyjama party. [June 2008, p.89]

It's very pretty, but for a game so enamoured with the action, it never clicks. [Jan 2012, p.141]

Why must Star Wars get all the good games? [Jan 2010, p.102]

If you're going to ask someone to continuously pay money to be able to play your game, you're going to have to provide one hell of a decent shooter. And not, let's say, something that looks and feels like a weak "Quake II" clone. Yeah, you read that right. "Quake II." [Mar 2008, p.82]

If only it had set its sights on capturing the same sense of fun. [May 2007, p.80]

What's just not funny becomes sandpaper pants irritating when delivered in broken English. [May 2011, p.97]

An average idea made even worse by the poor execution. [Aug 2006, p.81]

Higgledy-bonkers point-and-click nonsense. From hell. [Dec 2007, p.85]

A very flat, slow series of mouse clicks, only interrupted by the unlpleasant appearance of test papers based on what you've just played. [May 2006, p.97]

Another lazy, cynical cash-in made by people who don't care. [Jan 2008, p.81]

Inflexible controls. [Dec 2012, p.107]

Offline tedium, online repetition. [Apr 2008, p.82]

A festering pustule of dreadfulness. [June 2006, p.97]

Snail-paced frozen nonsense. [Apr 2009, p.66]

Stay away. [July 2011, p.98]

The game beneath is distinctly below par and none of the story missions, or indeed the side quests, managed to grab my attention or imagination. [Oct 2009, p.79]

Sadly, this sequel is a lesser game in almost every way. [May 2009, p.68]

A serviceable compilation wrapped in a dodgy console conversion. [May 2012, p.87]

Struggles to impress beyond its visuals. [March 2015, p.97]

A cheap and soulless victim of its own lofty ambition. [Oct 2006, p.91]

Stiff, confused. [Jan 2009, p.70]

Almost - but not entirely - worthless. [Aug 2008, p.70]

Shank is a visually attractive but completely shallow excuse for a 2D brawler game. Frustrating combat doesn't help.

The whole DLC feels hastily cobbled together to the people who foolishly bought the season pass. [July 2013, p.97]

Shoddy nonsense. [May 2008, p.74]

An agonisingly unimaginative adventure game acting as a gateway to a puzzle game based purely on cracking safes. [Aug 2007, p.92]

Unbelievably repetitive and shallow. [July 2009, p.85]

Well and truly eclipsed by the passage of RTS history. [Feb 2008, p.79]

With the cumbersome camera controls, you end up just wishing they'd hurry up and escape already. [Apr 2008, p.71]

Comprehensive enough, but the laughable inconsistencies make FIFA Manager 13 impossible to take seriously as a sim. [Christmas 2012, p.102]

Smug, poorly made, and incredibly frustrating to play, they managed the fearfully but not the wonderfully made. [Apr 2007, p.86]

A short burst of too easy fun at too high a price. [Feb 2012, p.93]

What the f..k were they thinking? [Sept 2009, p.79]

Why am I empty, then? Perhaps because this crass, banal, unchallenging belch of a first person shooter has left me that way, groaning and giggling like a mental patient. [Nov 2007, p.72]

Woefully dated and underwritten sub-"Diablo" hack-slashery. [June 2006, p.81]