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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An absolutely worthless addition to the game. [Apr 2010, p.107]

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

Disappointment. [Sept 2010, p.103]

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

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

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

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]

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

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

Stay away. [July 2011, p.98]

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

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.

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

Even if it wasn't catastrophically broken, HAWX 2 would be a hard game to get particularly excited about. [Jan 2011, p.96]

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

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]

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

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

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

World War One with zombies somehow ends up being no fun. [Apr 2009, p.81]

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

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

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

The opening battles are simply too difficult to play. [Aug 2007, p.91]

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

I slept with the mailman then insulted his performance. It had no affect on the game. I spent the first day in bra and panties, even while having lunch in someone else's home. No one noticed. I can only suggest you tune into something else instead.

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 depressing and shoddy misfire of a World War II sneak-'em-up. [July 2009, p.84]

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

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

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]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Childish, repetitive and ill-considered. [Feb 2007, p.80]

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

Madly repetitive, flaky and incessantly dull third-person action. Not even Olivia Wilde can save this clumsy movie tie-in.

Simply getting things done is a grating process. [Christmas 2011, p.107]

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

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

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

A tedious, irritating waste of promising material. [Oct 2006, p.87]

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

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

Contains reprocessed parts. Little nutritional value. [July 2007, p.87]

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

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]

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

Promising ideas completely wasted. [Oct 2007, p.78]

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

Petty, nasty and anachronistic. Duke is only relevant as a warning from the past. Avoid these mistakes, developers. [Aug 2011, p.76]

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

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

Deliberately obtuse is just frustrating. [July 2009, p.76]

The worst way to experience this story. [July 2006, p.86]

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]

Weak riff on "Elite"'s trading with zero long-term appeal. [Mar 2009, p.75]

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

There's enough of the terrible stuff to drown out the scant few passable bits. [Mar 2012, p.117]

A game that offers all the TV characters but gives you impersonators for the voices is a cheap, nasty rip-off. That is Lost Via Domus. Avoid it like you would Season 4 spoilers.

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

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

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

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]

An 80-year-old mystery wearing the skin of a teenage boy. Ew. [Feb 2009, p.71]

Not even those who know their peleton from their paceline will have the stamina to endure this baffling, alienating sim. [Sept 2007, p.89]

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

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

Truly awful - one of the worst adventure games in years. [Aug 2008, p.87]

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

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]

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

It shouldn't be imaginable for a game to be released in this state. It's an insult to you that they think they can get away with it. [Oct 2006, p.99]

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

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

The fact is, you must bring so much effort to the PCM equation - a simple interest in bikes won't do - that it's hard to think of it as a game. It's hard to think of it at all. [Sept 2008, p.95]

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]

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

Unfinished, unpolished. [May 2012, p.87]

An utterly atrocious mess. [Feb 2008, p.78]

Extreme is ugly, clunky, and lacking in any defensible reason why you should want to waste money on it. [Aug 2008, p.74]

Date, deserted, and drepressing. [Sept 2007, p.81]

This cheap, tacky space combat sim is a stinking mess, insulting the name of the series merely by presuming to associate itself with it. [Mar 2008, p.83]

Insultingly banal. [Nov 2009, p.100]

I feel only sorrow and embarrassment from having spent a bank holiday Monday wrestling with such garbage. [Aug 2007, p.92]