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

No great shakes, but an awful lot better than "SimCity Societies." [Mar 2008, p.87]

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

Cute but confusing physicsy puzzles for you. [Feb 2009, p.74]

It wants to tell the stories of medieval history, but instead tells the stories of the limitations of modern game development. [May 2008, p.79]

Deal with all these niggles and there's an undeniably fun core of stupidly acrobatic, combo-heavy fighting. DMC4 doesn't move the series on, but when it's firing on all cylinders it's still enough to make you snigger with glee.

Civil war that's harrowing for all the wrong reasons. [Sept 2008, p.91]

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

Don't knock a mark in the 70s. This game IS worth playing. [Aug 2007, p.90]

Not smart or sleek enough to shine. [Sept 2008, p.90]

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

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]

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

It works, but finishing a stage tends to come as a blessed relief rather than something that makes you welcome the next challenge. [Sept 2008, p.89]

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

A weak add-on to an improving game. [Sept 2008, p.92]

A dusty laboratory of puzzling complexity. [Oct 2008, p.91]

A wonderful toy that easily justifies the price. [Sept 2008, p.82]

Comparisons with adventure classic "Psychonauts" are unfavourable. [Oct 2008, p.78]

Honestly, I thought the era of 100% cash-in gaming crap was over. I was wrong. [Sept 2008, p.88]

A racer made of style and substance. [July 2008, p.84]

Despite the criticisms, it's as good as the last couple of Lego outings; slightly better, actually. It just lacks the novelty value. [July 2008, p.76]

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

Remarkably detailed, but desperately needs a tutorial. [Sept 2008, p.95]

Large, engrossing and exquisite. [July 2008, p.68]

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

An excellent piece of fan-service, but the actual game part doesn't stand up to much dispassionate scrutiny. And now, if you're not a Penny Arcade fan, you can't criticize it for that. It's not for you. [June 2008, p.74]

Age of Conan is beautiful, but it's not bold enough. [Aug 2008, p.80]

Just a pretty good indie adventure: the difficulty and pacing are absolutely spot-on, even if the visuals lack the ostentatious fireworks we're used to these days. [June 2009, p.99]

Don't shell out for ol' shellhead. The action-figure is more fun. [Aug 2008, p.79]

A dramatic and ingenious rethink. [July 2008, p.78]

Mediocre and dismally uninspired. [July 2008, p.88]

The Indiana Jones adventure that spent too much time at IKEA. [Apr 2008, p.86]

Rome is so lean and tooltippy, you may not need to open the manual at all. [June 2008, p.82]

With or without others to play with it's a lot of fun. It's just not something to should about from the rooftops. [May 2008, p.82]

Plodding, morose, half-decent puzzles. [Aug 2008, p.86]

The artists are on form, even if the writers are coasting. [June 2008, p.89]

Stealth and free-running are jettisoned: all that is left is a constant barrage of swordfights. It's a disaster, a betrayal of everything the player has learnt so far. It abandons even the slim veneer of choice that the very best games offer us, turning into Double Dragon in a monk's robe.

This is good news for the strategy-is-serious-business crowd, but it makes for a game without much character. [June 2008, p.89]

A startlingly awful interface. [June 2008, p.89]

Obscure II is not gripping enough to be survival horror and not good enough at storytelling to be an adventure; it's just a series of quite relaxing puzzles interrupted when some pink things burst through the wall. [Dec 2007, p.89]

What's perhaps best about Warriors Orochi is that you can play two-player split screen, with the pair of you taking on the entire story mode. [June 2008, p.84]

Broader multiplayer, daft campaign. [May 2008, p.76]

Goodness and gimmickry. [June 2008, p.88]

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

By far one of the funniest S&M episodes for dialogue. [June 2008, p.89]

Think of it as an unofficial add-on. [July 2008, p.80]

Lots of stars, not much sparkle. Stick with "GalCiv II." [June 2008, p.85]

Much like roast dormouse: moreish but unsatisfying. [Apr 2008, p.79]

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

Fun, but not progress. [Apr 2008, p.64]

A mad experiment that mostly pays off. [June 2008, p.86]

A lot of good ideas that are, sadly, very poorly executed. [Dec 2008, p.88]

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.

Shoddy nonsense. [May 2008, p.74]

A quality add-on to revive your habit. [May 2008, p.88]

It's not as life-affirming as "TF2" or as deep as "Quake Wars," but the "Battlefield" fan not into the cartoon war of the coming "Heroes" will find solace here. [May 2008, p.80]

The Club would make a great bonus mode in another game. It's a much harder sell on its own. It's an FPS with the values of a racing game - entire focused on self-improvement and efficiency. [Mar 2008, p.78]

A blissful union of game and music.

As an indie release, it's exactly the kind of thing we like to see - something writing its own rules, and leaving us excited to see just where its ideas go next. [Mar 2008, p.84]

This is better (and easier) than last month's "Maoi Better Blues," but nowhere near as good as "Abe Lincoln Must Die." [Apr 2008, p.83]

Surprisingly competent and fun. [Mar 2008, p.76]

All you expect from a film tie-in, if ever so slightly better. [June 2008, p.81]

A superb idea, let donw by execution. [May 2008, p.86]

Epic in both space and time. [Apr 2008, p.72]

Surreal castaway adventure for more than just Sims fans. [May 2008, p.85]

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

Fun. There's nothing else like it available on PC, either. [Apr 2008, p.86]

What's still missing is "MS Flight Simulator" levels of realism. [Oct 2007, p.87]

It's so fundamentally flawed that most gamers are going to simply bounce right off it. [Mar 2008, p.72]

Atmospheric, pretty and convincing but short of activities. [Christmas 2007, p.95]

Huge, bold, but not particularly savage. [Apr 2008, p.68]

Better, but eight episodes in, it needs to be even better still. [Mar 2008, p.87]

For the price, it's easy to recommend. [Sept 2009, p.89]

Revoltingly poor insult to a wonderful book. Just don't. [Mar 2008, p.81]

I really wanted to like Universe at War far more than I did. It never goes quite far enough, nor delivers the money shot. [Feb 2008, p.68]

Atmospheric and gorgeous, an excellent indie calling card. [Feb 2008, p.83]

I'd like to have seen more impressive rendering of the incredible geography of the continent, but nevertheless: 18 Wheels of Steel, you are weird and brave. We salute you. [Apr 2008, p.79]

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

Addictive as hell, with a splash of awesome-funky-cool-o-rama. [Feb 2008, p.83]

Lumbering sports behemoth. [Feb 2008, p.72]

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

Nothing more than a merely adequate shooter. [Christmas 2007, p.66]

You're just here for the Swayze puns, you filthy slut. [July 2008, p.89]

This is UT3's contribution to the formula: spectacle, drama, mad heroics. Hurling yourself on the enemy Orb like it's a live grenade, dodging bullets on the hoverboard as you escape with the flag, bailing from an explosive bike aimed at the enemy's star player, and yeah, hanging from a flying metal octopus. That's why it's essential, even in spite of the AI shortcomings.

It's an agreeably straightforward 2D arcade game in shiny 3D disguise, experimenting with extraneous limbs while it tries to establish exactly what it should evolve into. [Dec 2007, p.86]

Cheap, brief, hard-to-control thrills. [Feb 2008, p.74]

Modern Tactics reminds me why I loved the series, but also reminds me why I moved on to rivals such as "Combat Mission" (slower, smarter) and "Firefight" (sleeker, smarter). [Feb 2008, p.79]

Mindless violence in all the right ways. [Feb 2008, p.82]

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

A spectacular and beautiful sci-fi epic. [Christmas 2007, p.78]

Without the old brill, open world and silly plot, ProStreet's mediocrity has no place to hide. [Jan 2008, p.76]

Sweet ideas, very poorly balanced.

It made me tear my own arm off. [Jan 2008, p.84]

Why on Earth would you learn to play real guitar when you can play this? [Jan 2008, p.72]

It reeks of lazy Xbox conversion from the flat graphics and poor physics to the lack of explanation as to what to do. [Aug 2008, p.89]

Repetitive, old-fashioned. [Jan 2008, p.86]

A stout strategy yeoman. [Apr 2008, p.78]