You've played it before. [Apr 2007, p.96]

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

Fun, but frustratingly contrived. [May 2009, p.62]

A solid Motocross racing game that skids and falls flat on its face in the mud when it tries anything else. [May 2012, p.90]

A terrible port of a recycled series, but still remains as funny as ever.

It's laser-focused on delivering a tense, one-on-one game, but its rewards are blurred under no-frills packaging and a too-serious demeanour. [Feb 2010, p.85]

Nor is Splatters terribly engaging. [Oct 2013, p.77]

A brave attempt at a promising genre, but not hard-boiled enough to earn the traditional $25 a day plus expenses. [Jan 2012, p.120]

Resembles its zombies - pulpy and brainless. [Jan 2014, p.99]

Soapily melodramatic, inconspicuous consumption. [Apr 2007, p.100]

Custom BFGs keep it more BFE than BFD, but the modern successor to games like Contra and Abuse this is not. [Nov 2011, p.136]

Monster may very well love you, but it will probably have to get used to you simply liking it back. [June 2013, p.92]

The problem with discussing MirrorMoon EP is that the fun (and frustration) of it lies in discovering for yourself what you have to do, how, and why. Good luck with that last part - it still eludes me. [Feb 2014, p.91]

Unlikely ever to fuel frenetic action akin to Galcon, or plumb great strategic depths. [Apr 2012, p.121]

What really keeps me from recommending Afterlight, however, is the repetition of its bases. The relative simplicity of the fights, married to returning to the same locale time and time again, means the game is simply not thrilling enough.

Fails to match "Lego Star Wars" for charm. [Jan 2007, p.98]

Stylish, somewhat hypnotic and sporadically satisfying. [March 2013, p.95]

The large-scale RTS combat can be fun and the game flourishes aesthetically in some of the bigger areas, but life is too short to spend our time on games lacking spirit, spunk and novelty. [June 2006, p.94]

A few too many flaws in the basic design to ever by anything more than a waypoint to the next soldier sim. [July 2006, p.88]

Better than Oblivion's DLC, but save your money for now. [Apr 2009, p.71]

Neither the need or the speed. [Jan 2009, p.82]

What starts out unforgettable, ends up feeling disposable. [June 2012, p.111]

Uninspired campaign approach. [Christmas 2010, p.103]

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]

It has grown in scale and scope, and become a worse game a result. [Dec 2013, p.83]

Vestigial mechanics wrapped around a dated tactical shooter. Play this for the VIP Car Escort mode. [July 2013, p.86]

It's sweet and simple enough, but with that, remarkably shallow. [Oct 2007, p.87]

Competent swords-and-sorcery excursion minus vital soul. [Mar 2009, p.69]

Technically a step backwards, but solid enough to scratch the itch of those desperate for another Neverwinter night. [Aug 2009, p.82]

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

While offering tough, sometimes entertaining miniature races, it fails to match its own past. [Aug 2006, p.94]

Sam and Max's twisted world is captured near-perfectly in the art, which makes the disappointments in the dialogue and puzzles all the more acute. [Dec 2006, p.92]

Far too shallow to hold your attention for long. [March 2015, p.92]

There is a certain charm to Anno 1404's dinky people going about their business, and a lot of pretty detail to revel in, but this familiar collection of well-worn elements only preaches to the converted, offering little to attract new believers.

It's Product Football. And in that order. Maybe next year, eh? [Christmas 2008, p.70]

Broken World feels cheerless and sloppy compared to its glossier parent, and the fact that it even exists, so long after DSII and so resolutely aimed only at folk who've played that to death, is something of a mystery. [Nov 2006, p.92]

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

Throw in flaky pathfinding and a frustratingly close-up camera and EE3 took me dangerously close to angry letter-writing. [Jan 2008, p.78]

This is actually technically inferior to the console versions, and it badly hurts the experience. Just because it works on the PC doesn't make it a PC game - ask for your fiver back, Capcom. [Apr 2007, p.84]

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

It's a worthy and handsome effort, but frustratingly badly explained, making it hard to play.

All of which leaves this expansion pack as probably the least essential yet. It won't disappoint any fans, sure, but there's little to make lapsed devotees come in from the cold. [May 2007, p.89]

Remains a pretty and obscure artifact of narrow gaming tastes. [Jan 2007, p.92]

A shadow of the awesome original. [Nov 2008, p.70]

Inventive, but ultimately overshadowed by the big boys. [May 2006, p.81]

Unless you're already wrung every last drop of fun out of the outstanding "Combat Mission" trilogy (unlikely), I wouldn't bother braving this Winter Storm. [Oct 2006, p.87]

Another uninteresting slog around the World of Wehrmacht. [Jan 2007, p.104]

It's fun, and a treat for the JCB-obsessed little-ones. [Jan 2011, p.99]

Two cool new brawling modes with no upper limit on challenges. That's worth 2 quid if you're getting seriously good. [Apr 2012, p.98]

Fair challenges, but a backward step for the series. [Christmas 2008, p.70]

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

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

X3: TC's inability to progress beyond its series template is painfully clear [Dec 2008, p.82]

Does absolutely nothing with this age-old genre. [Mar 2012, p.113]

The shallow mechanics and technical problems make this one to avoid at full price. [Mar 2011, p.97]

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]

Late, and lacklustre in key areas. [July 2007, p.78]

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

A braver studio would have developed C2's stunted naval dimension, or shifted the campaign focus to a novel location like the Caribbean or North America. [Sept 2006, p.102]

A charming physics puzzler that's ultimately too lightweight for grown-ups. [Feb 2011, p.106]

A pretty shell for a game that's pretty lacking. Not much fun. [Aug 2007, p.92]

Painfully clunky and predictable, but put another way, it's also nostalgic and deeply charming. [July 2007, p.90]

Grossly predictable. [June 2007, p.84]

The MoW formula still satisfies, but familiar units and a stale setting leave this swansong feeling superfluous. [June 2012, p.94]

Wherever you look, something is missing. [Oct 2007, p.74]

With a bit more seasoning, it could have been delicious. [Apr 2014, p.83]

A genuinely beautiful place crawling with magnificent beasts, host to interminable hours of mindless, soulless grind. [Dec 2009, p.110]

Wacky before funny, showing no signs of progress. [Jan 2008, p.81]

"Quotation Forthcoming"

A bountiful adventure game with a lot of personality, but one that suffers from its own ambition. [June 2013, p.82]

Right up to date - the date being 2002. [Jan 2009, p.77]

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

Feels like a showcase of a brilliant game mechanic, but that doesn't excuse the sparseness of the game around it. [Feb 2012, p.99]

You can rip off a 7-year-old game and still fall short of your ambition. [Oct 2007, p.87]

Intellectually barren space RPG. [Oct 2008, p.80]

A different take on tower defence, but one that needed more thought before being released on an unsuspecting public. [June 2012, p.110]

Enough Car Goes Bang, but not enough basic bang for your buck. [Apr 2006, p.78]

Essentially, this is "Strike Fighters" in hotpants and platform heels. [Dec 2006, p.95]

A visually impressive shooter, fine with friends, but avoid this if you're going to be on your own or reliant on randoms.

Only WRC fans will persevere here. [Christmas 2010, p.97]

Essentially a very promising tech demo. [Christmas 2009, p.110]

Frequent crashes and easy exploits make Gratuitous Space Battles 2 quite the superfluous sequel, ironically. [July 2015, p.86]

A lazy, uninspired update. [Christmas 2006, p.84]

Some nice touches, but lethargic AI, performance issues, and personality - deficient premiers make the ruling gruelling. [Nov 2011, p.120]

A beautiful alternative to the standard MMO, but unlikely to draw you away from more structured questing for long. [May 2012, p.88]

The good part of all this is, the game is very rarely boring. What's happening onscreen is always dumb, sometimes infuriating and often crap, but there's always something happening. [Feb 2007, p.72]

Hard to recommend, as it doesn't really do anything especially well. [Aug 2009, p.79]

A mess, but an interesting one. [July 2007, p.76]

Procedurally generated levels and items offer plenty of possibilities, but if they're not guided by a designer's hand, it's always going to feel amateur. [Apr 2013, p.109]

More rebel yelp than rebel yell. [Jan 2009, p.88]

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]

Far too little new content for your very few bucks. Ho hum. [Apr 2007, p.89]

This is a low-rent clone, barely an improvement, without a soul to call its own. [Aug 2007, p.80]

Mediocre turn-based vampire-battling from the Old Country. [Nov 2006, p.98]

It's great that it's varied, and the penguins are madly cute, but there's no sense of pacing. [Jan 2007, p.104]

A less than great RPG-shooter that you may still love to pieces, but keep a pack if aspirin on hand just in case. [Nov 2011, p.140]

Struggles for relevance as a commercial game. [Sept 2012, p.109]

Superb artistic design, broken game. [Oct 2007, p.76]