Aesthetically, emotionally, narratively and in terms of the interactions it demands, Supreme Commander is hard. [Jan 2008, p.82]

The PC version of Gears of War is absolutely the definitive take on one of the most talked about games of the last few years. [Christmas 2007, p.70]

Too fiddly for a casual player and not rigorous enough for those used to Football Manager's depth. [Christmas 2007, p.86]

A container full of bloody FEAR jam. [Christmas 2007, p.92]

One of the better sandbox games in existence. [Jan 2008, p.70]

A beautifully crafted first-person shooter, but without a compelling context. How much does that matter? To me, a little. Not a lot, but it nags. [Dec 2007, p.73]

Hellgate: London hooked me, and I think it'll do the same to a lot of other players. But no matter how much I adore its juicy roleplaying sub-systems, I can't get past its wobbly core game. [Dec 2007, p.52]

While it's an MMO, it managed to make me forget it was, and I started treating it just as a wonderful place to explore, full of monsters to shoot, friends to defend and stuff to pick up. In other words, a world. Which was always the idea of this genre, but I'd lost the ability to see it in a fog of numbers and impeccably managed levelling curves.

An RPG in poor action-game disguise. [Christmas 2007, p.90]

It's yesterday's testosterone nonsense clad in today's slickness, and savvy about the nature of fun. [Christmas 2007, p.84]

With no clear improvement in graphics, it's hard to see this as more than last year's game with this year's roster. [Christmas 2007, p.95]

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

If the AI worked as it was intended, and if there was a cover system beyond "stand behind that pillar and the splash damage 'might' not kill you," Jericho would be great. But it doesn't, there isn't, and it's not. [Dec 2007, p.82]

Some nice ideas, but a mere damp squib as a spellbinder. [July 2007, p.79]

Without doubt, it is the most realistic, rewarding and compelling football title around, so we can only hope that this prosaic update is a blip, rather than a sign of serious stagnation.

It's an exciting business, but not one for fainthearts or fumblers. [Christmas 2007, p.76]

One for hardcore online fans only. [Christmas 2007, p.95]

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]

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]

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

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

Get "Legion Arena" instead. [July 2007, p.88]

A splendid puzzle made glorious on PC. [Apr 2008, p.70]

Rich, gorgeous and endlessly fun.

Episode Two is the most sumptuous chapter of the Half-Life saga, and by a country mile. It's as if Valve's tech and art teams are trying to outdo each other: the Source engine has had a striking technical overhaul that renders textures, materials and curves uncannily well, and the artists clearly relish having a fresh palette to work with.

Portal is a magnificent puzzle game. The titillating wrongness of every solution and the wonky thinking required to get there make you feel like a space-folding genius, and yet you'll almost never get stuck.

If only it could have retained its sense of humour, this would be really good stuff. [Dec 2007, p.90]

It has to be that AI again. It just feels too rigid, too tediously functional to capture the sheer fluid exuberance of football. [Dec 2007, p.78]

Much better than last year's effort. The improvements come through broadening the experience rather than heightening the quality. [Dec 2007, p.62]

It's a game with relentless pace, but where flanking, careful sniping, and support actions are all a part of a successful co-operative experience.

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

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

Take Queen's Gambit as a harbiner that the original is now worth playing. If and when you've exhausted that, then this is waiting for you. [Dec 2007, p.58]

In terms of fulfilling what "Settlers" has always promised - building a city - it's true to its word. It just needs a bit more vim and vigour to it. [Dec 2007, p.68]

Despite the 'semi-sequel' tag, there's as much here as the original game. This isn't like the expansion packs we knew in the past. This is World War, Too. [Dec 2007, p.64]

Enormously entertaining combat in gorgeous settings. [Jan 2008, p.85]

If the imaginative approach of the Hong Kong levels could have reached Chicago. I'd be hoarse from cheering. As it is, I'm smiling with nostalgia for those days of four hours ago. [Oct 2007, p.80]

It's entirely its own creature and brilliant. [Nov 2007, p.74]

What could have been an exercise in heart-pounding stealth is just dreary and mechanical. [Apr 2008, p.83]

Galactic Assault: Prisoner of Power is a slick hex wargame that wears its theme like a chimpanzee wears a trilby (reluctantly and unconvincingly). Besides the names of the factions, units and characters, there's almost nothing here of the dark, distinctive source material. [Dec 2007, p.84]

A perfectly adequate console port. [Nov 2007, p.84]

If "Hellgate" left you with deep wounds of despair, this is the healing potion for you. [June 2008, p.80]

We've seen wide open singleplayer FPS games before, but they've never had this pace or this lust for physical player freedom where every building and every rooftop has been designed to work like a bullet playground. [Oct 2007, p.68]

Luckily, this expansion pack does the series proud. [Dec 2007, p.88]

In short, not bad for a game where you still can't jump. And you don't need to. So there.

There's almost no reason not to mount your horse and charge through the doors of PC World, beheading the security guard with a Zweihander and screaming blood-oaths as you enter your pin number, to get hold of a copy of Kingdoms. Only the weak will not be buying this expansion pack, and frankly, the weak are there to be trampled. [Sept 2007, p.82]

A great big walloping drive of a golf game. [Nov 2007, p.78]

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

Two Worlds is worth a play, but only if you've exhausted the competition. And invested in ear plugs for when the characters start talking. [Aug 2007, p.88]

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

A dark and astonishing masterpiece...I spend my career, and my gaming life, waiting for a moment when a game just astonishes me, when I can't believe what I'm seeing, what I'm <I>doing</I>. BioShock has five. [Sept 2007, p.66]

Still a solid sports sim, but more features means less fun. [Nov 2007, p.78]

Insta-fun air combat, daft and pleasing.

The new elements it adds feel more like a patch than a genuine expansion whilst the mods are hit and miss - and you can already get the best ones for nothing. Would I want to go back to playing Civ IV without what Beyond the Sword adds? No. But should I have to pay this much for the privilege of balancing a game that, by the very intent of this expansion, its developers clearly feel needs it? Again, no.

Where a game like "SWAT4" manages to be fun, GRAW2 just feels a little bit too much like hard work. The fireworks don't crackle with the kind of spectacle we're paying for, and there just isn't enough juicy meat on the tactical bones for us to regard this as a feast. [Aug 2007, p.74]

The dark addictiveness of levelling is as strong here as anywhere. [Oct 2007, p.85]

This is not the most convincing military sim ever, but it's a good approximation of grinding boredom followed by sudden death - and a virtually unplayable game. [Aug 2007, p.86]

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

If Overlord is a villain, then it's one of those buffoon-ish sidekicks in a Disney movie. It tries and tries hard to be dark, to carry out depraved deeds and thwart the heroes. But it just can't help but cutely (and it is cute) bumble every attempt, conform to cliches at every chance, and grin gently at its own sophomoric humour. [July 2007, p.82]

It's brief enough and silly enough that it never stops being dumb, no-strings fun. Even when your VS becomes capable of barely-steerable flight and unbearably slow-to-recharge energy swords, y'know, it's still a flying robot with swords. Also, a generically Xboxian art style aside, it often looks fantastic, the motion blur and haze of snow especially.

Empty-souled, dated GTA clone. [Aug 2007, p.84]

You'll smile at the logic of the solution. [Oct 2007, p.86]

Hacky port that bleongs on consoles. [Sept 2007, p.80]

New ideas save this buggy oddity from walking the plank...just. [Aug 2007, p.87]

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

It forms a natural companion to "Richard Burns Rally," which will likely remain the more technical racer's weapon of choice. In many ways, DiRT supersedes it, the sheer viscerality of hte roads putting the shoe to anything the older game can offer. [Aug 2007, p.78]

A great pedigree - you'll be hooked on this like grade A catnip. [Sept 2007, p.89]

When was the last time you played a game where you could make your horse slide down the face of a cliff, shooting with the six-gun in your left hand while reading from the Bible in your right? [Oct 2006, p.84]

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

Not pretty, plump, or progressive, CaW succeeds in spite of itself. The gripping subject matter, the refreshing absence of turns, and the fact that victory and defeat are often just a couple of bomb or torpedo hits away, combine to produce pace and levels of excitement you don't often find in hardcore wargames.

It's clearly worthy of the spit and polish it's received. [July 2007, p.70]

Apathy-inducing hospital undrama. [July 2007, p.74]

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

Unless a badly placed hemline is enough to ruin your whole week, this add-on pack won't change your life, just the style of your Sim's flares. [Sept 2007, p.89]

Not as bad as you'd fear, not as good as you'd secretly hope. [May 2008, p.90]

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]

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

It's only really good for two or three novelty-endowed playthroughs. [Aug 2007, p.72]

Halo 2, you see, isn't truly awful, it's just achingly, repulsively mediocre, with a galumphing, clumsy story, poorly orchestrated action and bad music. It lacks bombast to the point where the nuclear destruction of a city on Earth doesn't seem all that dramatic. [June 2006, p.80]

A great game system, a lack of levels. [Aug 2007, p.66]

Completely broken and utterly idiotic in almost every way. [Aug 2007, p.91]

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]

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

Harmless, mindless fun. [May 2007, p.88]

Worryingly enjoyable, but eventually runs out of steam. [May 2006, p.89]

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

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

ArmA will get better; at the moment, it's too broken to wholly recommend. [Mar 2007, p.80]

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.

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

For all its worthiness it's fairly dry in terms of action. [July 2007, p.90]

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

Aimless and unfunny - a terrible way to end the series. [July 2007, p.79]

This is a game which takes absolutely no risks, as much Middle-of-the-Road as Middle-Earth...You won't be surprised. You will, almost certainly, be entertained. [June 2007, p.70]

Grossly predictable. [June 2007, p.84]

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

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

A hunk of old Russian bread: bland, hard, faintly nutritious. [June 2007, p.83]