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

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

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]

A tiresome, half-arsed effort. [Feb 2007, p.88]

It's certainly never short of ideas, but inept execution sends Pirates of Black Cove toppling off the gangplank. [Nov 2011, p.134]

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]

Great ides, then, and if only the execution had matched it we might have had a contest in the world of PC golf. [Dec 2006, p.98]

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

Great sniping, great sneaking, and several grueling missions where you can do neither. [Sept 2010, p.104]

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

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

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

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]

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

Despite awkward graphics, it uses classic adventure themes to craft a mystery and a world worth exploring. [July 2014, p.72]

This isn't an awful game, but it is an unnecessary one: "Secret Weapons over Normandy" and "Heroes of the Pacific" have full air superiority in this sector. [Aug 2006, p.91]

True Crime is a trashy, lazily converted, shamelessly derivative and occasionally buggy game where you get to crash cars and hit people a lot. On those terms, I rather enjoyed it. [Sept 2006, p.94]

Your enemies are so blindingly accurate, and damage so extreme, you're often slowing time merely to peek around the corner. [Dec 2006, p.99]

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

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

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

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

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]

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]

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

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

A decent enough online shooter. If you really need another one. [Apr 2007, p.89]

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]

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

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]

A few clever mechanics and great weapons against a backdrop of surprisingly immersive Civil War and WWII battles. [Oct 2009, p.87]

It's tedious beyond belief, has a plot that must have been ripped from the Eragon junior colouring book and action scenes that makes me cry. And they've gimped the dragons. [Jan 2007, p.80]

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]

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

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

Doesn't wander far enough from the path to make it worth picking up over the other, more content-filled MMOs. [Oct 2011, p.88]

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

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]

A puzzle game that plays like Portal and does everything else like Ed Wood. Enthusiastic, but it's not high-art. [Dec 2009, p.93]

A poor substitute for more focused action or strategy. [Apr 2012, p.116]

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

The 16 campaign sorties feel so HAWXian so Ace Combatish, you'll swear you've flown them before. [June 2012, p.101]

Thankfully, the designers chose to drive down a more unusual route. For the price of the ride, especially, it's worth a spin... Team-based racing with a difference. [Apr 2006, p.92]

It poorly combines the micro-management of Men of War with the pacing and tactics of Company of Heroes. [Apr 2011, p.83]

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]

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]

Psychonauts did brain-delving better. Serious Sam did campy horde-killing better. For this price, you could buy both. Twice. [Christmas 2009, p.111]

Forgivably unoriginal roleplaying. [Dec 2006, p.82]

Frustrating for newcomers and disappointing for veterans, Stronghold 3 is a combat overhaul away from being any good.

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

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

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

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]

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

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

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

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

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

Ghostbusting isn't a challenge. [June 2011, p.87]

Glitchy and under-developed, it never ascends beyond ordinary. [Aug 2006, p.95]

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

An awful vision of strategy's future. [May 2009, p.69]

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

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

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

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]

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

No shock, just schlock. Almost impressively dreadful. [May 2009, p.67]

Shoddy nonsense. [May 2008, p.74]