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

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]

SimBin have concentrated their efforts exactly where it counts - on the driving itself. And what they've created is the finest, most complete racing sim ever. [Oct 2006, p.78]

Defcon is an equation that looks simple but can never quite be solved, and it always leaves you scratching your chin, your mind bristling with ideas for new atrocities to engineer. [Nov 2006, p.70]

Too garage for its own good. [Christmas 2006, p.80]

It's a game that has a Nazi in a gyrocopter as one of your enemies: that's all I really need to say. [Nov 2006, p.82]

The backstory turns out to be garbled, annoying claptrap. Getting kids to design your civs is inspired. Getting them to concoct your plots is less wise. [Nov 2006, p.78]

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

A shame, then, that much of your time is spent wrestling with a defiantly hobbled control system. [Dec 2006, p.76]

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]

The core game remains unchanged, the AI still quirky, the music ace, and the commentary surprisingly intricate and relevant. [Dec 2006, p.101]

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

This is the finest WWII strategy game I've played. Hell, I'm having real trouble thinking of <I>any</I> strategy game that's this spectacular, this intense, this <I>fun</I>. [Oct 2006, p.70]

For all the action, for all the explosions, for all the adamantium-spined squad members, it's really not for the impatient - but if you don't mind fighting the control system as much as the Krauts, it's a refreshingly different take on what was rapidly becoming a tired setting. [Nov 2006, p.74]

I suspect that somewhere in Joint Task Force there's a 90% game dying to break out. But at the moment, it's pinned down under enemy fire. [Nov 2006, p.88]

There's some superb gaming here, no sci-fi indulgence, no grim Star Wars fanboyism, no recourse to statistics or tedious switch. This is an action-puzzle game for all brains great and small. [Oct 2006, p.94]

A sturdy series well rethought, but it needs a gamepad. [Dec 2006, p.114]

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

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

Great style but absolutely no substance. [Christmas 2006, p.70]

Terraforming insanity imbued with a clunky wonder. [Dec 2006, 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]

Funnier still is the influence meter. [Dec 2006, p.101]

An impressive endeavor for a small group of first-time devs with a shoestring budget, but as much as it feels like kicking puppies to say so, not a product worth your money. [June 2006, p.82]

Not quite as exciting as the title might suggest. [Sept 2006, p.103]

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

It's clear that Darkstar One is the most amusing space game in many months. It's just a shame that it weighs in like a cash starved version of "Freelancer," without any particularly inventive ideas to back up its broad scope and sense of ambition. [Sept 2006, p.98]

Lasting only two hours (but costing 2.50 pounds), and occasionally frustratingly obtuse, it's a gentle, bite-sized memory of the better days of adventuring. [May 2007, p.90]

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]

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

If Flatout 2 was (just) music, it'd be a second album of commercial punk rock. [Sept 2006, p.92]

The beauty of BoA is the way it captures the unique character of American Revolutionary warfare without drowning wannabe Washingtons and Howes in detail. [May 2006, p.81]

Manages to repeat Civ IV's trick of delivering something that's hugely playable and yet dares to be profound and intelligent. It's an invigorating complement to the original and adds some essential refinements. [Sept 2006, p.86]

Worst of all is its absense of an Undo function. [Aug 2006, p.78]

This quirky menu-driven life simulator from ex-Elixir/Lionhead/Maxis coder Cliff Harris is seasoned with penty of wry humour. [Oct 2006, p.92]

For all its singleplayer niggles of slightly gutless, meagre gunplay, the astonishing-looking Prey is often great fun, occasionally very creepy and frequently highly impressive. Just don't go taking it seriously. [Aug 2006, p.74]

We still believe in this, and with further tweaks it could yet become a fine murder romp. [Jan 2007, p.104]

Classical, but no classic. Bread and circuses at their most generic. [Sept 2006, p.105]

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]

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]

An arcade game par excellence, as inviting as the open road and just as compulsive. [Sept 2006, p.104]

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

While it's a competent shell of a game, the only scrap of ingenuity is in the way each character picks any two of eight skill trees, and even that's been pipped at the post by "Guild Wars." [Aug 2006, p.84]

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

More lands to conquer, new challenges, and a chance to star in one of the greatest stories of all time. [Aug 2006, p.86]

There's a reason I haven't said much yet about the RTS that sits serenely at the core of Rise & Fall. That reason is there really isn't much to say beyond it's good solid stuff with a strong whiff of Ensemble's best work. [July 2006, p.85]

Multiplayer is a fun aside, but be prepared for your PC to struggle with the choking throng of units on screen. [Aug 2006, p.92]

Make the effort, see past the spartan maps, the sparse sound, and teh square counters, and you're rewarded with one of the most believable battle simulations ever created. [Sept 2006, p.100]

No singleplayer game I know offers more scope for creativity, more surrealism, or a more original commercial model. [Aug 2006, p.82]

That rare thing: a kids' movie tie-in game that wasn't made by Satan. [Oct 2006, p.93]

City Life provides a valuable municipal service by being far more accessible while still providing a decent challenge. [June 2006, p.95]

Episode One is full of sophisticated visual effects. [July 2006, p.64]

There's so much to do and see in this game, so many possibilities. It suits the careful player, but caters for the psychopath in you as well. You simply won't find a better executed execution game. [June 2006, p.86]

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

It's still a mimic of "Command & Conquer" at heart, and it still screws up some basic stuff. [May 2006, p.80]

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

One of the most refreshing things about Rogue is how powerful you feel, and how well equipped you are. [June 2006, p.66]

Nice looking, moderately rewarding. [July 2006, p.78]

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

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

Despite providing three well-balanced, distinctive races, a host of spectacular units and powers, and some novel play factors like national borders and peaceful expansion, away from the rationale of the story of RoL can feel a tad generic. [June 2006, p.76]

SiN is actually something of a guilty pleasure. It's over far too quickly and feels rather unsophisticated, but I enjoyed it anyway, a bit like I enjoy...eating hotdog. [June 2006, p.62]

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]

If D2 came with a level-skip cheat printed in the manual, it would be a lot easier to recommend. [July 2006, p.70]

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]

If your child doesn't enjoy this worthy game, disown them. [May 2007, p.90]

Fun, but easily forgotten. [July 2006, p.75]

Despite the obvious flaws, the many subtler achievements make this compelling. You'll find better shooting elsewhere, but if you fancy getting more than bullet holes for once, this is for you. [May 2006, p.84]

This year's first essential wargame. [July 2006, p.76]

While Shadowgrounds doesn't do much that's new, within its restrictive confines it's engaging and competent. Gaming lite, but still a nice snack. [June 2006, p.85]

The perfect warm-up for a long, hot summer of football. [July 2006, p.72]

A better class of more of the same. [June 2006, p.92]

It's a game that's precisely as ambitious as it needs to be. No plot. No anti-aliasing. No in-store cardboard standee. Just you, a physics engine and an armadillo. [Sept 2006, p.96]

If you're anything like me, its deeply tragic moments will make you weep real tears. [June 2006, p.70]

Given time, a tune-up, and some more vigorious fanning of the community flames, this could improve, but at the moment there are more appealing things to spend a monthly fee on. [June 2006, p.90]

Slightly less interesting than the first game, and still has a few rough edges and poorly conceived challenges. [Aug 2006, p.91]

It's not a rehash, nor a reinvention, but instead an appropriate incarnation in a post "Prince of Persia" world. [May 2006, p.74]

It may feel somewhat underdeveloped, but it is an intriguing experience. [May 2006, p.90]

This Swedish smorgasbord doesn't have enough meat. [June 2006, p.93]

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

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

With a tasty main game and moreish extra levels, Eets is a gaming snack to recommend. [June 2007, p.91]

An artful but mild shooter. [Aug 2008, p.78]

The original game was used as a training tool for real soldiers. God help the US if this is what they actually have to deal with. [June 2006, p.68]

The challenges Blazing Angels throws at you are soggy squibs - all of them seen before in ten thousand, million, million previously 3D shooters. [May 2006, p.94]

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]

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]

Lacking both the playful irony and delight in detail of the GTAs, The Godfather is a simple brute of a game. In one sense, it's a missed opportunity; in another it's a regrettable betrayal of a masterful and much-loved film. [May 2006, p.78]

Oblivion is a messy masterpiece; accomplished, bold, huge and occasionally rough around the edges. Your adventures are more varied than those of any other game I could name, and magnificently rendered by the game's powerhouse graphics and physics... Narcotically addictive. [Apr 2006, p.68]

Lively, but as deep as the red puddles you leave in your wake. [June 2006, p.85]

A stingy and unexciting offering. [May 2006, p.92]

Dated, mediocre babble, from those who should know better. [July 2006, p.90]

Distinguishing between friend and foe is the most brutally realistic touch of all, and the first thing you'll hve trouble with. [May 2006, p.82]

A brave and courageous publisher would have let the sublime source material dictate the design rather than reach for the nearest proven formula. [Apr 2006, p.80]

For those involved in fighting, and those attempting to avoid it, the game's particular brand of 'real-time' combat is eventually effective. [Apr 2006, p.84]

While everything works, there are a few odd quirks which don't exactly break the game but do make it a little bizarre. [May 2006, p.89]

Woefully dated and underwritten sub-"Diablo" hack-slashery. [June 2006, p.81]

It might sound trivial to criticise the lack of a good in-game tutorial, but when each game takes hours to play out, discovering which technologies are most useful by trial and error can be a painful and tedious process. [Apr 2006, p.76]