The games we normally call open worlds – the locked off cities and level-restricted grinding grounds – don't compare to this. While everyone else is faffing around with how to control and restrict the player, Bethesda just put a fucking country in a box. It's the best open world game I've ever played, the most liberating RPG I've ever played, and one of my favourite places in this or any other world.

Where Mass Effect 2 completely won me over was in the amazing climactic mission, easily one of the best game endings I've played in recent years.

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]

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]

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]

Rich, gorgeous and endlessly fun.

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

Still the best looking online world out there. [Jan 2009, p.64]

Still dark, cool, beautiful, smart substantial, funny, creative and endlessly entertaining. Only now a bit better. [Jan 2014, p.88]

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

Nothing else is this slick, this viscerally impressive, this overwhelmingly addictive.

It's just the kind of intelligent silliness that's always made GalCiv a joy to play, and worthy of even the most discriminating Space Miner's downtime. [June 2007, p.86]

The most satisfying brawler ever coupled with an uncommonly creative stealth game. Only the bosses drag it down. [Nov 2009, p.94]

The first fighting game in a decade built for flesh and blood gamers and simply the best brawler available on any platform. [Sept 2009, p.86]

Thrillingly dark, gruesomely adult and one of the most atmospheric games ever. [Dec 2008, p.66]

A gorgeous puzzle-platformer that's both a treat for the eyes and a thorough workout for the mind. [July 2013, p.82]

This is the most enormously detailed game world I've experienced, its history stretching back thousands of years, its cultures vivid, beautiful and flawed, the battles enormous, the humour superb. Roleplaying games now have a great deal to live up to. [Dec 2009, p.74]

A triumph. Competitors beware: this is the best MMO in the world. Once you're hooked it's impossible to stop playing. [Feb 2011, p.91]

A delightful puzzle classic. [Dec 2008, p.78]

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.

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.

Dizzying, baffling and staggeringly clever. It's a game that uses parts of your brain you didn't know you had. [June 2009, p.94]

Big punchy man action, with a surprising amount of brain. [Apr 2006, p.94]

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]

It's the peripheral distractions of both going out with Roman, and meeting your girlfriends, that really make your virtual life so worth living. Although incredibly simplistic, they're oddly touching...One of the finest videogames ever. [Christmas 2008, p.87]

It's a tighter, more focused experience than the continental sprawl of "Empire" and "Napoleon", sacrifices none of their intricacy, and brings improved AI to the battlefield. In the final count, it's consistently thrilling, grand in scope, surprisingly atmospheric, and bloody hard to put down. [Mar 2011, p.75]

Astonishing...Immense... A strategy masterwork. [Mar 2009, p.54]

It's got all the nail-biting high tension of a control point assault/defence of Team-Fortress 2, mixed with the tightly designed levels of Half-Life 2 and the weapons of Counter-Strike. As long as they keep introducing new missions, there's no reason why it won't be sucking on your bandwidth for years to come.