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]