Space Siege isn't a bad game; it's just a very ordinary one with an inordinately large amount of squandered potential. [Oct 2008, p.58]

Future Wars takes a well-worn template and executes it with little more than mediocrity. [Nov 2010, p.83]

This lack of innovation is disheartening. [Feb 2008, p.72]

Not half bad. Until the half that is makes for a disappointing return.

A mountain of issues gets in the way of the gratuitous monster murder and engaging customisation.

Far from the RPG that Game of Thrones deserves, but still better than its components have the right to be. [Sept 2012, p.58]

Half a great 4X game, dragged screaming into the nearest black hole by its lesser components.

An interesting horror game that never manages to escape the shadow of its ‘90s inspiration.

The online option has potential, but fighting human opponents doesn't improve the core gameplay, which hasn't evolved since I was talking all that college smack 10 years ago. [Mar 2004, p.74]

The scariest part of Cronos: The New Dawn is probably the frustrating combat, and while it boasts a selection of surprisingly cool puzzles, they're not enough to save the experience.

Bleeding Edge's characters are cool, but the combat is too shallow to hold attention for long.

Type-0 certainly gets real-time combat right, but this port of an RPG that began on handheld is otherwise not much fun to play on PC.

Lacks balance and grows repetitive, but provides a handful of good puzzle chambers if you're willing to pay for them.

A middling contender in the most oversubscribed genre around. Trades too hard on being free.

Gamedec is half of a good RPG and falls far short of its tantalising premise.

This phlegmatic Poirot caper will likely appeal to hardcore adventure game and Agatha Christie fans, but for the rest of us, Evil Under the Sun is all talk and no action. [Jan 2008, p.80]

A novel premise wrapped in an awkward and repetitive survival slog.

A first-person mode adds some intensity, but Vancouver 2010's not going to offer more than a few hours' fun. [July 2010, p.79

Fun but forgettable. [Sept 2011, p.68]

Resident Evil 3 is essentially a chain of action set-pieces, threaded together with a paper-thin story and a few too many cutscenes. This is the direction the series started to take post-Resident Evil 4, when it seriously lost its way and we ended up with the abysmal Resident Evil 6, and I'd hate to see that happen again.

Dear Philos: I know we want "hard," but I don't think we asked for "cheap." I guess we're just old-fashioned that way. [Dec 2003, p.97]

Rogue Trooper Redux is crude, repetitive, and still looks rather dour, yet it manages to retain a certain lo-fi charm and never overstays its welcome.

A good idea that get tripped up in boring details. [Feb 2001, p.73]

It's debatable whether making players responsible for creating content is genius of laziness--doing so helps bond players to the game, but since Faces as few players to being with, you'll likely end up bored. [Sep 2006, p.70]

Definitely an ambitious project, but unfortunately, it's only the floating-island concept and not the actual gameplay that will make it stick in the minds of gamers. [Feb 2003, p.80]

But unless you prefer games that you watch and don't play, there's simply no reason for either history or strategy buffs to waste the coin. [May 2004, p.75]

Unfortunately, the platform physics are as bipolar as the hero, turning the game's excellent animation into a veneer for unpolished gameplay. [Sep 2006, p.96]

With improved AI, reworked story and dialogue, and less restrictive level design, this game could've been stellar. [Jan. 2007, p.71]