Think of Arslan as a fast-food joint’s seasonal range: a few flourishes make it more appealing than the standard menu, but it still ain’t top-tier chow. [May 2016, p78]

All-in-all the features add up to a game that is one of the best replications of the real thing thus far, especially with some top notch presentation. Just watch out for those damn ghosts. [November 2013, p85]

Feels positively ancient, gets by on retro charm. [May 2009, p.65]

Combine this lacklustre multiplayer with a solo campaign that only lasts six or so hours, and Space Marine is an experience that's much too small for its impressive looking Powerboots. Only the super diehard need apply here. [November 2011 p74]

You’d think a game about wanton destruction with split-screen co-op would offer lots of content and fun times to chew on. Sadly, that cud turns to crud in a few short hours. [November 2015, p74]

A sturdy, dependable effort that fails to excite. If it was a colour, it would be beige. [June 2009, p.64]

We didn’t get even remotely close to any sense of rapture. We had long since gone to the napture. Great as an exploratory piece of art. Average game. [November 2015, p76]

The handful of events last for about one afternoon. [Mar 2010, p.77]

Post-"Dead Space," this just doesn't cut the mustard. [Summer 2009, p.72]

Initially exhilarating, but ultimately deflating, its sensational setup is disappointingly squandered. [October 2016, p77]

The battles are greatly improved over The Last Hope, but that’s squandered on a predictable journey that’s woefully short, and lacking in artistic direction. [September 2016, p70]

They aimed for The Truman Show and hit Dumb & Dumber. For diehard puzzlers only. [May 2015, p79]

Ridge Racer Unbounded has pace, looks amazing, and when you're flat-chat and in the zone it can bring a smile to your face. Unfortunately, that buzz is too often killed by archaic game design and a host of frustrations that scuff this pretty ride up, badly. [May 2012, p72]

There are wonderfully horrifying moments and some lovely little details, but they’re too few and far between – and getting to them is an exercise in resilience rather than pleasure. [January 2016, p77]

For all its face-plants, still offers a reasonable amount of entertainment for what you’re paying. Maybe just wait a little while for Ubisoft’s Steep instead. [January 2016, p83]

We could have forgiven the ugly presentation of this collection if more was packed in. Given the second game is a dud, two rushed re-releases of DMC and DMC3 make for an expensive trip down memory lane. Where's DMC4? Where's the demo of the upcoming Devil May Cry reboot? Where's the value? [May 2012, p76]

Newbies should check the originals, whilst veterans will find this frustrating. [Jan 2010, p.82]

This gallery space shooter shares the loosest of connections with the EVE mythos, and it lacks the frantic spectacle and VR dogfighting drama of Valkyrie. [January 2016, p80]

It really seems as though Monumental Games focused more on flashy presentation and cheap thrills rather than handling and physics with any true depth. That said, it is a much more fun and accessible racing game that will attract new fans without hitting them over the head with a super-hard technicality. MotoGP 09/10 stands as the antithesis of racing sims like SBK-08 Superbike whose superior track-side feel was marred by bare bones presentation. There’s eye candy and pizazz here now, but it comes at the expense of handling purity. [May 2010 p.78]

This is the meanest Sonic game ever. Springs will punt you into spikes, the layout works against you as it's hard to get the blue fella up to speed, and the 3D special stage (a rip-off of classic SNES game F-Zero) is tripe. Bummer. [February 2012, p.76]

Does the job, but will disappoint even fans of the anime. [Apr 2009, p.80]

Happy Feet Two may not be as broadly appealing as its Lego co-op competition, but is a decent kid's movie tie-in. Certainly much better than the first game, as KMM's attachment to the IP shows. [February 2012, p.78]

Not bad, but it's something of an acquired taste. Best to try it before you fork out. [Nov 2008, p.103]

Every console release has to have its well-intentioned but ultimately not-quite-there launch title. Unfortunately, Knack appears to be that game for the PlayStation 4, despite some cool ideas and genuinely fun moments. [Christmas 2013, p76]

Truth is, Batman is the hero the Vita deserves, but Blackgate just isn’t the game it needs right now. [Christmas 2013, p78]

Few differences from last year. [Feb 2010, p.75]

This year's game is also more of a sim than ever before as the handling model is tougher to crack than a Kevlar-coated walnut... Yet, it's ultimately not worth your time. There's an amazing sense of speed but the feedback's muted in the way the bikes brake, and the first time you jam on the anchors you'll still cascade into the gravel. Adjusting to this is by an approximation of feel – there's little visual indication or general feedback that your rider is yanking on the front lever and squeezing the ball of his foot on the brake pedal, so you just need to guess how much space to give yourself. It's also about as pretty as a bag full of elbows. [June 2011 p.79]

London 2012 is not a pretty game. In fact, it's rather horrid in most respects: athletes are modelled competently, but move with all the poise and grace of a stop-motion Terminator. Menus and other interface elements are all rendered in that garish, angular style that has sadly come to define the London games. [September 2012, p74]

The touchscreen moments are pretty lacklustre, but the biggest waste of the Vita hardware comes from the lack of co-op. multiplayer. Solid, but never spell-binding. [May 2012, p81]

A handful of extra content and a bit of a spit-shine do not a great next-gen package make. [May 2014, p75]

Gameplay-wise, marginally better and prettier than the last. Content-wise, the worst example in recent memory of the tight-fisted annual sports game model. [Christmas 2014, p79]

A hard sell even for die-hard Transformers fans, Rise of the Dark Spark brings nothing new to the table. [September 2014, p72]

This has all the content you'd expect. But, technically, this production is more troubled than Crazy Earl. It's not watchu want. [July 2014, p82]

Fun in small doses with a mate, otherwise monotonous, ugly, and done better elsewhere. [January 2015, p82]

This is a random dungeon roguelike where if you die, or don’t use an ‘exit item’ in time, you lose half your cash, all of your stash – and it’s thrilling. A must-have for old-school masochists. [Christmas 2013, p83]

The overall presentation is pretty dire and it's got no spark. Daly's been on the wagon since July this year but that doesn't mean you can't still have a little fun. We've seen the guy tee off from a beer can. We're talking about a man who has admitted the only reason he doesn't lift weights is because his health club doesn't let him smoke there. As it stands ProStroke Golf is about as sedate as a sloth on a triple course of tranquilisers. [December 2010 p75]

Unfortunately we just found the system makes the fighting itself feel quite alien and unsettling. It's that feeling of only partial control you get when you're reaching in from behind someone and using their own arms to teach them perform a task, combined with those dreams you occasionally have where your punches are all weak and flaccid despite the fact you feel like you're putting enough energy behind them to punch the rings off Saturn. [December 2010 p79]

It might offer spurts of fun, but Lord of the Rings: Conquest is mediocre in every way. [Feb 2009, p.76]

Though your moves become bigger, faster, flashier, you'll rarely feel like Spider-Man. We've often thought of him as being a fluid, dynamic character and in Shattered Dimensions he's anything but, as he gets 'stuck' for a moment when transitioning onto a wall from the ground, or not being able to stick to certain objects. Not all surfaces can be clambered, and forget about web swinging and leaping onto a wall in one motion. Also, why have we gone back to swinging from invisible hooks in the sky? Hadn't we done away with that [December 2010 p80]

Obsidian has interpreted ‘be an aggressive hardcase’ as ‘be an obnoxious brat’ and, when it comes to suave, Thorton is about as subtle as sexual assault. It doesn’t help that his voice is about as intimidating as a slightly larger-than-usual cupcake. Basically Thorton is a jerkbag in need of a major identity realignment. [August 2010 p72]

In a budget game, the occasional dino delights would be worth a punt – Crytek has crafted a sumptuous world that oozes effortless depth courtesy of PS VR. [February 2016, p78]

It's slickly presented, but it's just not R-Type. [Jan 2009, p.79]

Risen 2 gets worse when you lash that hideous combat to a graphics engine from five years ago, complete with a lurching framerate and sloppy interfaces. If you're charting a course for Risen 2 because you've heard the phrase 'pirate RPG' and figured nobody could screw that up, your hopes are about to swan-dive from the crow's nest to the poop deck. [October 2012, p75]

All the PC features, just hastily stomp-ported onto your Vita screen. [June 2014, p83]

This game is surreal. So much so we’re not entirely sure if it was rushed (doubtful, given the 360 original came out in 2010), or if the game designers are deliberately trolling us. [June 2013, p80]

Sadly Dead Souls simply bolts a zombie apocalypse onto Yakuza 4's broken template, without making any effort to improve it. What is it about Dead Souls that feels painfully dated? The clunky and overly complicated combat and camera controls, combined with inconsistent rules are the main offenders. [April 2012, p72]

Familiar foes and even familiar ideas await to present a paint-by-numbers challenge. Despite occasional clipping, frequent atmosphere-breaking occurrences of bodies blinking out of existence, and an ally who literally warps to your next objective point, Burning Skies isn't a terrible game – it's just horribly average. Admirable ideas are matched by disappointing decisions. [July 2012, p80]

Shallow combat, annoying upgrade system, and a forgettable plot. Rainbow Moon is no pot of gold. [January 2014, p83]

PlayStation owners didn't get this on console for a decade. We didn't miss much. [May 2014, p83]

Combat is turn-based stuff that's a hasty facsimilie of Dragon Age: Origins. It's hard to get a kick out of any of these battles when your enemies are clones with all the guile of Hodor the village idiot. Expect no thrill from the grind, either, as the skill trees unlock stat 'boosts' more miniscule than Tyrion. Likewise, rare items are ridiculously so and the purchasable gear is so unattainably priced, not even a Lannister could pay their debts. [July 2012, p83]

At its core, Epic Mickey 2 is still an enjoyable throwback to the golden days of mascot platformers – albeit an incredibly unfocused one – but it simply doesn’t shine on the small screen. [September 2013, p74]

Only comes alive with the right four-player crowd. Soloists, avoid. [February 2014, p83]

Perhaps 'ambitious' is the absolute best thing we can say about Hydrophobia Prophecy. List its features and goals as bullet points and it sounds incredible, but in the end it H2-blows. [January 2012, p.75]

Painkiller Hell & Damnation is a short, unattractive beast that will sink its claws into you if you give it half a chance. But be warned: it could also be a throwback that may fly right over the head of a modern FPS gamer. [September 2013, p76]

You'll spend roughly an hour to an hour-and-a-half on each episode and once you're done, that's it. It's also one of the easiest games to rinse for trophies too, so if you're one of those people who's looking for an easy boost, you've found it. Everyone else, bred on a diet of L.A. Noire and Heavy Rain, will find this fairly pointless. [January 2012, p.78]

Only for diehard fans interested in the mildly enjoyable, but highly repetitive gameplay. [September 2013, p77]

The augmented reality tech is nifty, but it's let down by some rather bland game design. [January 2012, p.80]

In many ways, Touch my Katamari feels more like game for your phone than a Vita title: incredibly accessible, yet designed for small bursts only. [April 2012, p76]

The real shining star of Medieval Moves, though is the bow and, considering the game was developed by the same team behind Sports Champions, this comes as little surprise. We regularly ditched the sword and shield in favour of the bow at every opportunity. [January 2012, p.80]

Plenty of Guts, then, but not enough glory. [May 2017, p80]

BigBig has put its shoddiest mini-games first, and mastering these challenges to get to the 'good' stuff is very tedious. Even if you do stick with it, the sense of reward soon give way to growing disappointment, thanks to re-skinned repetition. Not good. [March 2012, p64]

The biggest problem is a lack of variety in the stages and enemies. Aside from the odd boss fight you're just hewing your way through the same old scum with the same old tactics. Couple that with the fact that this offers less story than a homemade sextape and this gets old, fast. [March 2012, p65]

Dust 514 is ropier than a Japanese adult movie marathon. Movement is clunky, combat feels archaic, and this war takes place on worlds so drab they look like a rip off of Futurama’s Neutral Planet. This is yet another paid DLC bear trap. [September 2013, p80]

A busy-as-hell palette meets repetitive gameplay and an uninspired story with no surprises. [November 2014, p77]

Space prohibits a more comprehensive deconstruction of NeverDead's myriad flaws, so instead here's the pithy summary: this game is utter bullshit. There are heaps of bad games out there, but few that glory in their deficiencies the way this one does. [March 2012, p78]

The power unit mechanic offers too little an incentive to re-buy what is essentially a lesser F1 2013. [Christmas 2014, p80]

Battleship could never work as plain shooter. It's a facsimile of a facsimile that tries to pay homage to some of the biggest shooters out there but ends up ripping them off and in turn ends up being bland, characterless yet functional. The RTS elements definitely add an extra layer, but the strategic payoff is muted by near-constant nannying needed to keep them – and the game – afloat. [June 2012, p79]

What starts out as a delicious parody of The A-Team soon becomes a mess of cramped level design, mediocre graphics and ridiculous difficulty spikes. Couple that with framerate issues and more screen tearing and this is more miss than hit. [October 2013, p83]

Marvel vs Capcom: Origins is a bland and unexciting update of a couple of classics that have long been superseded. [December 2012, p82]

Delivers its subject matter like old people have sexual relations. Dull, rickety, and not recommended. [July 2015, p83]

Killzone 3 this ain't. Avoid. [June 2009, p.68]

Killzone is only for the most curious of fans who want to see what the franchise was like before it got good (see: Killzone 2). Everybody else should dodge this draft and enlist elsewhere. [January 2013, p65]

Red Barrels has tried to create something rather different to the first Outlast, but the result is a game that, while feeling undeniably grander than its forebear, is considerably less enjoyable. [July 2017, p68]

Taken on its own, this is a vaguely competent racer let down by some horrible technical issues. [Summer 2009, p.64]

Unfortunately, there's just not a lot of meat to Spy Hunter: the campaign is a decent length, but rarely does it go anywhere new or interesting. This isn't the sort of game that requires strategy or nuance, and failing a mission – which happens often, as the difficulty tends to spike in places – means replaying the whole damn thing, which is a big turnoff. [January 2013, p71]

But no mask – no matter how flamboyant – can fully hide The Sexy Brutale’s faults. [July 2017, p74]

Like a dry cracker for dinner, this is very bland, very boring, and not much fun at all. [Jan 2010, p.75]

It's anything but predictable, which is good, and there's lots to see, which is great, but it's also a bit sluggish, which isn't. [January 2013, p78]

Superb concept, poor execution. Needed more balancing. [August 2012, p81]

It’s an imaginative concept, executed poorly. Unless you’re a Lego fan with acres of patience, stick with Minecraft, block enthusiasts. [June 2017, p79]

As a shooter, you’ve been here a hundred times before. As an Aliens game it suffers the pressure of the legacy on which it’s built, and the story is diabolically woeful. Game over, man. [April 2013, p72]

If you’re a fan of the manga, maybe that’s enough to lure you towards Ken’s Rage 2. With a whole bunch of episodes (both based on the classic tale and new stories) to work through, you’ll certainly get a bang for your buck. The question is whether you’ll want to spend it in the first place. [April 2013, p75]

As a game based on a movie, Star Trek is ok. This is no rush job but it lacks either the expertise or imagination to make it passable as a game in its own right. And who the hell would bother with that. [July 2013, p77]

There are some neat ideas here, like the random modifiers that trigger in each area, and being able to turn on ‘oaths’ that increase the challenge while rewarding you with extra XP and coins. But these features aren’t original, and it’s hard for an unoriginal game to hold one’s interests after the 500th skeleton has had their head shot off. [July 2013, p79]

Mindless, shallow fun if you’ve never played one before but it really is the same as 6 and 5 and 4. [April 2013, p77]

An uninspired, inexpensive stocking filler. Nothing more. [December 2013, p83]

Along with an overreliance on stick waggling, Sixaxis tilting features frequently and it's shoehorned in at crucial points in the proceedings. As you can imagine, it's frustrating, inaccurate stuff and can only be avoided if you set the game to the easiest difficulty 'Instant Fun'. Which is a lie. [August 2012, p80]

Cross-buy, cross-play, cross-save: the three non-words every ‘PS3ita’ gamer hungers to hear. Zombie Tycoon 2 has all of these, and that’s what it does right. What it does wrong: its solo play is boring, and gets in the way of its rather decent multiplayer action. [July 2013, p80]

Think of every single sniping mission in Call of Duty all crammed together into four hours of nonsense terrorist stuff, but not nearly as good and you have Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2. It’s a beautiful display of third world foliage, but you won’t be exploring it in any detail, great or not. [May 2013, p74]

Sigma 2 Plus might still satisfy die-hard fans, but its best moments come at a price. The game’s uneven combat, frustrating camera and shoddy performance make it a task of perseverance over entertainment. [May 2013, p75]

Everything about EDF 2017 is a slog. Graphically atrocious and sonically awful, low-res buildings comically disappear after being grazed by heavy weaponry. While the bugs and bots twitch and spasm around their own character models, the bipedal robots are the worst offenders here, often getting caught up in their own limbs. [March 2013, p79]

A reboot for the God Of War generation, but one in which the combat sadly lacks the tight flow and impact required to keep up with Kratos and co. Still, it’s an interesting misfire. [August 2016, p73]

While not an outright disaster, this offshoot leans heavily on the past while misplacing all the elements that make Lee and Clem’s tale so compulsive. [August 2016, p74]

There’s simply not enough variety to the various insult chunks on offer to sustain more than a few rounds before the repetition sucks the fun dry. [September 2017, p73]

Sweet, small, but imperfectly formed. It’s the game that teaches you to be angry at leaves – but it’s this fish that needs to go back to school. [August 2016, p78]

Spiders has been ambitious here but the team’s budget restraints and questionable writing hold Mars: War Logs back. Even with one’s ‘go underdogs!’ hat on, this Martian sand-fest offers less true grit than it does constant chafing. [August 2013, p75]

It's true that there are plenty of superior overall shooters out there that'd murder for a character with a quarter of the charisma Duke Nukem oozes. He's a dinosaur; a two-dimensional mound of muscles with a gun. But that's the joke. Duke Nukem Forever really is a several-year old game masquerading as a new release. [August 2011 p67]

Only look into this one if you’re a big fan of the Sacred series and have similarly minded friends. [August2013, p76]