Great idea, not so great execution. Contrast's really only suited for the hardcore puzzle lover. [January 2014, p82]

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]

Rain World may not be the most forgiving adventure, but stick with it through its trickier times, and when it all comes together it’s capable of producing some genuinely brilliant moments. [June 2017, p76]

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]

If Defiance were purely offline you wouldn’t look at it twice. Objects wink out of existence, characters have little weight, and unless you’re in a team the enemies are tough. But it will get under your skin. [June 2013, p74]

Like him or otherwise, Eddie Van Halen is a guitar hero, no doubt. This game just doesn't reflect that. [Mar 2010, p.76]

The gameplay and look might not rock your world, but the story just might. [August 2014, p70]

Thankfully, PlayStation VR Worlds is a crowd-pleaser solution. It’s essentially the Wii Sports of Sony’s PS VR. [Christmas 2016, p73]

Better than most kids games, but has issues. [Summer 2009, p.80]

A missed opportunity. Entwined could have been something extra special, but is ultimately forgettable instead. [September 2014, p74]

Time Crisis isn't exactly gaming's Hamlet, but Razing Storm is actually a lot more dumbed down than Time Crisis 4. Deadstorm Pirates is the third game and requires a big install. It's Time Crisis with pirates. Pirates armed with laser targeting fully-automatic flintlock pistols. We'll let that description hang [December 2010 p73]

It lacks the bells and whistles, but give Blacklight a chance and you'll be pleasantly surprised. [January 2014, p79]

The main reason you will enjoy it is because the twin analogue stick controls are as simple as they are rewarding and each tackle is a cacophony of limbs that is extremely visceral. [July 2010 p73]

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]

We love that Way of the Samurai 4 is batshit insane, and about as Japanese as a toilet that sings and shoots rainbows. Even still, that quirkiness quickly gives way to seriously rough edges. Clunky, repetitive combat isn't helped by comically bad animations, and when the visuals aren't bland, they're shredded to pieces by screen tearing. [November 2012, p78]

WayForward seems to have saved its 'A Game' for their own IP. Book of Memories feels odd, as though a Diablo has murdered a Silent Hill, and is traipsing about wearing its skin. [January 2013, p70]

Evolved's fun but you'll feel little attachment to it and once the campaign's over you won't ache to go back through. [November 2010 p78]

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]

At full retail we would have ripped this racer to shred, but at less than half the price you just might enjoy ripping up the dirt-filled tracks. [Feb 2015, p77]

Unattractive, not as strategic as it could be, and the fighting gets samey quick. [June 2015, p78]

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]

Great 4-player split-screen multi. Otherwise, a non-classic that didn't need to return. [June 2014, p83]

For those expecting a Tarantino-like exploration of the consequences of being a bad person, you're looking at the wrong series. It didn't take long for us to realise that Ninja Gaiden 3 has more cheese than a fondue party, but it works in the favour of this frantic over-the-top hack-and-slash title. [April 2012, p64]

What you’re left with is Max Payne 3 if it was stripped of half its budget, created by Michael Bay and forced into a co-operative experience. Fans might get a kick out of the fire and limb filled explosions, and the cameos from older characters in the series, but make no mistake, it will be short-lived. [June 2013, p78]

Grey, old, and well beyond retirement, KOF XII is irredeemable. [Oct 2009, p.74]

Short and puzzling in more ways than one. A clunky oddity. [August 2012, p81]

Orcs is unrefined in spots, but Cyanide punches massively above its weight in terms of production values and thought-provoking storytelling. Go in expecting some rough edges, but also expect to be surprised. [Christmas 2012, p.78]

You can easily lose a few hours stabbing your Vita to Smooth Criminal, Thriller and Beat It. It sucks then, that those hours (two of them) represent the entire runtime of this. [April 2012, p79]

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]

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]

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]

Improves upon the original in only minor ways, is still repetitive and reliant on you ignoring its unpolished nature, because bewbs. [August 2014, p77]

Though this game can offer fleeting firefight fun it is constantly dragged down by questionable design and a severe lack of polish. Whichever way your eye meets it, Transformers: Dark of the Moon is out of this world ordinary and to expect anything better from it would be lunar-cy. [September 2011 p80]

Good grief, this game. Does anybody know if PSN purchases are refundable? [October 2014, p79]

But for the last round in this mag’s Reviews chamber? This one’s hardly a magic bullet. [April 2016, p83]

Like a demolition job, Dangerous Golf starts off with impressive explosions but clouds of dust soon obscure the chaos. [September 2016, p79]

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

The game’s dystopian, drowned burg a pleasure to explore. It’s just a pity the engine is a little bit of a shambles. [November 2015, p78]

Alright, the new Overwatch it ain’t – but it’s far from tearable. (Sorry.) [July 2017, p83]

Welcome to brown town, ladies and gents. Escape is impossible. [August 2012]

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

It's the kind of game you'd hire on a rainy Saturday night because you got to the video shop too late and all the good games were already gone – but then you get it home and it's actually alright. It's plain, simplistic, and totally no-frills, and you'll want to mute the "angry white man" soundtrack immediately, but on the other hand… sick jumps, bro. [June 2012, p79]

Start the Party! is great for younger kids, but the young at heart will find the fun is spread pretty thinly. The game also doesn't completely live up to its title as a 'party starter', or its exclamation point for that matter. This mainly because 'multiplayer' is a missed opportunity thanks to it relying upon a pass-and-play style rather than head-to head. [November 2010 p67]

You need to sit patiently and wait for the perfect opportunity. Only mark this as a serious target after much time, patching, and price drops. [July 2017, p77]

A decent PS3 game swung low enough to limbo under our already low expectations. [February 2014, p82]

When a well-planned incursion comes to fruition, the game is rewarding; the rest of the time, it's plagued with camera weirdness, clipping errors and a clunky combat system. [April 2012, p75]

Buggy as hell, and multiplayer is severely lacking. [Christmas 2012, p.83]

Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory is a compromise between two extremes, which is frustrating because there are so many meaningless textual back-and-forths in between the much improved adventuring that, every now and again, main charrie Neptune will even break the fourth wall and complain about it. It’s kind of like Hideo Kojima stopped by while this game was being made. [May 2013, p76]

Though Sports Bar conveys a convincing sense of space, any sense of immersion is nuked from orbit by wonky physics and jittery motion tracking. [January 2016, p76]

It’s so relentlessly odd that you’ll crack the occasional grin, but otherwise this is – by some distance – a series low. [October 2016, p76]

Quirky but has been done better and many times before. Wait for Ni No Kuni instead. [December 2012, p78]

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]

Short and puzzling in more ways than one. A clunky oddity. [August 2012, p81]

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]

Mechanically, a step up from Assault Horizon, but has barebones solo and is F2P. A nice substitute while we wait for a PS4 Ace Combat. [August 2014, p76]

So-so fighting but an okay diversion. The AR is really cool, though. [March 2012, p63]

Amusing and inoffensive, it's a winning formula. The only problem here is that the PS Vita version has a serious case of port-itis. Symptoms include itty-bitty characters and platforming elements that have clearly been optimised for living room-sized flat-screens, and noticeable compression artifacts in the full-motion video and spoken dialogue. [January 2013, p71]

For all its many faults, the script does at least make a valiant effort of recognising and explaining the politics of war and propaganda. That doesn’t change the fact that there’s an army of games more worthy of your money. [October 2017, p75]

The least awful Sonic game in years. [Jan 2009, p.74]

Movie karaoke isn't a new phenomenon but Yoostar 2 has brought it into the videogame space with some digital wizardry. Yoostar 2, in that case, is to movie karaoke what Rock Band is to drumming along to the radio on your steering wheel. There are some technical imperfections; we found the lights in our office played hell with the camera and resulted in elements of the kitchen behind us popping up during gameplay as on-screen artefacts. Dimming the lights mostly fixed this but it remained a little grainy... Yoostar 2 is far from perfect but it is very different. [May 2011 p.76]

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

Features; criminally stupid AI, rehashed enemies, ear-defiling voice acting and paint-by-numbers levels. This is 'so bad it's bad' gaming. [May 2012, p81]

Dreadful presentation. [Feb 2010, p.74]

Painfully dull, both in looks and entertainment factor. Only the die-hard purists can forgive this ugly, buggy mess. [September 2014, p80]

A sequel nobody asked for, and it knows it. Hugely unnecessary. [May 2012, p78]

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

Sloppy. Lazy. Derivative. That sums up Spare Parts, from its level and character design to the actual coding. [April 2011, p.80]

Releasing an Action-RPG this unpolished during the current PS4 drought was opportunistic. That's the best we can say about this. [July 2014, p81]

Brutally difficult and timelessly fun. Another World is an important game, but also overpriced. [September 2014, p77]

Although multiplayer rocks, the single player loses its shine rather quickly. [December 2008, p.78]

Reading about it in abstract, one could be forgiven for thinking that Fairytale Fights is a game for deviants and sickos, created to corrupt the young. This is not the case; everything is far too cute to be offensive. While it may sound sinister that the Naked Emperor character has visibly erect nipples, or that the Mother Goose Gun has an inflamed, purple ringpiece, in reality these flourishes are too stylised to make one bat an eye. It’s like the difference between ‘#@%&!!’ and a proper swear word. [p74 Christmas 2009]

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]

All told, Jurassic Park: The Game may be marketed to you as a new-age Dino Crisis and a wild ride, but in reality it plays more like John Hammond's dinosaur tour as it was originally intended. You're locked on a linear track and inelegantly chauffeured through dino dioramas that you'll have close to zero interaction with. The tour grinds to a halt for the occasional toilet break (read: light puzzle moments), but once that business is dispensed with, you're escorted back to your proverbial jeep on a scalextric track and the tour limps on. [January 2012, p.77]

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]

[Y]ou're only allowed to customise and upgrade the character you're controlling. You can determine who'll be in your squad, but you can't tell them what guns and abilities to use. In fact, AI-controlled squadmates don't even have abilities. They're just grunts with guns and act with all the intelligence of tactical awareness of action movie cannon-fodder, and it affects your offensive options. [April 2012, p.62]

Whether you invested in the Kickstarter campaign, it’s hard to imagine this aggressively inadequate Mega Man “follow-up” leaving anyone satisfied. [September 2016, p73]

A misguided farce. Offensive. [Oct 2009, p.75]

After a weekend with Hazard, you may want to return him. [Apr 2009, p.77]

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]

A lame attempt at bringing parody to the world of gaming. Avoid. [Nov 2008, p.100]

Cack-handed. [May 2009, p.67]

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]

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]

Any good racer offers either a sense of speed or a sense of control, but Carmageddon fails to provide either. [October 2016, p78]

Bodycount is a thoroughly boring ride that won't challenge your reflexes or intelligence. Ironically, the fact that this takes under four hours to get through is the best thing going for it. [October 2011 p75]

God knows why you’d want to invest in this crap, however. A match consists of mashing triangle to overcome an uninspired selection of bland nobodies. Thumbs down, we say. [October 2013, p83]

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]

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

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]

Absolutely terrible. It's simply broken. [Christmas 2008, p.92]

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

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]

Trite, boring and not at all compelling. Don't even bother waiting for it to hit the bargain bin, just leave it to rot. [April 2012, p77]

The integration of tilt steering and rear touchpad gear shifting is nice, but beyond that, this is a wafer-thin, learner burner experience best left to racing rookies. [April 2012, p78]

Not broken, just painfully, awfully average and repetitive. Offensive, too. [September 2014, p75]

Lacking challenge and there's not enough new content to justify that full-priced purchase. [December 2013, p81]

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]

With licensed movie tie-ins comes no responsibility. [July 2014, p79]