Codemasters has a record of making its racing games shine visually and aurally and DiRT 3 is no different... Each vehicle has its own timbre, and with the inclusion of the riotous Group B cars and bespoke Gymkhana terriers the soundscape has been pushed further than ever before. Revving them out to redline and listening to the motor screaming and straining the bolts is a primordial joy where noise and fury fuel your desire to push these things harder. [July 2011 p.80]

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]

Problematically, because the dancing is scored by your hand movements alone, you don't really have to be particularly invested in proceedings to fudge your way through... Your overall enjoyment of Michael Jackson The Experience will obviously depend on how much you love MJ and how blitzed you are on Fruity Lexia. That said, if you're expecting a package on par with the likes of The Beatles: Rock Band forget about it. While the latter was more or less a love letter to the music of The Beatles, Michael Jackson The Experience is a late night booty call. The King of Pop deserved better. [June 2011 p.78]

The way the series approaches DLC will continue to divide; Tiger Woods 12 features 16 courses on the disc but a further 20 are already available as DLC... The game needs a course creator; it's a feature PC golf games had last century. [June 2011 p.78]

Fun in small doses... it's a good knockabout title. [June 2011 p.74]

Red River stands out as the more intelligent but vaguely scruffier cousin amongst the likes of Call of Duty, Homefront and Crysis 2. What you have is a thinking man's game that begs to be played in co-op. PS3 owners have been screaming for a great game to play with mates who will work towards the same goal, and this is it. [June 2011 p.73]

That Valve has been able to imbue so much depth to what is, at its heart, a sophisticated puzzle game proves once again it's not the genre that counts. It's the talent. Combine it with a superb physics-based game mechanic and you've got an experience that defies easy categorisation and can be recommended without reservation. [June 2011 p.67]

Ultimately Dragon Age II feels like a one step past, and two steps back from Origins. It has been specced purely with us console gamers in mind and now has a low barrier of entry that will rally new fans to the Dragon Age banner. That's admirable, but fans who did get into Origins will lament the less masterful storytelling and the noticeably uneven visual presentation. [May 2011 p.78]

Unfortunately the Move controls have turned out to be a real flop. Rather than the same sort of control over your racquet as, say, the ping pong in Sports Champions, Top Spin 4's controls feel significantly dumbed down. There really doesn't appear to be any connection between your player's arm and your actual arm – backhands you perform in your living room will be regularly interpreted as forehands by the game and there doesn't appear to be much difference between a spirited slog and a apathetic wiggle of the wrist. [May 2011 p.77]

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]

The biggest problem Bulletstorm has is that it's at odds with itself. It wants you to have a blast killing imaginatively, but gives you limited ammunition, uses cheap tactics and saves the best toys until way too late in the game. It wants you to revel in the wonderfully hackneyed story, but then suddenly gets all touchy feely, serious and humourless for no reason. [May 2011 p.75]

Like Test Drive Unlimited 2 before it the cutscenes in Apocalypse are universally terrible. The obviously deliberate digital comic approach feels cheap too, making the sequences feel like placeholders for real animation that never eventuated. It's all a bit childish, really, and features the worst approximation of a foreign accent since Christopher Lambert tried to sound like a Scotsman in Highlander. You'll know it when you hear it. We do question why Evolution bothered devoting manpower to the story mode and we'd be happy not to see it again. Fortunately, players will spend far more time playing Apocalypse than they will do with awful cutscenes. The racing is still furious and fun – and that's always the main thing. [May 2011 p.74]

It's official: Gran Turismo 5 is on notice. Like V8 Supercars 3 [Pro Race Driver 3] wooed us from GT4 back in the halcyon days of PS2, SHIFT 2 Unleashed is currently busy courting us with its incredible sense of speed, well-rounded garage, long list of tracks and impressive attention to detail... Forget what you think you know about where Need for Speed games stand in the racing sim landscape because the crew at Slightly Mad Studios has just taken a bulldozer to it. [May 2011 p.72]

For a generation weaned on Rocky movies Fight Night Champion is the ultimate boxing experience. It sounds like a throwaway sentence, really. A platitude you toss at an otherwise good game to get the hard work out of the way. It's completely true though... What's particularly clever about Champion Mode is the way it pulls strings in the background to heighten the tension. During the fights throughout the story you might find yourself nursing a broken hand, or suddenly at the mercy of a bent referee or a desk full of bribed judges. Champion Mode will uppercut you with surprises like these, ones that require you to adjust the way you're fighting, across its duration. Champion Mode is bold, different and we absolutely want more of it. [May 2011 p.70]

Don't make the mistake of viewing Crysis 2 as a new shooter on the block that has to desperately prove itself to all the established PS3 heavy-hitters. In many ways it's actually the other way around. [May 2011, p.69]

It's a game world that makes you feel like a tourist, like anything and everything is worth looking at. If Team Bondi's Los Angeles was a skirt she'd be a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window... Combining slow-paced adventure gaming with well-executed open-world action was an audacious experiment. Infusing it with state-of-the-art animation tech that pits you in a game of wits against virtual liars was equally bold. Staging all of that in the most richly detailed videogame environment we've ever seen was outrageous. Not only does it work, it works extraordinarily well. It's the evolution of the adventure game, merging slow-burning discovery with the freedom associated with an open-world backdrop. It's the Concorde of its category, rendering fondly-remembered classics like Police Quest akin to simply flapping your arms. [July 2011 p.78]

Charming and hard to stop playing. See for yourself what all the fuss is about. [April 2011, p.81]

Telltale has absolutely nailed the feel of the franchise and the charming visuals are a treat. Christopher Lloyd is great as Doc Brown and newcomer A.J. LoCascio's impersonation of Michael J. Fox's Marty has to be heard to be believed. The music, a blend of cues from Alan Silvestri's memorable original score with a hint of Huey Lewis, is near perfect. [April 2011, p.81]

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

Wonderfully unique and truly intoxicating. Double Fine strikes again. [April 2011, p.80]

What you have is a game that feels like it only has 85 per cent of its content, and a few fighters are horrendously overpowered or have spam-tastic attacks – Phoenix and Sentinel are prime offenders. However, if it was a choice between something that looks and plays as well as this, or had tonnes in it but felt as rough as a $3 steak, we know which one we'd pick. And it looks like we got it. [Apr 2011, p78]

The fighting component, however, is where the game hits a stumbling block. More depth to the combat could have really made this a winner, as you really only have a dozen or so regular attacks and "specials" (and that's when you level cap out at 30) combined, so it can get old after a while. SOE may be hard pressed to sustain interest. [April 2011, p.76]

Each time it wows you with a neat touch it dashes your enthusiasm with something else. For instance, we get working convertibles but we don't get working windscreen wipers (odd in a game with cabin view and wet weather effects). Just when you're getting into the driving an unskippable cutscene full of people who share more in common with trust-fund babies and hotel heiresses than actual racing drivers yanks you away from the open road. And why is everyone on Ibiza American, including the police? It's jarring and cringe worthy. [April 2011, p.74]

Those of you expecting instant gratification best move along to another playground. Yakuza 4 is a slow burn and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. The balance between intense brawling, wacky distractions and convoluted exposition is deep and detailed and guarantees you endless hours of enjoyment [April 2011, p72]

Feelplus has been so single-minded in their efforts to create a unique drop-in/out multiplayer concept, they forgot the importance of welding it onto a singleplayer game that's worth replaying and buddying-up for in the first place. And without other humans running through your game, helping, hindering – or just making things interesting at all – you're stuck playing a mind-numbing shell of a game. Or, as the case will be, not playing it. [Mar 2011, p.79]

It's hard to imagine casual types persisting with Apache for too long. It's certainly good enough for a game of its ilk but, once the novelty of pounding the ground wears thin, that's it. With just a single type of helicopter available it lacks the variety you get in most other air combat sims. [March 2011, p78]

Well worth the price of admission to earn yourself a seat. But you'll only really need the edge of it. [Mar 2011, p77]

Lush, beautifully rendered graphics with amazing particle physics. You'll not see a demonic custard tart explode more realistically... LBP2 is already a contender for game of the year. [March 2011, p74]