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]

The game feels right at home here. While it may not exactly push the PS3 to its limits, seeing it run on the PS Vita's 5 inch OLED screen is still extremely impressive. The camera keeps track of the frantic action perfectly, and although a little impact is lost the fidelity of the whole package makes up for it. [January 2013, p77]

An affordable little gem that will merrily kill your time. [February 2013, p80]

Let’s not pull any punches. This PS Vita version features the exact same pugilism, panty-service and pendulous paired appendages of Dead or Alive 5 on PS3, just in the palm of your questionably-callused hands. [May 2013, p75]

Unfortunately Ninja Storm 3 doesn’t really do anything to distinguish itself from its predecessors utilising the ‘bigger is better’ formula, and while novel in the short term, the huge character list isn’t enough to hide the glaring simplicity of its combat. [April 2013, p77]

Fact is, when Revengeance is firing on all cylinders it’s a great, albeit short (six hours, tops) action game. [April 2013, p78]

It might look simple but prepare to have your brain tickled and tested. [March 2013, p78]

It’s a pity the backtracking mars an otherwise clever title. [March 2013, p78]

Sadly, not a lot of love has gone into cleaning up these remakes. The time capsule is rusty, but there’s enough old school challenge and timeless dark humour to justify a buy. [March 2013, p79]

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]

Completely average. [Nov 2008, p.102]

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

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

Konami will want to get Team Silent back for Silent Hill 7, we think. [Apr 2009, p.74]

We're happy with the decent foundations that TNA Impact! has laid out, but the content - which is a big deal in wrestling games - is paltry. [December 2008, p.80]

A brave competitor to Sony's mud king, but it's all a bit too bland to get revved up over. [Nov 2008, p.96]

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

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

It was a worthwhile dig, but it just isn't a patch on genre leaders. [May 2009, p.64]

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

Each time you start [a minigame] it feels like you're forcing yourself to drink your own urine whilst frying in the desert: you don’t want to do it, but must to make it to the end. [Sept 2009, p.66]

Someone forgot to add "fun" to the jetpack. [Mar 2010, p.75]

Fanging through the snow just gets old far too quickly. [Summer 2009, p.79]

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

The Godfather II starts off as a robust crime caper, but it alienates fans of the film and confuses those who haven't seen it. [June 2009, p.67]

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

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

Just follow the quest arrows, and spank everyone in your path. Rinse and repeat. Mental patients weave baskets because it’s calming - this is the same deal. [Sept 2009, p.70]

ROTF is a snack to finish - expect to knock the whole thing, both Autobot and Decepticon campaigns, over in a day - yet there's a perverse sense of accomplishment when the credits roll, despite the hit-and-miss graphics, awful music and weak sound effects. [Sept 2009, p.69]

Tenchu's in a dire need to go back to its roots. [June 2009, p.70]

There’s depth here – you can tool about with settings, text chat to your engineers and view race telemetry – but it will frustrate some. The racing itself, though, is good. SBK fans will likely have a lot of time for this title. Solid, but not for everyone. [Aug 2009, p.68]

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

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

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

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

A shade too workmanlike in most areas. [Feb 2010, p.75]

You can go online and play with your mates, but it doesn’t do enough to be exciting or even pretty to look at. Diagnosis: take one dose of Final Fantasy XIII and start another of Valkyria Chronicles. [May 2010 p.79]

Battles are random. You’re dumped in at the deep end with little indication of how to do what you’re meant to, and when compared to FFXIII everything feels so last century. The characters have the same emotion as a corpse. It’s not at all streamlined, and graphics are washed out and low-res; it’ll take the most hardcore JRPG fan – and we’re emphasizing the ‘J’ – to accept this. A pity, as the townships and world are intricately designed. [Apr 2010, p.76]

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]

The cinematics, while cobbled together from a ‘90s cop movie handbook, are more polished than most. If you were starving, you could lick this dish clean and be satisfied. But it wouldn’t taste like anything you hadn’t eaten before. [June 2010 p74]

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]

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]

Shaun White Skateboarding just feels a bit limp. The skating itself is competent but not tactile, and trekking back to a skate shop, rather than just an in game menu, to buy moves wears thin after a short while. Kudos for finding a way of distinguishing the game from its competitors, but Skate 2 is still chairman of the board. [December 2010 p75]

As a cerebral challenge SAW II is refreshing, fares noticeably better than the rushed original and is bloodier than an abattoir killing floor. That said, if you buy it expecting action that feels as visceral as the subject matter, you'll soon feel trapped with no way out. [December 2010 p76]

You'll burn through each movie pretty fast; there are only a few hours of gameplay here. The levels are designed with unlockables in mind to prompt multiple playthroughs. If you get sucked into high scores you'll likely want to give it a few goes to try and boost it. [December 2010 p79]

Clocking in at a paltry five hours to complete on 'hard', The Force Unleashed II feels shorter than an Ewok's genitals. Length hang-ups aside, Lucasarts has tightened up almost everything iffy about the original game, but they also managed to drop a hydro-spanner into the parts that were working fine to begin with. For example, TFU had a stellar, award-winning Star Wars plot – this sequel's storyline comes dangerously close to breaking established canon and, like Jabba's Sarlacc, it sucks you in, only to take you absolutely nowhere. [January 2011 p74]

Multiplayer is pretty limited in variety, all team-based, and with a fistful of maps. Couple this annoyance with the fact that the rest of the game doesn't attempt to raise the bar in any way – and only lasts a paltry five hours – and Blood Stone starts to feel like a very pedestrian shooter. Honestly, we doubt even Xenia Onatopp on herbal Viagra could squeeze thrills out of this short ride. [January 2011 p79]

Obviously, after eleven years the visuals haven't fared so well either. Back in the pre-GTA days Sega's take on San Fran was drool-worthy. Nowadays it's like driving through a bad cubist nightmare. Newer gamers who go in expecting some of the modern creature comforts – like traffic AI, lip synching or a physics system that makes a lick of sense – will be slapped in the face with a culture shock. Anyone who doesn't want their objective arrow to act like a broken ouija board won't like this game much either. [February 2011 p81]

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]

While your characters are nimble – able to double jump, slide on the spot, cling on to walls, ceilings and sporadically placed platforms – the melee combat is pretty tiresome as enemies overwhelm often by number rather than by skill. Cross your fingers you have a ranged attack in your repertoire else you're screwed. [July 2011 p84]

Despite a few rays of fun, F.E.A.R. 3 is a production that offers gloom, minus any impending sense of doom. As an action-based first-person shooter it's solid enough to stand alongside is contemporaries in the faceless, grey-brown ranks of the FPS genre, but it does nothing to stand out from the status quo. [September 2011 p71]

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]

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]

The game looks crusty. The sprites introduced last year are pixilated and their animations limited. Plus the game lacks any creative flourishes during the massive super moves. We love the idea of a stunning 2D fighter, but there's no technical or artistic creativity here. Note to SNK – invest some money to make it look like a cartoon made by a ninja Walt Disney. [January 2012, p.76]

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

Pretty dull. You'll grind rather than grin your way to victory in this limited ride. [Dec 2011, p82]

Critically the balance from FIFA 12 has been exaggerated and attackers now have emphatic control when set. So aggressive defence is out, replaced instead by ad nauseam jockeying that slows the action to a grind while attackers dangle the ball with footloose poetry. It's fist-in-thetelevision frustrating at times, and at one point we perused the pause menu looking for the "Hire cartel sniper to take out dribbler" option. [April 2012, p68]

The problem is the level design in the game is absurdly old hat. While there are a handful of mission types, like Direct Action, Covert, and High Value Target, the levels they take place in and the related objectives are painfully bland. "Move to this point and activate this switch. Now go down the stairs and activate this other switch." Blah, blah, blah… [April 2012, p73]

Escape Plan feels way too barebones an experience. There aren't many gamers out there who'll want to revisit and three star puzzles they barely fumbled through the first time due to iffy controls. [April 2012, p74]

In the end the experience of piloting an F1 car around the world's premiere race tracks isn't here. This is one racer that gets the black and white flag for bad behavior. [April 2012, p74]

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]

There are 14 different rule sets to check out, but all of them fall victim to repetition. Gameplay revolves around dragging your finger across the front display to choose the area where you wish to hit, before pulling it down and then flicking. Rinse. Repeat. Woo. Pass. [April 2012, p78]

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]

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]

You're still mindlessly hacking 'n' slashing your way through clones, but now you'll also engage in mini-games that use the gyro and touchscreen in very inelegant ways. [April 2012, p80]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Buoyed by a promising concept and Suda51's reputation, we expected and experience comparable to God Hand or Bayonetta. What we got is witless – an embarrassment that shames itself and the industry as a whole. It's idiocy that outstays its in record time. [July 2012, p78]

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

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

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]

Attacks are doled out with three face buttons and although there's a tights fistful of combos to learn and modifiers on the shoulder buttons for variety and occasional defensive manoeuvres, we literally took down a clutch of enemies by bashing the controller against our butt. No joke. [October 2012, p78]

If you like Terry Gilliam's work you'll love the art aesthetic here as you romp through art history, visiting historical figures as you go. It's quite funny if you can appreciate its sense of humour, too. [October 2012, p79]

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]

Expected features like continuing from the middle of the stage are absent, probably to expand the slender content as much as it can, but it clearly has a heart of gold and lashings of style. You'll like it more with a co-op partner, but Scott Pilgrim is much better. [November 2012, p79]

In some matches it almost feels like the AI is taking the piss, effortlessly stringing together combinations and reversals, when it is nowhere near as easy to do this yourself. There's a lot of assumed knowledge and familiarity with the franchise, which can be disconcerting to newcomers. Positioning is key for finishers and signature moves and can get frustrating when your opponent is whaling on you almost effortlessly. [December 2012, p77]

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

New Little King's Story could have been a surprise hit. But, as it stands, all its charm and whimsy is marred by poor menu design and technical issues that aren't game-breaking, just a royal pain in the butt. [December 2012, p78]

Leaving you with no indication on how to progress might have been quirky, innovative game design in 1996, but in 2012, it's an exercise in pure frustration. Replaying the initial laps over and over again, just so you can have another crack only makes matters worse. The original Saturn version of the game is on offer too if you are so nostalgically inclined, but it still doesn't manage to escape the fundamental inadequacies NiGHTS possesses. [December 2012, p80]

Epic Mickey 2 smacks of the brilliant game designer many of us admire as Spector attempts to redefine what has defined his great games for years within the confines of a world that can't really allow it. The end result is it's a compromise that, by default, isn't able to wholeheartedly please anyone. [Christmas 2012, p.72]

You'll never powerslide around a corner. Seems odd, doesn't it? Kart racers in general have implemented this move since day dot, and while it's one missing attribute that sets Race Stars apart from the competition (apart from the official licence, of course) it feels weird and frustrating. Tight corners need to be taken wide as the karts are especially stubborn in the twisty bits. [Christmas 2012, p.80]

Despite the heritage, and the memories of the time (if you did play it) promising a nostalgic trip, it's a reminder of how far we've come. In the end, Doom 3 just feels old. [Christmas 2012, p.81]

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]

There are more immediate giggles to be had in the Story Mode, which is rib-tickling to wade through, although "wade" is definitely the word. It really just boils down to running around dodging either projectiles or up-close Family Guy caricatures, like angry college guys with deadly melee bongs. Then you either cap 'em or bash 'em, and maybe collect a few things while being funneled towards your next inane but comical goal. [January 2013, p72]

It contains everything you'd expect of a middle-of-the-road puzzle game, and it's executed competently. But the creators of this game suffered from a paucity of ambition. There is a tsunami of innovation crashing through the worlds of online and interactive learning, Rocksmith being but one example. [January 2013, p74]

You can see the improvements in the car models compared to the years before, and the hardcore audience of the sport – the handful that there are – will appreciate WRC 3's spirit to following the source material. Everyone else looking for slip n' slide action should load up DiRT 3. [January 2013, p77]

Stressful platforming action made infuriating by a bad camera. [January 2013, p78]

[O]nline modes can be great fun, but they have one glaring weakness – within a week of release, they were all but deserted online. Getting into a 2v2 competitive match – which is the only thing that anyone has been playing at all – has been a struggle since launch, which is never promising. If you've got friends who also bought the game, this won't be a problem, but if you're hoping for something to play against random folk online we wouldn't expect this one to have a sudden huge surge in players. [February 2013, p76]

It's unforgiving as all hell, too: After you've barely scraped through a particularly insane dungeon, you might run afoul of a boss. This boss will, without fail, instantly kick your ass until you memorise his wicked ways, just like the old days. Then it's back to the start of everything with you. [February 2013, p80]

Big Sky: Infinity manages to give the player a fun shooter that surprises each time they jump in, but have coupled these good times with utterly broken scoring systems. Why should our latest effort in Arcade mode be judged against the session that opened immediately with a score multiplier zone that severely boosted the points we got from those first enemies? Isn't it unfair that this boss fight occurred so early on? [February 2013, p81]

Many set pieces simply do not work smoothly, and sacrifice fun for punishing perfection. Even replaying the tracks to memorise when to open the throttle or the best way to land can’t counteract this, and Urban Trial Freestyle ends up being not just unforgiving, but also plain unfair. [May 2013, p77]

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]

Like a crack dealer in council flats the first hit is free, then the really good stuff is gonna cost you depending on what you want. However, it’s a thrill you’ve had before, and unless you’re really pining for the past (and don’t have all these old titles on your myriad other handheld and home devices) you can leave these alone as they’re presented as arcade perfect with no upgrades. [May 2013, p77]

It’s balls-out hard pretty much from the get go, demanding pixel-perfect (snarf) jumps and committing entire levels to memory. There’s a point where it goes from being cute to very annoying, though. [March 2013, p80]

Riding boats, a new character, a couple of new skills and light tower defence mechanics is pushing that full retail tag, especially when you can pick up the original for less than half the price. [June 2013, p70]

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]

Team Ninja takes one more stab and tweaks a below par sequel into being barely on the pace. Dismemberment has been reintroduced and shitty button mashing kills are now automated. [June 2013, p80]

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

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

What bothers us most about the entire package is this: quite clearly Tomb Raider Underworld was created without the intention of delivering a functional game...Honestly, post "Uncharted", there is absolutely no excuse for a game such as Tomb Raider: Underworld. [Christmas 2008, p.94]

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

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

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

Dreadful presentation. [Feb 2010, p.74]

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]

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]

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]

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

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]

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]

Insect Armageddon succeeds in one small regard. Good games should make you feel something. Unfortunately the emotion it frequently elicits is rage. While the price is about right, and measured against the games that came before it in the series Insect Armageddon doesn't look that bad. But that's a bung comparison in the wider tapestry of quality games out there that can be had for a few bucks more. [September 2011 p74]

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]

From the first mission to the last, J.A.S.F. is left to rot by the arcadey and capable Ace Combat for sheer thrills, embarrassed by the variety of missions offered in H.A.W.X. 2, and technically outperformed by the more serious IL-2 Sturmovik. [February 2012, p.76]

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]

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]

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

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Essentially, the most entertainment here comes from (finally) tweaking your 'AC' to a preferred fighting style, applying tactics to infiltrate enemy lines and using the rocket boots to skate about and scale buildings. Frustration creeps right back in again when you realise how counterintuitive the menus are. [May 2012, p77]

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

A dodgily produced cash-in of a chestnut anime. [May 2012, p81]

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]

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]

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]

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

There is no story. There is no characterisation; just bland characters and blander NPCs with stupid names like "Ed Orable" who speech-bubble the same banal crap over and over again. What this game ultimately boils down to is playing a ton of repetitive and often laborious turn based battles in a bid to do nothing much at all. It's an RPG without the "RP," and the "G" that's left doesn't really have much to say for itself. [September 2012, p73]

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]

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

The bargain basement price should entice fans into reliving their glory days but offers very little else. [Christmas 2012, p.80]

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

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

A game destined for the chopping block. [Summer 2009, p.78]

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

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

An abysmal failure. No sense of excitement, fear or anything. [July 2009, p.76]

A mess in need of a thorough overhaul. [July 2009, p.81]

The career mode is insultingly linear, short-lived and your progress through it is interspersed with cheesy live-action videos of people giving you mad props for kooking your way through. In addition, when you take into account its sub-par visuals, a physics system from four years ago, and the ludicrous price of admission; RIDE is pure frustration made plastic. [Apr 2010, p.71]

Enemies are flat-out dumb. On more than a dozen occasions we left Perseus (not voiced by Sam Worthington) standing in front of a foe, completely inert. He stood there for so long, not being attacked, that he sheathed his sword and stared back at the dullard in front of him. It took 18 seconds before anything happened. [August 2010 p78]

This was an ambitious production, but it boils down to sluggish platforming and repetitive fetch quests. [June 2010 p78]

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]

After the last two Iron Man games we're honestly not even sure why anybody bothered. [July 2011 p.83]

Captain America: Super Soldier is rudimentary gaming at its worst, a tired old melange of linear corridor crawling and basic brawling. It's utterly unsatisfying. That the whole thing weighs in at a squidge over four hours only further sabotages any shred of quality that managed to smuggle itself into the final game. Don't play this. [September 2011 p76]

Sure, there are some minor kicks in three player co-op, but they're very short-lived and fraught with frustration. Call of Juarez should have stuck to its guns and remained an Old Wild Western. Avoid this like you would the real po-lice. [October 2011 p80]

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]

[W]e put the controller down (during a 'gameplay' sequence) and watched in stunned frustration as the game continued on happily playing itself for six minutes. It's inconceivable that there are gameplay levels that cannot be failed or be changed by your actions. Even Dragon's Lair, the game that birthed the concept 29 years ago, had consequences. [April 2012, p66]

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 only way this Vita version differentiates itself from the umpteenth Ridge Racers out there is the way it feels like a demo. You only get three cars and five tracks and no solo career. Want more content? Start paying, sucker. [April 2012, p79]

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]

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

This four-player top-down shooter is a one-note type of game, an ear-shattering drone of gunfire punctuated with occasional soundbites. You're on the ground, shooting guys. Then you're in a chopper, shooting guys. The repetition and lack of character kills any hope the XP system had for making this brown square of a game engaging. Play alone and suffer the AI. Play with mates and... actually, don't. [October 2012, p79]

Declassified feels like a disappointing DLC bundle rather than a full release. In its best moments it proves that Call of Duty could work on the console, and it has some good ideas – earning XP across single-player for multiplayer unlocks is particularly neat – but it's exceptionally hard to justify how this ended up with a $70 price tag. The very best PS Vita games have proven that, in the portable market, size can still matter. This lesson has, ironically, been ignored by gaming's biggest franchise. [January 2013, p76]

Poorly presented and boring. Little difference between each mode.[April 2013, p78]

It almost feels as though developer Terminal Reality ran out of money, right on the home stretch. If only the game was shot in the head long before it ever got to that point. [June 2013, p79]

We desperately wanted to give Damnation the benefit of the doubt, but everything about it just feels wrong. You need to do far better than this to cut the mustard. [July 2009, p.82]

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

Rogue Warrior isn't a complete fiasco. We tried to like it, but it just wasn't worth releasing. [Feb 2010, p.73]

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

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

There's a difference between a game that is wacky and a game that is wack. Kung Fu Rider desperately tries to be the former but winds up being the latter. [November 2010 p67]

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]

It's fitting that the developers are called Mastiff, because this game looks like a dog's breakfast. Each mission is a waterlogged shamble through the land that time and PS2 forgot, where you'll have to re-kill the same six simpletons over and over. [February 2012, p.75]

The vehicle handling is awful, the graphics are rudimentary and the soundtrack is a three-riff wonder. Keep your cash and avoid. [May 2012, p80]

What the avid propeller-head wants is realism, depth and tactics – all of which Damage Inc. does not deliver. There's no dynamic damage, your cockpit gauges may as well be crayoned on, and while the controls are responsive, this game cares not for your Earth-air physics. [December 2012, p74]

In the movie Skyfall, James Bond is accidentally shot off the top of a train as he pursues a bad guy and falls into a river below. All the stages in 007 Legends are the spy's sort-of memories of previous missions as he plummets into the river, all based on previous films. Honestly, he'd be better off being totally knocked out. 007 Legends is awful. [Christmas 2012, p.82]