It changes the game beyond visual sheen and charges players with new ways to think about races; about their cars or their car setups (if you’re so inclined). It makes the racing even more visceral this time around, which when you consider the heritage here, is no small feat.

Shadows: Awakening feels different enough, thanks to integrating the idea of character and class swapping into the core design of both the mechanics and story. But even so the by-product of this is more micro-management and loot scrubbing duties placed on the player, that isn’t helped by an overall pace that feels too slow.

In no way treated as an intro sequence, the expanded Metroidvania style second half of the game inadvertently overshadows those opening hours of brilliant platforming and action. But even so, The Messenger features an understanding of design, from the 8-bit to the 16-bit to the modern era, that make it more than a throwback.

I wanted to like this marriage of Warhammer and action-RPG. Really like it. And initially I did, but the honeymoon was over pretty damn quickly. The hotel room was nasty and bug infested. The food invaried and bland. And the wife who looked so radiant on the day, lost most of her appeal when her skills and abilities were found to be lacklustre and severely limited.

As much as a radical shift would have been interesting for the Tomb Raider series, there’s no denying that Shadow of the Tomb Raider is another excellent adventure starring a troubled Lara Croft. A title that plays to the series strengths, whilst also indulging in its weaker aspects.

In how they’ve drawn out their impressive narrative stacked against compelling, open-world gameplay Spider-Man is now an absolute benchmark.

Ambiguity is not for everyone, nor is the simple pleasure of walking through a gorgeous sci-fi vista. Replace a few words here and there and that statement that could apply to just about any genre, or style of game. Planet Alpha may not quite have the mechanics to match the sheer variety and wonder of its beauty, but close-enough means that it’s one of the most surprising and wonderful slices of sci-fi we’ve seen this year.

For all its faults and this remaster’s bare-minimum approach to presentation – Shenmue is still worth playing. And hey, any game that can be described as Virtua Fighter meets The Sims, set in Japan during the 1980s, always will.

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate throws story out the window and trades it for a huge amount of monsters and content. In a way it feels like a send off, of the old Monster Hunter before we get a true version built for the Switch - from the ground up.

Strange Brigade from developer Rebellion, the studio behind the Sniper Elite series, presents a bright, camp, and vivid swashbuckling Indiana Jones-inspired world come to life. In a third-person shooter where teaming up with friends to take on hordes of supernatural creatures encourages experimentation. Oh, and it’s a lot of fun too.

From progression to combat to its strange world filled with secrets to find and items to discover - Dead Cells is a game one could easily savour and come back to for months. And when compared to the classics that inspired its design, that’s just about the perfect outcome too.

Thanks to Wadjet Eye’s now decade-long commitment to creating narrative driven point-and-click adventures that look and sound like products from a bygone era, it has seemingly done the impossible with Unavowed. Created a modern-day pixel-art driven, point-and-click classic. An adventure to savour, and one to revisit in the years to come.

Through it all there’s just something about We Happy Few that keeps you coming back. It could very well be the quality of the writing, the characterisation, and the setting of a post-war London trying to forget its shameful past through medication and dystopian control. Or it could be that, and the weird blend of ideas and styles. In the end, whether that’s enough to excuse some of the bland fetch-style quest design or the repetitive nature of traveling from one side of Wellington Wells to another, comes down to personal taste.

The X off-shoot of the Mega Man franchise improved on the formula laid out in the 8-bit era to create some of the best 2D action games of the ‘90s, where art and animation grew in leaps and bounds alongside mechanics and wonderful level design. In many ways this is Mega Man at its finest, and outside of the fact that most of the eight games play the same, this Legacy Collection is a fine reminder of why the X series is held in such high regard.

With various difficulties to tackle and work through, secrets items to find that affect loot quality while offering additional challenge, in addition to the large and mostly accommodating community - Warhammer: Vermintide II is a must for fans of co-op. Or, anyone still holding out for Left 4 Dead 3.

In the end Earthfall is unfortunately the exception to that age-old rule, originally spoken and then sung by Mary Poppins – ‘a spoonful of co-op makes even the most mediocre of shooters go down’.

It’s a testament to the game’s quality that a second play-through less than a year after the original release still felt fun, fresh, and exciting. Even without the DLC packs, it’s great that we get to play Wolfenstein II on the Switch - and just like with DOOM this is a wonderful addition to the Switch family.

It’s a shame that the two sides of The Spectrum Retreat don’t really come together, creating a cohesive narrative adventure filled with engaging puzzles to solve. But even though the Penrose Hotel quickly becomes boring to walk through, there’s still a lot to like – from the art direction to the story and the often-wonderful puzzle design.

We’ve been handed a mildly updated version of a little puzzle-platformer in Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. And despite its bubbly and cutesy presentation, the tail end of the game is a challenging and thoughtful experience where lateral thinking and classic Nintendo game-design coalesce to really offer up a rewarding experience.

Without a majority of the characters, the time between the major story beats would be particularly dull without anyone to talk to or side quests to complete. To take the evil path and embrace the vampire side of Jonathan, is to kill what life there is in Vampyr. Although it is important that there are consequences to your actions, some of which do have an immediate impact to the world, there isn’t enough to balance it out and make being evil fun or interesting.

Unravel Two is a fun physics-based side-scrolling platformer. And the addition of the blue Yarny, as well as co-op through him, or her, is enjoyable, but the team barely capitalises on having to use both for pushing through the environment and when they do, it’s usually elementary. In fact, outside of the game’s Challenge puzzles, which I’ll get to in a minute, Unravel Two is a far less challenging experience overall, especially in comparison to the first game.

Crash Bandicoot can still be fun – but is far from essential. A visually impressive remake full of detail and polish for what is for the most part a painfully average platformer.

In the end the fact that most of the different disciplines are fun to play, outweigh the shortcomings. Which makes The Crew 2 a fun, scrappy, but not all that essential arcade racer. If it could somehow reign in the insanity and shortcomings, while providing a real reason to drive around and explore the impressive open-world U.S.A. - especially in co-op – then it could become something special.

There’s hours of gameplay across both Kingdom Battle and now Donkey Kong Adventure, if you haven’t already bought into this new franchise. And with the added capacity to take the game on-the-go as a portable gaming experience, the value for money and Nintendo Switch buy-in here, and with Nintendo’s other key exclusives, is starting to look harder and harder to resist. At least from where we’re sitting.

With a solid roster of characters (and more yet to come), a robust online Tournament mode alongside Swing mode, the game is already pretty fun. The addition of a silly Adventure mode and extra trimmings and unlockables makes this a standout in the series and another great addition to the Switch’s growing library of Nintendo exclusives.

Shortcomings found in the sometimes-clunky writing and overly scripted emotional moments can feel unearned or sloppy. But the spirit and charm found in the surprise-hit Life is Strange is certainly here in The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit.

Although Summerset closely reflects the style and formula of previous expansions, this timeless quality extends to ESO’s particular brand of online role-playing. Where the spectacular scenery and sumptuous fashion of Summerset combines with prolific and narrative heavy quests to create an outstanding adventure, and a worthy inclusion in anyone’s Tamriel wardrobe.

To put it in Jurassic Park terms, although you start off as excited as Grant, Ellie, Tim, and Lex as you experience a world of true wonder – where dinosaurs roam – you soon become Arnold (Samuel L. Jackson’s character) dealing with yet another one of Nedry’s problems.

When set against other titles offering vehicular combat such as Carmageddon, Interstate '76, or even Twisted Metal, Onrush pales in variety, longevity, and simple car crushing fun.

For such a lovingly put together package of classic 2D Street Fighters it’s hard not to be consistently impressed by developer Digital Eclipse and publisher Capcom’s effort. The fact that the arcade monitor filter, which gives each game a vintage arcade cabinet look, is pulled off at all – let alone is as impressive as it is – speaks volumes to the quality of this collection. An essential release for Street Fighter fans.

There are puzzles, but never in a way to stop you on your journey forward. Like the music, there’s a pull or need to keep going. It’s what one might dismiss as art first, game second. Shape of the World is, well, neither. Instead it is a transportive journey that feels like a great ambient electronica album come to life. Brief and wonderful, and something to savour.

The lack of depth, a good story, and stuff like voice acting makes it all feel a little average. Pulling on your Zelda nostalgia heartstrings to drive motivation, even though the battles are all pretty much the same.

Moonlighter, like many classic action-RPGs or fantasy blends like Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley, is a grower. With masterful touches.

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more complete, competent, fun and wonderfully balanced Indie experience. We all love the God of Wars and Battlefield Vs of the world, but I’d take 10 more Yoku’s Island Expresss every day of the week. And absolutely perfect gaming experience.

This collection shines with the underlying impressive emulation of Mega Drive hardware, the variety of visual options you get to switch between realistic and pixel-heavy versions of each game, and the quality of life stuff like rewinding and picking up where you left off. And thanks to over 50 titles in the collection there are gems to find that you may not have played before - including Phantasy Star and Alien Soldier.

There’s value in narrative, if you don’t mind sloppy exposition, telegraphed characters and incentives as well as explosive quick time events that sit at odds with arbitrary quick time events, that sit even further at odds with ‘page-turner’ quick time events. When you get towards the game’s crescendo, which admittedly is handled excellently between the three main robot characters, and deal with ‘action’ sequences that take you out of your nanna or grandpa QTE slumber, the game feels interesting, but it’s smoke and mirrors. Acting, visuals and a relatively well-conceived future Detroit are the carrots on string here. The problem is our robot horse needs QTEs as well to get going and without enough blue blood, bled by actual gamers, it’s a hard task and road to Maple Syrup ahead.

An RPG of this scope could never really be perfect, but Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire has got it where it counts – story. Not only in the linear progression of following a god to try and reason with a trail of wanton destruction, but in the open exploration and creating your own mark with Deadfire. There are very few lengthy, memorable, and expansive stories as what you can find here.

There’s something about it that keeps you coming back, whether that’s the fun exploration or simply going on a quest to clear a few houses of infestations and then loot all the cupboards and drawers for goodies. But above all that it does nail the combat side, where headshots feel great as does getting up close with a machete. Gruesome and fun zombie-apocalypse survival, but also bug-ridden and poorly optimised.

Death Road to Canada attempts to offset the normally dark themes of the zombie genre with zany characters, a charming pixel art style, and poppy music, but the lack of depth to its combat and randomly generated content will quickly leave you feeling frustrated and unsatisfied. There is some fun to be had here for sure, which is definitely best experienced with friends, but that doesn't make up for its issues and overall lacklustre action.

If you have a spare 100 hours or so, you could do a lot worse than this. If you don’t, its ever-long pacing means it’s not at all hard to pick and play in increments. Absolutely recommended.

With City of Brass there’s a feeling you’re playing a home port of an arcade game, where short spurts of action, strategy, and fun doesn’t translate to a sit-down to play for an extended length of time videogame. It looks fantastic but there’s not a lot below the surface. But by keeping all power-ups and progression tied to procedural generation, there’s just not enough to keep you coming back time and again.

Although not the biggest or most expansive release in the franchise Thrones of Britannia surprises in its depth and commitment to building an experience specific to an era and place. From the warring houses and backstabbing and ever-changing map, to the war-hungry Vikings looking to cause one last moment of chaos. If medieval history is your thing, then this is the Total War for you.

BattleTech’s ambitions may exceed its grasp, but there is a lot to love about the entire package. From the tactical combat to the great story and characterisation. Marred by mostly technical issues, it’s a title that should theoretically improve over time. In the meantime, even in a scrappy state, the MechWarrior meets XCOM promise mostly delivers.

Going in with as little knowledge of the mechanics and choices and scenario structure is the best way to experience Frostpunk. One of the most intense, beautiful, and emotionally resonant games that features arranging housing and streets ever made.

For all its wonder and remarkable variety, where even after a dozen attempts at adventuring through the world of Ditto no two versions ever look the same, it’s overly punishing when it doesn’t need to be. Especially when exploration is concerned. And keeping you several steps behind the threat, never powerful enough to feel like a true hero, feels slightly off. Fun, charming, but ultimately frustrating.

The Enemy Within lets you shape and navigate your way through not only an entire relationship, that being the one with John Doe, but also in the direction and creation of The Joker. When you factor in that the Joker is perhaps almost as iconic as Batman, that Telltale was able to execute this progression at all, let alone imbue it with emotional weight – makes The Enemy Within essential for fans of the caped crusader.

This is a God of War game, and it’s f.cking brilliant. It has old-school game-design coupled lovingly alongside a modern storytelling tilt, and it marries the two in a contemporary and meaningful way. And playing on PS4 Pro on a setup like my Samsung QLED 65” Q8C with HDR, it just screams quality.

Are wonderful visuals, brilliant sailing mechanics, and fun activities like playing music and throwing up on your crewmates after drinking too much grog enough? For a few hours sure, but probably not in the long term. What’s here is extremely polished and wonderful to look at. And if the simple joys of sailing through Sea of Thieves gorgeous world clicks with you as it did me, then however long you spend visiting outposts and islands and strange wrecks – will be time well spent.

With an expansive story and memorable mechanics, it’s hard not to view Kingdom Come: Deliverance as one of the most interesting RPG releases in years. One where the difficulty is often a barrier to progress and some of the design choices become frustrating experiences in repetition or flat out giving up and moving on to another activity. Or reloading an earlier save to do more sword training. Rough around the edges sure, but the ambition often shines through.

Above all else, and despite its similarities and homages to several films and other properties A Way Out surprises with little touches and moments of joy. Stopping to play Connect Four in a hospital waiting room or picking up a banjo for a strum in a farmer’s house after washing his dishes and stealing his clothes. A Way Out understands that co-op can be fun and spontaneous in addition to providing another tense moment requiring coordination.

What we get in the end is a Far Cry that is both structured and full of open player-agency and emergent activity. It’s a game whose game-world is designed for you to love and adore, to become intimate and at one with; to be equally terrified of. This is videogames, after all, and that is at the fore of design here.

Even with its faults, from the weird two-halves of the story to the often poorly designed and uninteresting side-quests, Final Fantasy XV feels like a triumph. Discovering a new location or seeing a giant monster for the first time, Final Fantasy XV constantly surprises. And thanks to its likeable cast of heroes, provides as memorable an animated adventure of a boy band in a world filled with monsters could possibly be.

In the end the narrative isn’t quite as strong as the puzzle content found throughout, but nonetheless Q.U.B.E. 2 is an impressive entry in the test-chamber puzzle game subgenre first made popular by Valve’s Portal.

No matter the art form, there’s always room for a good sci-fi story. The Station, from a team of veteran developers who worked on titles like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and BioShock Infinite, offers a great sci-fi ending. One that is both memorable and, in a way, fun. The only real issue is that outside of the narrative there really isn’t much to the puzzle solving and exploration. Reading emails, listening to audio recordings of conversations, and taking in a space bedroom or two. Stuff we’ve seen and handled more intuitively before.

Even though there are several weapons to unlock and find along the way, a lot of them feel undercooked. Plus, some of the boss mechanics lean a little too heavily on the side of increasingly more difficult patterns to learn. That being said, it’s still worth checking out. Immortal Redneck is the sort of game that seemingly comes out of nowhere, where initial curiosity leads to hours of fun. For fans of old school shooters and the rouge-lite setup of games like Rogue Legacy then it’s well worth equipping Grandpa’s Blunderbuss and venturing into a pyramid filled with adorable but dangerous snakes and flying skulls.

Polished, fast, over-the-top and most of all fun, Dragon Ball FighterZ is a fighting game worth more than just a passing glance. Its lengthy campaign alone will keep you glued to the action for a while, but its other gameplay options and Dragon Ball universe depth make it something of a must own -- whether your DBZ fan alumni, or fighting game guru. One of the year’s excellent fighting game releases.

No doubt it would have been interesting to see some alternate take or variations in this remaster, perhaps in a secondary ‘modern mode’ with streamlined controls, updated AI, and less tech-tree clutter. But as a reasonably priced remaster that doesn’t mess with the original apart from implementing some minor improvements and all the bug fixes and content that came with later expansions it’s hard to fault Age of Empires: Definitive Edition. A fun, engaging trip down RTS memory-lane.

The themes of nature, balance, and the connectiveness between all living things is strong and can be felt throughout. In the end Fe certainly looks the part but doesn’t quite have enough memorable moments or feeling of discovery to match its ambitious design.

Crossing Souls is a little scrappy, rough around the edges. But at its core it tells a great story. An adventure filled with twists and turns and well-earned moments of introspection and emotion. The fact that it nails this part of its inspiration, that being the Spielberg-like vision of the 1980s, make it a success. Adventure, action, and friendship drive the experience, which make its short comings far less visible than its bedrooms filled with posters for films like Ghostbusters. In the end we love that Crossing Souls isn’t merely a compendium of references to things like Back to the Future and Poltergeist. There’s definite substance below the shiny neon ‘80s surface.

The price is beyond right and The Hidden Ones ties up its own short narrative with excellent writing and another standout performance from Abubakar Salim as Bayek. That we’re griping most here about wanting more suggests what they gave us was pretty much on-point anyway -- we just want seconds. (Please, Ubisoft, can we have some more?)

When it comes to Civilization, there’s so much going on and so many variables in play that it could never be perfect. Instead, what you can hope for is a complex but easy to follow game of Civ that you’d gladly playthrough again. One that doesn’t feel broken or at odds with what it’s trying to do. Civilization VI: Rise and Fall hits that sweet spot, with deep and rewarding new features that provide a more cohesive and memorable experience than the base game. Where no path feels too detrimental, whilst highlighting self-evident things like the power of religion and a well-stocked army. From the new Golden Ages through to the Governors and expanded Districts, if you’ve ever been a fan of the series – now’s the time to jump back in.

There's so much depth and scope to Monster Hunter World that some aspects I've only lightly touched on, or haven't even mentioned; the Canteen and its bizarre cat-chef, the Special Arena, Investigations and Bounties, the Hub's numerous activities. NPCs and provisioners, the marvelous Palico gadgets and so on. After 60+ hours and having just recently finished the bulk of the main story and hitting High Rank, there's still so much more I've yet to see. For the sake of getting this review out before Christmas 2142 all you need to know is that Monster Hunter World is an amazing, complex, and beautifully realised evolution of the franchise. It's been made extremely accessible to new hunters, whilst also being an enjoyable and thoroughly rewarding game for existing fans.

Shadow of the Colossus has its place in videogame history. It’s not indelible, but it is much-loved and for a number of good reasons. It’s just a barebones experience that can get tiring quickly, and feels like it needed just a little bit more “oomph”. I’m not here to rag on what it meant as a game back in 2005, but I am here suggesting that a visual overhaul of this nature -- in that it is glorious -- could have also come packaged with camera and gameplay fixes, at the very least. You’ll need patience and determination above all else, but if you’re an eye-candy sort of person, Shadow has it in spades. I just wish it also had a little something more as well.

Music-mixing is how DropMix is labelled, but mixing in the form of stitching together various loops – represented by cards – on an interactive board and a connected smart device app. The fact that it can convey the feeling of mixing and production, whilst giving anyone the chance to change and add to music without the need to worry about tempo or key, is worthy of praise. And, another feather in the already feather-stacked cap of Harmonix – creators of Amplitude, Guitar Hero, and Rock Band.

The Red Strings Club offers up a great cyberpunk narrative. One where the mechanics-driven activities like mixing drinks and building genetic augmentations only serve to add doubt and flesh out a memorable cast of characters. Coupled with a great soundtrack that doesn’t lean on any one style, wonderful locations, and a few surprising twists, it offers an impressive future-tale. One that isn’t afraid to delve into the idea of friendship, humanity, and what technological breakthroughs can bring us as a species.

An experience filled with interesting characters, great writing, and genuine love for the source material and themes.

In the end though, what you get with this budget, Australian-made title is a game with endless challenge, with a sense of direction not necessarily ever seen in a wholly-made local product, and a lot of fun. Anthony Skordi returning as the beaten Dealer serves up arguably the best voice-acting performance of the year and the game’s overall presentation and polish, outside of the negatives mentioned above, belie the budget constraints Defiant likely faced. This mature and confident game development in a genre they’re pretty much crafting on their own at the moment. Honestly, I can’t recommend Hand of Fate 2 enough.

Even with all of this new stuff, bug fixes, and improvements, Destiny still suffers from a lack of a real endgame. After completing the campaign, Adventures, and Raids (and acquiring all that juicy loot), once your power level hits the current cap, there's not much else to do. Aside from starting fresh on a new character. Due to Destiny's core system and design this doesn't offer too much in the way of a new experience.

Gear.Club for Nintendo Switch does offer split-screen racing, but again the core racing isn’t all that fun. The best bits are outside of the racing, collecting and upgrading cars, and remodeling and arranging your garage. Which, in case you were wondering, isn’t a good thing for a, you know, racing game.

Outside of the story, exploration, and puzzles, combat can play an equally big part in the overall story. But underneath the shiny new visuals, Outcast remains pretty much the same. Which means controls and combat that was fine if a little clumsy in 1999 is even more so today. But just like then, it’s quickly overlooked for what is an adventure quite unlike any other. An impressively realised world filled with character, moments of sheer triumph, and charm. Outcast: Second Contact is well worth a look for both fans and newcomers alike.

While it’s currently available on the other two super-systems, we reviewed the game on Switch and, if you own one, suggest you look to the little console that could for your L.A. Noire experience. It’s a wonderful fit on Switch and shows there’s a mature lifeline on the horizon for Nintendo, and the Nintendo loyal above the age of 15, ahead.

Ashes Cricket isn’t perfect, but that’s unfortunately to be expected from Big Ant cricket games at launch. But the stacks of little bugs aren’t enough to detract from the overall accomplishments of a fully featured cricket game, which is as appealing to cricket aficionados as it is to those looking to have a quick bash. If Big Ant follows the trend of its previous games, the subsequent patches will help to convert the game into a game with an even louder appeal.

Portable Skyrim, the reason some us bought into the whole Switch concept to begin with. And with so much content, I’d forgotten just how rich and detailed the world of Skyrim could be. Perfect for making even a long commute feel like a breeze.

Sonic Forces isn’t a bad game, nor the worst Sonic title in years. In fact, it’s quite fun and keeps up the series tradition of bringing a sense of speed to the forefront. But compared to say, Super Mario Odyssey, you get the feeling that it’s just another example of a fun and shallow Sonic game in a long line of fun and shallow Sonic games.

As a Star Wars fan, Battlefront II is disappointing. As a Battlefront (2015) apologist, it’s sad to see that familiar sins have popped up again, and questionable design decisions mar the fun parts: the campaign, split-screen versus, Heroes vs Villains, Starfighter Assault, and those rare fair fights on Galactic Assault. There’s a good game buried somewhere beneath too many cons. I just hope that Motive, Criterion, and DICE can right the starship before too many players launch their escape pods.

Even after all this time, DOOM is still a blast to play through. Making the Switch release my third time I got my ass to Mars in order to send a whole lot of demons back to hell. And Cohagen, if he's around. Being able to take it anywhere, at work, on a train, pop it in your bag, and resume later - is great. Awesome even. Portable DOOM single-player and Arcade Mode alone make it worth it for any Switch owner.

There’s plenty of good to be found, but Payback doesn’t seem all that interested in rewarding and promoting that side of the game. And in the end, delivers open-world racing that confuses and confounds moments after it surprises and delights.

The RPG side of the game is handled very well, and its challenge is really very good in the larger modern gaming landscape. Combat still needs tweaking from a design perspective, but is more than passable while the checklisty mission system does need a major overhaul, but when stacked against the game-world created here, and how much content it’s filled with, it can be forgiven.

Yes, it’s another Call of Duty, but it’s a Call of Duty by a rock-solid team who care about quality and stamping themselves as a premier Triple-A developer in a very crowded space. Another great Holiday release to add to your (likely) growing pile.

Spintires: Mudrunner has a tiny 1.1GB install because there's really not much too it. There are no peasants wandering the woods or working at the lumber yards. No other vehicles hauling lumber or otherwise in motion. The fauna has become extinct and only birds remain. It feels like you are the sole survivor in a post apocalyptic USSR where the cold war turned nuclear hot. Which begs the question: why you are hauling lumber? And for whom?

Wolfenstein II is packed full of great and memorable moments, not only in the story it tells but also the combat it presents. From walking the streets of Roswell, New Mexico and seeing KKK members walking together with Nazis to sneaking up on an unexpected soldier only to gruesomely amputate and decapitate them before they could recite their favourite verse from Mein Kampf. It’s provocative and intense in equal measure. And in the year 2017, when real Nazis are trying to make a comeback the world over, also cathartic. And necessary.

There’s plenty here to love, but you will need patience and you will need resolve, because the orcs and their player-defined society is a thing of, as I said earlier, unnatural beauty, it’s just a shame the rest of the game suffers in their expanded development wake.

Super Mario Odyssey isn’t just the best platformer to come around in years, it’s also one of the most essential releases of the year. Period. A showcase for Nintendo’s development talent and Mario as an iconic character that can still deliver surprising and transformative experiences even after all these years. It’s a game that not for a second lags or starts to feel like more of the same. It rewards players in ways that we rarely get to see, and even when it’s over it begins anew and invites you to keep exploring, keep discovering, and keep reaching for the moon.

The online career and Sport mode may signify a new direction for the series, but shows promise. With time, no doubt GT Sport will evolve with new modes, vehicles, tracks, and even additional weather effects. And when the day comes that we can witness all the wonderful detail and beauty of Polyphony Digital’s creation, via watching a replay of a crash-free online race set at night along the rain-soaked roads of Tokyo, this could become something truly special.

It’s for both South Park fans and RPG fans, but finding that balance between the two audiences might prove a bit tricky. However, if you’re a fan of both you’re in for a challenging and investment-heavy treat. The game’s polish was worth the wait. It’s combat is much-improved and the story -- if you care -- has some wonderful peaks across a South Park consistent delivery of social commentary alongside all those aforementioned dick, shit and fart jokes.

The tension and intensity can be felt throughout both the open-world sections, where you can choose where to go, as well as those where you’re simply walking down a hallway filled with framed pictures highlighting truly chilling acts of violence. It’s a thrill ride quite unlike any other, and as a survival horror release it will leave you shaking or at the very least on the verge of needing a nice long vacation.

There’s still a lot to like about The Pact, it continues this season’s trend of improved animation and performance for the series. And with origin stories and background out of the way, it means that new ideas can take the front seat – as realised in the depictions of newcomers Bain and Harley Quinn. It also ends on a cliff-hanger, which will no doubt make the wait for Episode Three feel that much longer. Overall, a good but not great episode.

I played on both PC and Xbox One and found -- for the most part -- it to run satisfactorily, but it does suffer from some long loads and frame-rates can chug a bit if you’ve had it running in any background for too long. But really, those are about the only major concerns overall. It’s delivery of an interesting and new game-world is handled well; inviting newcomers in to learn as much as they can about these battle chasers as possible. And with success, there’s bound to be a bigger and better entry in this franchise moving forward. Addictive, challenging and charming in its throwback love, coupled with stunning art, Battle Chasers: Nightwar is a gamer’s game. It doesn’t over-promise to under-deliver, and perfectly delivers on its premise. Absolutely worth your investment.

It's a sure sign of a solid platformer when deceptively simple core mechanics and basic controls result in hours of gameplay without feeling stale or repetitious. N++ achieves this splendidly. The triumph and accomplishment as you solve just ‘one more level’ of deadly physics and diabolical design is sublime and a heady swirl of emotion. Reinforcing the obsessive gameplay are instant restarts after death and virtually instantaneous level loading. Like a true platformer.

The art is something the videogaming landscape has never seen before and is, arguably, worth the price of admission alone. But we come for the art, and stay for the challenge. And boy, does Cuphead have challenge in spades. If you’re used to modern gaming, this is going to take you to absolute breaking point and might even push you away, but if you grew up on the more arcade-centric 8 and 16-bit games of the past, and love the challenges those games served up, then Cuphead is absolutely for you. Art and design combine, but with the sole purpose of crushing you -- what’s not to love?

There is a ridiculous amount of cars to collect in Forza 7, including a host of never before seen vehicles. Each of which can be hurled around the truly impressive variety of tracks brought to life by stunning weather and time of day lighting effects. Plus, even if you’ve seen some of these cars and tracks before they’ve never looked or felt this good. Racing is exciting in Forza 7 and accessible at any skill level. If you were to strip away the visuals and leave behind the core mechanics of racing hundreds of cars across numerous tracks, Forza 7 is still one of the most well rounded and solid racers ever created.

In the case of Jettomero: Hero of the Universe, either the presentation strikes a chord hidden deep inside you or it doesn’t. If it’s the former then of course it’s an experience worth checking out. If it’s the latter then, well, it might feel as empty as the space between all the different planets Jettomero travels to.

With its lineup of indistinguishable cars, bland Career mode, and the more enjoyable but limited Quick Game, WRC 7 presents few reasons to justify its price tag. It's fun for a quick bash sure, but for similar expenditure you could be playing Forza 7, Project Cars 2, or the literally billions of other racing games on the market.

Ultimately, it once again comes down to the experience of playing your first campaign. The excitement, strategy, conflict, uncertainty, and fantasy spectacle. The first dragon you take into battle. Crossing a vast body of water to formally introduce yourself to the strange Lizardmen that live in equally strange forests. Total War Warhammer II is a milestone release, for the simple reason that the campaign is both one the most intricately detailed and most open we’ve seen so far in a Total War game. Proving that a sequel can take a very different perspective, showcase a new part of the world, and be all the better for it.

Ruiner is momentum. The art drives the story, the story drives the setting, the setting drives the music, and the music drives the combat. Which in and of itself, needs none of the above. There are other very cool elements to be found from the versatile progression system to the way in which the boss battles evolve and really put your skills to the sent. And there are stretches where the momentum lags and cues are repeated. But with the sound turned up, the lights drawn, and your eyes firmly watching each enemy movement and background detail come to life there’s nothing better. Ruiner gets it. And I love it.

As a fan of all things racing if push came to running start I'd probably place myself firmly in the garage of an arcade racing fan. Ahem. But as with the first game in the series I found a great deal of enjoyment with Project Cars 2. The graphics and sound especially won me over. And whilst the struggles, trials, and tribulations of such a demanding simulator may have left me shaking with rage, the sheer exhilaration I felt after hitting a series of apexes so perfectly, culminating in a podium finish, was sweet recompense.

A no brainer for fans of the series, and a great way for newcomers to see what all the fuss is about.

Lessons were learnt and learnt well. The looming Darkness has not consumed Bungie at this point in time. Quite the contrary. Destiny 2 is the glorious self-rez fans have been praying for. Stop orbiting it and dive in, today.