Whether it's letting China succumb to public panic as you divert resources to cover the American continent, or sending in a rookie to soak up damage on a suicide run so that your veterans don't die, XCOM will give you a scary appreciation of the harsh realities of being a leader in a time of crisis.

It's an amazing game - technically outstanding, showing all of Valve's usual polish and attention to detail, especially in the all-important multiplayer aspects. The continual balance tweaks and new heroes combined with the vast amount of content in the game offer countless hours of enjoyment. It's hard to master but good wins with your teammates are incredibly satisfying. It took me a long time to warm up to, but I'm helplessly addicted and every day look forward to getting home to fire this up with my friends. If you can spare the time - play it.

I would be reasonably loathe to consider Guild Wars 2 a "revolution" in MMO mechanics, since at its core there is still a theme park here, albeit an extraordinarily well-designed one. But it's obvious that its creators took on and smashed existing tropes with an aim to significantly improve on that experience that many millions of players currently fork out money for every month.

With other games offering multiple story paths and upgradeable characters Deus Ex no longer stands alone in its field, and it's not perfect by any means. But, with the mix of different choices, multiple paths and wholly addictive game play mechanics it's hard to put down.

The most fun new feature has to go to the new Skill Games, these fun little games will have you trying to master skills such as free kicks and dribbling via a series of mini games like kicking the ball into a bucket.

It combines the simple elegance, bountiful content and colourful enjoyment of so many indie works with the production values and design genius of the generation’s best Triple-A titles into a game that feels fresh and contemporary, but also mindful of what has come, and worked, before.

Borderlands 2 is a FPS/RPG fusion the rest of the videogame development world should stand up and pay attention to, because Gearbox has backed a real winner in this IP. A must-buy.

Xenoblade Chronicles is as grand and all-encompassing as Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and this Definitive Edition presents a wonderful remaster of an already excellent RPG. From the expansive and gorgeous worlds to explore to the memorable story and the stellar soundtrack.

Majora’s Mask is a bold game from a series known for its tight gameplay and expected occurrences.

Skylanders will be an influential series in years to come and successfully combines real world collectables with a fantastic platformer to deliver a rich and engaging experience.

If you're into Dark Souls games, I can tell you right now that Dark Souls 3 will probably be your game of the year. It's exactly what you want from a Dark Souls game. It's a lot of Dark Souls with a touch of Bloodborne, a dash of Dark Souls II and a hint of Demon's Souls. It's, admittedly, not a lot of anything new. But it's brilliant nonetheless.

Playing the game is not an entirely nostalgic experience. It conjures up a genuine need for this style of RPG -- isometric, hand-drawn, party-driven, stat-heavy, and a whole lot of fun.

The story that revolves around the divorce of Cody and May feels, well, a little divorced from the vibrant co-op platformer that makes up the bulk of It Takes Two. Where new and exciting fantasy locations and interesting mechanics are introduced regularly with a story that fails to keep pace or even reach a satisfying conclusion.

By itself, as just a game for someone that has no interest in learning guitar, it’s probably no more or less engaging than past rhythm games, but for those who dream of shredding, I can’t think of a better starting point.

Underneath all of the pyrotechnics is a tale that deals with life, death, and the meaning one can find or cling to. Xenoblade’s story is also as fun as it is heavy and heartfelt, as sad and somber as it is cinematic and action-packed. With a cast of series-best characters and some of the best exploration and combat to boot - it’s hard not to look at Xenoblade Chronicles 3 as anything but a game of the year contender.

Bowser's Fury has the effect of pushing the pretty good time that is Super Mario 3D World into the background - it's that good. So much so that a better title for this release would have been Bowser’s Fury + Super Mario 3D World.

Fez is engrossing, but it is not perfect. The puzzles are quite difficult, and more vexing still is the map screen, and the obtuse way the game world has been slotted together. No doubt after five or so years weaving the labyrinthine maps of the Fez multiverse, Phil Fish has an instinctive grasp of precisely where all the games warp gates will take you. A newcomer greeted by a 3D lattice of cryptically annotated cubes my find things a tad heavier going.

It’s still a relatively short game, about three hours or so if you’ve got your Portal brain switched on - but still a remarkable experience. The puzzle rooms and pacing toward the big GLaDOS reveal, and iconic end and credits sequence is still spot on. Portal is as finely tuned, deep, and fun as ever. Case in point, after firing it up I couldn’t stop until the epic “last room” was cleared. As a visual showcase of what a remaster meets remake can be, as a re-release of sorts, and as a reminder that classic design and pacing will always be just that, Portal with RTX is a triumph. Now bring on Portal 2 with RTX, and maybe some Half-Life 2 with RTX whilst the Source engine is still fired up inside NVIDIA’s labs.

It is strange to talk about pacing and bloat and a slow-moving plot when the turn-based battles are built on a foundation of ‘taking your time to make the right move’. But in adding so much and painting on such a large canvas, it’s hard not to eventually feel a little lost or stuck in Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Like a student sitting at the back of classroom, watching the clock, wondering just why this hour-long lecture is beginning to feel like an eternity.

There's certainly room for improvement, but there's no denying that so many different aspects of the first person shooter experience being dished out here are best-in-class. The multiplayer component alone is more than worth the price of admission and the solo campaign and cooperative offerings thankfully bring more to the table than they detract. With Battlefield 3, DICE have at long last raised the bar of PC gaming above the long-held bottleneck of console-parity, to bring us a game that's finally worth upgrading for and I dare say it carries with it a potential for a renaissance of the PC first person shooter.

Dreams is unlike anything I’ve played before. It’s a game that will only continue to grow and I’m very excited to see where it’s headed. As a platform, it encourages and celebrates creativity in all manner of ways - whether you want to create a piece of music, animate a small short or make a fully-fledged game. You can do it all. Minor performance issues aside, Dreams is a masterpiece in game design that I hope flourishes over the next decade.

It's love that makes The Walking Dead not only Telltale's best game by a mile, but also one of the best adventure games ever.

Though it may be thin on the extracurricular activities, Cole Phelps' journey from flatfoot to crime-buster is the interactive equivalent of a good whodunit book. Once it begins, you won't be able to put it down.

While the main storyline was lacking, there's a reason good world-building is critical to good fantasy, and like I said, this game nails it. I loved about the game was the way it used Aloy's Focus to force you to examine things. Each new area becomes a crime scene as Aloy examines and analyses what's been left behind. It's a clever way to blend the idea of technology into this otherwise primitive world.

It's certainly one of the most difficult games I have ever played, but it's clear that every single element of it has been designed meticulously to reward the cautious and clever participant.

Fallout 4 is a game that will spark conversation and a huge amount of love, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t follow in the footsteps of Skyrim as something of a cultural phenomenon. The game’s only real issue is in the dated visuals, but the engine serves a purpose beyond eye-candy, and hey, we’re mostly walking through irradiated trash anyway, right...Fallout 4 is impossible not to recommend.

Full of memorable moments, fast-paced action, moody set pieces and surprising narrative twists and turns - Dusk may look like a long-lost gem from 1998, when it’s actually one of 2018’s best.

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.