Overall, these four tables form a good spread of pinball styles; they vary in complexity and skills needed and do not feel like duplicates of each other.

There are definitely better roguelikes and FPS’, but this combines them both well enough to provide an entertaining experience to dip in and out of.

In conclusion, as a small downloadable title there is much to like about Strike Suit Zero; its story is interesting if awkwardly told, and its gameplay is finely-tuned and worth revisiting.

Given the consistent rush towards the safe option in gaming today, the possibility of Dark Souls 2 meaning something special to you makes its worth checking out, even if you might well hate every second of it.

Definitely a good game experiment which could have been on the level of a fantasy Papers Please, but in its own right it is great fun apart from the small amount of activities to do and the lack of replayability

The more lacklustre Yoshi’s Island games there are, the more Nintendo continue to suggest that the original was a glorious one-off, released when the company was approaching the very peak of its creativity.

Thus while these remakes do not offer much new, they are remakes of such high-quality games that they are worth revisiting, or visiting for the first time.

Sucker Punch have managed to boil down the essence of the series whilst retaining the most enjoyable elements, all topped off with a level of polish and detail that, for now at least, helps justify this new generation of hardware.

As a pitch, EDF2025 sounds like buckets of fun. But once the novelty inherent to the concept wears off, EDF2025 is boring, and it long outstays its welcome.

Bugs which do not impact gameplay can be forgiven – when they work against the core aspects of the game, they are far more egregious.

It is seems a shame the game didn’t launch before Christmas – on this evidence, with its kid-friendly content and rock-solid gameplay, it had the potential to have cleaned up, and help Microsoft move a bunch of additional Ones off the shelves in the process.

Licensed games are difficult, comedy games even moreso, but the Stick of Truth makes it look easy, and that’s maybe the biggest surprise of all.

Not without merit, Lords of Shadow 2 is one to pick up at a lower price in the upcoming summer draught.

As an experience, I’d definitely recommend Jazzpunk. It still fits in the, “Wandering Around Game” style, however its comedic sensibilities are great and its treatment of other video game styles are a love letter to gaming in the most fun, madcap way that Necrophone Games could have thought of.

It’s a fast-paced, hugely over-the-top experience, and it should put a big smile on your face for the vast majority of the time you spend with it.

Assassin’s Creed: Liberation HD is an agreeable adventure that die-hard fans of the series are certain to enjoy.

If you can look past the sub-par graphics and keep up with the demanding control tempo, you’ll find a robust beat-em-up with tight and interesting controls, entertaining movesets and a strong cast of characters.

All told, its peculiarities make for a fun and well-paced trip into cartoon weirdness with just enough of a Tim Schafer tint to pass the grade.

Ultimately Hoplite is not a game based to any great extent about discovering new content or unlocking secrets; while some abilities are added to the roster for completing achievements, it does not have the complexity of hidden mechanics that its close comparator 868-Hack does. Instead it is, bluntly, the more “accessible” game and perhaps as a result the truer evocation of retro gaming. Its rules can be learned very quickly, as any good short-playing game should, and yet it still has elements of deep strategy, choice and randomisation to provide a motivation for chasing high scores.

The visual novel-esque method of storytelling could work for a game based on a comic strip – games like Comix Zone have experimented with using comic-panel based graphics – but Romance Dawn does not feel like a comic despite using the aesthetic. There are not enough of the full-screen images to depict key scenes of the plot, and too often important developments are reduced to screen shakes and sound effects.

With the step to next generation consoles it will be interesting to see what Travellers Tales can do to keep the Lego games feeling fresh going forwards. As a near-perfect mix of brands, Lego Marvel Super Heroes works as well as you would imagine, it’s just a shame that the framework the game is built on is starting to show its age.

All in all, Freedom Cry is an excellent addition to Assassin’s Creed IV.

It is suitably complex mechanically to be challenging on a level beyond simply long fights with tough enemies, and tells a solid story reminiscent of the older Final Fantasy games from which it draws design elements.

A Link Between Worlds is a beautiful experience: a fun retrospective of former Zelda glories while providing enough innovation to stand out on its own.

It isn’t without issues, and it doesn’t do anything particularly new or special, but it’s that doesn’t stop it being a fun, charming way to spend a few hours.

There remains nothing truly revolutionary about Killzone, its story and characters are still unfortunately bland, its fiction hints at greatness that has never quite emerged. Yet Shadow Fall emerges as the best in the series, approaching that ideal single player balance between the weighty, war-torn shooter of old and the more nimble and varied globe-trotting adventures found in Call of Duty, paired with the most refined, and in-depth multiplayer the series has featured yet.

While not devoid of charm and a solid visual showcase for the PlayStation 4, Knack is best described as a PSOne title in shiny modern clothing.

Thus while not being a visual spectacle in the way something like Killzone is, Resogun demonstrates well the potential of the PS4 as a console; its capacity for impressive particle effects and handling of many more physics objects at once than past consoles is shown off to the full.

This decision further cements the idea – given that the 1980s series has been localised in English in the past – that this is a very niche game, for an audience expected to have some attachment with the series, and that it is a very barebones package with all extraneous content cut for more characters and levels. As a result, it is difficult to recommend to audiences outside of fans of the series; nostalgia, or familiarity, will likely forgive many of the shortcomings.

Soul Calibur II HD Online illustrates this perfectly: with the core game given nothing but a face lift, it remains a great fun experience, even if it’s the exact same experience that it provided ten years ago. The new features add very little, but then there’s very little that needed to be added even ten years ago, and therefore it remains to be seen whether similar tales of swords and souls will continue to be eternally retold.

In total, it is an ugly game which misuses its aesthetic, feels archaic and unfinished in its execution. Final Exam sits as a poor relation within a genre which has already given quality titles like Guardian Heroes, Metal Slug and Viewtiful Joe.

Overall, then, FM2014 is a quality product; an enjoyable entry point into the series for new players and customisable enough for series veterans to add or remove the features they want to make the best experience for them.

Pirate fans will merrily pick this up and discover a solid purchase, but the rest might want to hold out in hopes of something different from next year’s iteration.

But for all that it still stands head and shoulders above a lot of the equivalent open world action games out there, and for those happy to go back to the well one more time in this generation, there will be lots to enjoy here. For everyone else Arkham Origins is exactly the game you thought it would be, for better and for worse.

You’ll march through a campaign with an imagination as wide as its corridors, but be enthralled by a lavish if largely familiar multiplayer suite.

Flawed and silly, but also ambitious and heartfelt, this is a game with a clear vision, like it or not, that follows through with utter conviction to the end.

Roguelike games have become increasingly popular of late and it’s great to see one which rewards you for all the time spent by allowing a form of character progression. It’s mitigated to a point by having you lose all your money before entering a castle and each purchased bonus makes all the others more expensive.

Puzzle elements are integrated incompletely with the platforming elements, and while both have moments of retro-inspired genius neither is quite sufficient to truly stand alone.

Grand Theft Auto V is the rare entertainment experience that simply won’t let you down.

It’s a fascinating experience and one of the stranger topics for a video game.

It’s easy to overlook a lot of what makes Brothers unique from first glance, its unassuming style belies a title with a lot more on its mind. But stick with it and you’ll be rewarded with something really quite special.

Ultimately the game feels like a risk, an antithesis of much of what gaming currently aspires to be, but it also uses the medium to its advantage, to tell a personal story in a new and innovative way. Hopefully it leads to more developers stepping out in a similar fashion, and together pushing the medium forward in equally interesting and unexpected ways.

It is, however, hard to open-handedly recommend it to everyone: One Piece fans will find far more to like in it than non-fans, and the stylisation can be a divisive visual look.

The game is short, as I said before the page break; you’re able to race through events in a matter of minutes, which is why this is better played with multiple players to make awful choices together. Ten dollars feels like a lot for a short, independent game, but the amount of different options and the varied repercussions for single actions make it feel like better value than the great but ultimately linear Dear Esther or 30 Flights of Loving.

Full of potential and desperate to push away from its own mediocrity, Lost Planet 3 could have burst onto home consoles in a fountain of glowing orange. As it stands and regardless of what might have been, there’s not enough reason for a jaunt in the frozen wastes.

Were its opening acts more strongly defined, and the characters presented initially as less one-note, then it would be a far better game.

There’s no good reason to play Scourge: Outbreak. It functions (sort of), I’ll give ‘em that. But realistically, and even at a cheaper asking price, why would anyone ever want to play this game? Even the most middling third-person shooter is more desirable, and thankfully the last eight years has got your back pretty well covered in that regard.

It is bound to have its critics then, but when you get to see Darkstalkers’ Morrigan fighting alongside Ghost and Goblin’s Arthur and a grandfather-clock, salt and pepper-shaker tossing Dynamite Cop, it’s almost impossible to stop yourself falling just a little bit in love with the whole affair.

It may not be especially creative or unique, but Urban Trial Freestyle makes for a welcome distraction while RedLynx plans its next move. It may be a wannabe, but it’s a decent one all the same.

As a primer for Walking Dead’s upcoming sophomore season, 400 Days is absolutely a worthwhile stop-gap. More importantly, it is a great reminder that Telltale can continue to deliver on a quality of writing and characterisation far beyond many of its contemporaries, even when placed into a single chapter so fleeting compared to a full season’s worth of escalated drama.

It’s not a complete overhaul of the series, but it’s an entry that intelligently pushes Animal Crossing into new areas of control and creativity.

It encompasses the audiovisual elements, the neon graphics and low-rez music, and the joyous bloodiness of early shooters. But at the same time it also encompasses how dehumanising and routine the old games were – how the violence was immature and gratuitous and just a way of dressing up limited gameplay mechanics with visceral feedback to actions.

The Last of Us is the type of game that could only be crafted by a developer willing to take risks. Were Naughty Dog to have thrown its money at yearly iterations of Uncharted, it would likely still have found its audience, but with The Last of Us it has struck out in a bold new direction that asks some very big questions about some of the fundamental aspects of videogame culture and the relationship that exists between gamer and game.

For now though this collection is the perfect excuse to experience some of the best, most unique games of this generation and either encounter them for the first time, or dive back in for one more play.

If you are fine with crazy difficulty in your platformers then it’s a really rewarding game to play and so beautiful it puts the NSMB series to shame.

Regardless, if you like exploration, stress, permadeath, free-roaming games and don’t care about how the arm hair on your man looks, then this is definitely a game for you.

In Diggs Nightcrawler Sony have definitely hit on something, even if whatever it is doesn’t fit comfortably within any particular art-form and it will be interesting to see whether or not the high production values on show here can be sustained for future Wonderbook releases.

CastleStorm represents the best of its muses’ ideals – namely those belonging to the tower defense genre and Angry Birds – and fuses them into something specially made and distinctly enjoyable. Minor quirks don’t leave a damaging impression, either, which can’t be said for every joyously destroyed playhouse castle you’ll come into contact with along the way.

Groove Heaven is a relatively good looking game, there are some good ideas here and if you approach it expecting ‘My first rhythm action game’ you won’t be too disappointed, and maybe in this it has done its job. However, it is disappointing that it fails to reach the euphoric heights hinted at by that title.

Really, the only thing that makes Resident Evil: Revelations notable is the apparent lack of knowledge of what makes a game scary. That’s a charge that couldn’t even be fairly levelled at the current-generation entries into the series but, sadly, it’s one that’s fair to level at Resident Evil: Revelations.

The length won’t win over the more casual players, but for those who still can’t get enough of Metal Gear Rising, Blade Wolf serves as a welcome slice of cyber-dog action.

As a single player game, you’re able to take your time, case the joint and find effective ways to complete the map. Like Metal Gear Solid and other stealth games, it’s satisfying to get through each area, work out guard patterns and find the perfect hiding places. As a multiplayer game it’s a whole different monster. Sure, an organised group can probably best a level as quietly and efficiently as single player, but with offline play and friends like yours, you know what it’s going to be like

Thus, Persona 4 Arena is a standout game; it marries theme and mechanics closely, and through its apparent simplicity allows a total novice to enjoy it all while layering on levels of strategy for advanced play based on positioning and timing rather than specific dexterity at inputting attacks.

With a little more love, Way of the Dogg could have be a pretty cool rhythm game. Even if its framework is a silly attempt to pasteurise Snoop’s waning branded image and cultural relevance, the basic pitch is still solid and curiously inspired. But in practice, Way of the Dogg’s lifeless rhythm styling and maddening technical hiccups join forces to forge something truly ghetto.

This is a downloadable game that dares to dream big and pulls it off by throwing caution to the wind and letting loose, but on a very solid base of gameplay mechanics.

Unless you’re actively looking for a new generic arcade racer to play, there’s no outstanding reason to give Motorcross Madness a spin.

It may not reinvent the wheel, but Guacamelee! leaves you satisfied that you’ve experienced a game crafted by a talented studio with a genuine love for what they do.

Fire Emblem Awakening is a truly absorbing experience; a game which can make you fist-pump in victory and shout in horror as you watch zombie archers pick off your last Pegasus knight, all while you plan on how you’ll do it all better next time. And for what is essentially a board game-type RPG where little men and women run around a grid, that is pretty damn impressive.

Fast and frenetic, Nano Assault Ex is a game that will test your reflexes in a series of short bursts perfect for that bus ride home.

The cuddly charm of BattleBlock Theater tells only half the story – the game boasts a horde of smartly designed puzzle platforming stages as well as a multiplayer suite goofy enough to raise some pure and honest laughter. Whether on your own or with and against some friends, there’s plenty worth chewing through here.

There’s no escaping that it feels like something of a throwback to the PS2, but there’s also an undeniable charm in the story and characters that might just have you playing to the end. Sly and the gang haven’t quite brought their A-game, but for fans of the series and lovers of the long-forgotten platformer, Thieves in Time is a steal.

Castlevania: Mirror of Fate is stupid in a good way and robust enough to be an enjoyable challenge. While the boss battles go on a bit too long and the plot is bonkers, it’s a good use of a platforming style often forgotten.

When it comes down to it though Bioshock Infinite is a labour of love, a staggeringly impressive achievement and an example of the invention and singularity of vision that so many big budget games lack. I

In refusing to slap a number 4 in the title, Epic Games itself is admitting that Judgement categorically isn’t the next great leap for the series, and we’re assuming that will come with the next generation. But as a reminder of why Gears of War became one of the most influential shooters of its generation, Judgement is a welcome curtain call, even if it isn’t the grand finale that some would have wanted.

Misfires and all, it’s at least commendable that Dead Space 3 makes an effort to exhibit some fresh experimentation into what has become a truly bloated media franchise; plus the combat still shines for the most part. Sadly though, better elements like the crafting system are lamentably set against a mundane and lifeless backdrop that rarely excites, let alone spooks, on the grand level of previous games in the series.

To its credit, The Cave has amusing writing and a neat visual style – but charm alone cannot make up for its many technical flaws.

Sadly, there are weaknesses here that are exclusively down to the new additions to the game, and this makes it tough to call Ascension a particularly great game in its own right.

Early quick-time events aside, this twelve hour adventure suffers so few missteps that it’s a genuine delight to play, even as the lead gets trampled into the seasoned pro we’ve come to know. Everyone take a bow… the first lady of gaming has returned.

It is a game heavily invested in gaming’s history and nature in its debts to retro graphics styles and the platform genre but also one which combines them with the medium’s new direction in its use of the auto-scrolling form.

For better and for worse Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a game as crazy and nonsensical as its title, but because of that strong core, it’s one that just about makes the cut.

With so much to play through and so many things to perfect and unlock, Joe Danger Touch provides a ton of content for the £1.99 (or $2.99) it costs. As far as the platform goes, it’s definitely one of the nicest-looking and best value games on iOS.

Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is as much a triumph of curation as it is a technical showcase; Ghibli and Level 5 have cherry-picked the very best elements from their own past and combined them with the best that the genre has to offer.

I was surprised there would be a sequel to Pullblox, given the versatility of the game, but this one manages to be just as fun and different enough to be equally worthy of a purchase.

If you're a Suda-51 enthusiast or if it's on sale, then it'll be worth it, but other than that, it's a tiny distraction that provides a little entertainment, closer to an app game than something you'd play on a proper console, even a handheld one.

It positively crushes the gameplay of the fourth installment and does away with the overused backtracking. With a story that finally explores the truth behind Dante's supernatural heritage and reveals the decisions that lead him to become a hero, DMC achieves something no previous installment could not. It's the art direction and technical problems that let the package down, and they often do so in a big way. We encountered visual hiccups galore, shaky animations and a major crash on our PS3 review copy, yet the game remained enjoyable to the end.

Overall, I have to confess that I wasn't expecting a huge amount from Playstation All-Stars, but it surprised me. The Supers system provides a good twist on the Super Smash Brothers formula, it's obviously been lovingly put together and it's simply a great deal of fun. It's definitely a game that's worth playing.

The best thing to do when you put on Dance Central 3 is to embrace shame, put your dignity aside and get dancing. Oh, and then there's the latest DLC, which includes Gangnam Style. You know you want to horsey dance. Oh yes you do.

QForce is a disappointment because it feels like a Ratchet and Clank game, and to see the series go from some of the most high-profile Sony releases to an obscure multiplayer focused budget releas such as this is kind of disheartening.

When playing to its strengths, Hitman: Absolution is a genuinely great game. Overall, though, it feels slightly disappointing, simply because it doesn't spend enough time playing to those strengths.

Super Paper Mario on the Wii showed that Nintendo is unafraid of experimenting with the franchise, and although Paper Mario: Sticker Star has a few minor missteps and a few missed opportunities (where is the sticker collection StreetPass mini-game?) it is still an adventure of considerable charm and intelligence and is hugely entertaining throughout. It also does more than most to vindicate the 3DS's now much maligned 3D screen, proving that – if used correctly– it still has the ability to wow. Its hero may be flat, but Paper Mario: Sticker Star will leave you feeling anything but.

LittleBigPlanet Karting makes no bones about the fact that it's a kart racer with familiar series hooks thrown into the mix. The racing itself is fine, but as ever, you come to LittleBigPlanet to revel in the madness of its community creations – and this is a lure that still works a treat here.

Thus, as an Assassin's Creed game AC3 is the most ambitious yet the most refined yet; it is almost unmatched in density of content and unique in setting.

You're getting a short yet solid single-player mode that demands a love for the 'combat evolved' formula – it's a first-person shooter that is linear to the core, though we hope to see this change in future instalments. The story could have used some tweaking, but fans will still find an enjoyable experience with challenging gameplay and vicious enemies.

Don't buy unless you have Pokémon Black 2 or White 2, but if you do, it's a great addition to your arsenal.

As a whole, Pokédex 3D Pro is a nice little device, however the biggest problem with it is the expense. At £13.49 (or $15), it's at least twice as much as it should be. This isn't a game, despite the quiz elements. It's a 3D viewer at best, and all the useful information is more accessible in Bulbapedia or Serebii or one of dozens of free (or cheap) Pokédex apps on mobile devices.

Despite all of the criticisms, Assassin's Creed III: Liberation isn't a complete disaster and if a portable slice of Assassin's Creed is what you a looking for then there is some enjoyment to be had. Even so, it remains a huge missed opportunity with its attempts to expand the horizons of the series nearly all fizzling out, not through any conceptual problems but through lacklustre and often glitchy delivery.

Get beyond the cynical positioning of Forza Horizon and you'll find a racer that is, ironically, as efficient and refined as it's older, more mature, siblings. Whether it can build a community as effectively as the Motorsport games is unlikely, but Horizon, for all its familiarity and reluctance to experiment, is still a fine addition to the Xbox 360's roster.

When the Kinect is sober enough to reveal the better parts of The Journey, magic can definitely happen. But even if Fable The Journey worked flawlessly, it wouldn't be the most exciting or daring game to ever come about. Sadly, even though the identifiable Fable charm found all over The Journey lends much-needed character to the proceedings, the Kinect's technical blemishes can too often account for more motion-related headaches than you might be willing to put up with.