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.