Mario Kart World is magnificent. It features the tight and refined gameplay you expect from the series, a brilliant new Knockout mode, and such colourful energy and vibrancy that it was the perfect title to launch the console. I really didn’t think there was much else Nintendo could do after Mario Kart 8, but I stand corrected.

It’s good that we’ve had a creative vision as pure as Bayonetta, and now we’ve seen the developers push it as far as it will go. Thanks to excellent characterisation, a true understanding of how to work with both hyperbole and surrealism within a narrative, and a ridiculously complex, but rewarding, combat system, Bayonetta 3 has been well worth the wait.

Out of the Park 18 is a competent entry in a legendary franchise which offers management enthusiasts a staggering about of depth. Whether you already love baseball or you’re yet to discover what truly makes the sport great, OOTP’s robust engine and deep customisation options cater for the needs of any player. It’s a fairly steep learning curve starting out, but once OOTP hits its groove, it’s sure to captivate your attention for years (or at least until OOTP 19 rolls around).

There are a few minor further issues with the collection – the music is almost shockingly low resolution and difficult to hear, and the interface was clearly designed around touch input so the controller is a little clumsy, but those fade into the background quickly enough and are easy to ignore. What rises above and beyond for Sorcery! is the quality of the writing. My recommendation is to play this like you would read a good book. Forget the in-game music. Put on a pair of headphones with some meditative ambient sound (I like rain “music” myself) and lose yourself in the words. Do that, and the minor irritations along the way will feel rather irrelevant.

Nightdive proves over and over again that for a certain type of vintage video game – the more mature and high-profile “blockbusters” of yesteryear – it is a formidable choice for not only making the game playable on modern hardware, but straddling the balance between giving the nostalgic the game they remembered while making it as playable and enjoyable as new games today. Heretic and Hexen are both brilliant dark fantasy adventures, and they’ve been polished to a special kind of sheen that celebrates the impact they had on many thousands of fans back in the day.

Ghost of Yotei achieves what it set out to, in that it wanted to take what makes Ghost of Tsushima so popular (the visual engine, the combat, Sucker Punch’s open worlds) and transport it to a “barely settled” location where they could give us a rip-roaring, all-American Wild West story. So… good on them for achieving that, I guess. But, as I brace for the inevitable comment moderation job ahead, I gotta be honest and say I just didn’t care for any of it. Or the way it capitalises on the Japanese/Ainu setting rather than tries to work with it.

Final Fantasy XII’s willingness to be different and innovative has left it feeling every bit as modern and poignant now as any new JRPG on the market, and it remains my favourite game within a series that I hold very precious to me.

For the price, Star Wars Pinball is a fantastic package for fans of the science fiction franchise as well as those who just like a good game of pinball. Sure, some of the new features are better than others, and any time you have a large collection of themed tables, some are going to be more enjoyable than the others, but they are more the exception than the rule. With all kinds of tables offering a variety of sound effects, music, visual flair, ramps, multiple levels and a nice sense of progression, there is a lot to enjoy here. That makes it an easy to recommend package that I am going to spend a lot of time with in the coming weeks, months, and probably years.

The long and short of it is that Silent Hill f is brilliant. It’s an exceptional story told exceptionally well, with a depth of theme and artistic heritage that makes it worth actual study. That is backed up with an entertaining blend of well-designed combat and intelligent, challenging puzzles. Silent Hill f will – or at least should – make you uncomfortable, and it will haunt your thoughts long after you’ve stopped playing. And that’s the hallmark of a truly special horror game.

It's the perfect blend of a classical, nostalgic love letter to the genesis of the tactics RPG, while at the same time offering just enough to subvert expectations so that even genre veterans will have trouble putting this one down.

I already know that this will be my most-played game on the Switch over the longer term. Once you start playing Civilization, it has the most incredible ability to make you lose all sense of time, and desire to play anything else.

Volume’s score is great and the composer, David Housden, has done a fantastic job. The audio direction and design really impressed me with the memorable voice acting and sound effects throughout. It is always great to have a composer create a soundtrack so good, that it is actually interesting to listen to even outside the game.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is a game that really struggles to find the new voice that Resident Evil so needs as a franchise. It’s incredibly well designed and executed, and you’re not going to find a game that does VR better than this one. But it’s a confused game, sending out all kinds of mixed messages that suggest the development team - and especially the writers - have a better idea of what makes for horrific imagery than they do of horror as a storytelling genre. As a real fan of horror, and someone who has studied it for years, this is what doesn’t sit so well with me.

The action is fluid and the open world begs the player to experiment and explore. It's a sure fire sign that the people behind this new direction for Lara Croft really do know what they are doing, and the franchise is in good hands moving forwards.

Forza's combination of speed, presentation values, excellent handling and flexibility in letting players approach the game in a variety of ways makes it really hard to put the controller down.

More than anything else, though, I badly wanted more from SteamWorld Heist, and that’s a reflection of the quality that’s already in there. I wanted more storytelling, I wanted more missions, and more variety in them. What’s there is genuinely entertaining – the kind of game that you will sit at for hours because it does a remarkable job in building the “just one more turn” compulsion. But there’s just not enough of it.

Final Fantasy XIV has genuinely developed into the best MMO on the market as far as I'm concerned, with its brilliant post-game content and now, with the additional Heavensward content, the best is just getting better. This game is a compelling argument for the continued validity of the subscription model for MMOs.

For my first experience with the Luigi's Mansion series, I had such a good time. Boiled down it's a fairly simple riff on GhostBusters, but Luigi's Mansion has been produced with such a sense of humour and eye for detail that it has a personality and uniquely Nintendo quality all of its own. Halloween always brings the deluge of seasonably-themed games, and so many of them aim for a true kind of horror. Nintendo tops the pack this year with something that revels in the silliness of the season, and it does so with panache.

This was always a great game, but the improved visuals and social features, as well as the additional content that Square Enix continues to add into the game, is enough for me to happily say that Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn has become my favourite MMO.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is going to be the most ambitious game that you play for quite some time. It’s truly spectacular for its scope and the many multifaceted dynamics that ensure that nothing about it, at any point, becomes routine or rote. It’s also frustrating, archaic, and a mess in so many other ways, but the developers left nothing on the table in making this, and it’s hard not to admire such brazen creativity.

With Armored Core VI, FromSoftware has demonstrated, yet again, that it has few peers when it comes to intelligent and thought-provoking action. You’ll need to be faster on the draw and quicker with the reactions to survive this game’s bullet ballet-like approach, but you’ll also need to be smart and precise, and there’s elegance to complement with the visceral sound of metal rending. Sadly, that’s all FromSoftware has delivered this time around, and for a company that has mastered the ability to give truly memorable context to its worlds, characters, and battles, the shallow hollowness of this experience is truly disappointing.

Dragon Quest XI is, from end to end, an iconic example of everything that Dragon Quest has stood for since way back in the 80's. It's charming and has a colourful energy that makes it very hard to put down. It's also a proof of just what can be achieved with a highly traditional JRPG when paired with the production values that only a developer/ publisher of the size of Square Enix could achieve.

Code:Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ is an ambitious, daring otome adventure that takes full advantage of the visual novel format. The lengthy narrative obviously won’t appease anyone frightened of novels, but for fans of the genre, it’s teeming with style and one of 2015’s essential reads.

I do admire Returnal. From aesthetics and atmosphere, through to its structure, this is a game that is confident, and even brave in the “blockbuster” space that it will be playing in. You can see that the team at Housemarque had a creative vision and were prepared to lose players over it, in return for delivering a purity of that vision. And as a result, this is the first original PlayStation 5 title that I’ve found compelling, given that Demon’s Souls was a remake. When I look at why I find it compelling, it’s for the effectiveness of the horror and the slick vision for action games that it offers. Scratch beneath that surface and the game doesn’t say much to justify its existence, and it is going to be far too challenging for a lot of players, but within its fairly narrow scope, for the audience that it was made for, Returnal is going to be a vividly entertaining ride.

It’s a deep, complex, stylish game that blows every other fighter out of the water, but made surprisingly accessible through things like the Stylish control scheme and a Combo/Mission modes that serve to teach useful, practical combos and strategies. It’s still got its RPG-like M.O.M mode that lets you level up and customise your character, it’s still got an eccentric but oddly moving story, and it’s still got the sort of kickass soundtrack that only Daisuke Ishiwatari can come up with.

Assault Android Cactus' greatest weakness is that it defines itself as an "arcade dual stick shooter" in such a traditional fashion that it's limited by that. The game's greatest strength is that it is so slick, smooth, and energetic that its limitations don't matter in the slightest. This is one cracking game.

I'd also be remiss if I didn't highlight that this game wants you to keep investing in it; the dreaded loot boxes and other monetisation models are present in the game, and are proving to be quite controversial. In fairness, the game does almost get to the point where, like in mobile free-to-play games, you'll feel an urge to spend real money just to speed progress up a little. That said, while that kind of grinding isn't really acceptable for a premium-priced game, the loot boxes are just on the side of "optional enough that you can still have a blast without investing in them.

I haven't been so deeply affected by a game as I have Sumire in a very, very long time. This is an artful experience with a valuable core message; don't take anything for granted. Sumire has a literal day to achieve what she needs to. Metaphorically we all only have one "day" on this planet, and we shouldn't waste it. You may be driven to tears playing Sumire, but that's not a message you'll soon forget. Not with the powerful way this game presents it.

It's a surprisingly decent narrative, mind you. BlazBlue has all the typical tropes of youth action anime, with its focus on moving up and down power rankings something overly familiar to anyone who's watched even a few anime titles in the past. But, again, BlazBlue does it convincingly enough that you feel like you're getting a full anime season as part of the game's entry price. Throw in the quality competitive seen, umpteen different alternative gameplay modes, and the sheer size of the roster, all available from the outset, and BlazBlue is going to be hard to put down for a long period of time.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3D doesn't really belong on the Nintendo 3DS. In fact, Nintendo would have been better off going the other way and doing a "HD" version for the Wii U in the lead up to the next Monolith Software release on that console. But, that aside, this is a classic game, and having that experience on the go is not a bad bonus reason to purchase the New Nintendo 3DS.

There’s this inescapable rhetoric that latches onto the mere whisper of the name “Sonic the hedgehog”, claiming the blue blur hasn’t had a great game in decades. While I disagree, Sonic Mania is a liberating experience that needs no asterisks to qualify it. Sonic sequels have so often been rushed or subjected to gimmicks that compromise what works, but Mania finally stops to acknowledge past successes, adds logical improvements, and enhances it all tenfold with personality. It even proves that Sonic can be more nuanced than the cursed phrase “gotta go fast” implies.

It was a great game back when it was new. It’s a great game still. Strong narratives don’t age, and this one has a strong story to tell. Throw in quality port work that gives the art direction the detail and clarity that it really deserves, and Twilight Princess is a classic that has scrubbed up well enough to be a worthy Wii U title in its own right.

While simple in presentation, the grand scope of Trails of Cold Steel’s narrative is really what drives this game, and it does so with remarkable intelligence and confidence. You’ll need a good block of time to actually play through this one, but for people that do make the commitment to it, the rewards are more than enough.

Monster Hunter Generations might not be a true sequel due to its similarities to Monster Hunter 4 and the many call backs to earlier games in the series. That being said, Generations does make some excellent design choices as it highlights everything that has made the series great, added some new mechanics to help keep things fresh and provides the biggest and best Monster Hunter experience yet.

The world, puzzles, narrative and music are all served to the player in small helpings, never overwhelming and allowing you to soak in and become one with the world. By the end of the game, it has challenged your mind in multiple ways.

While there is not a ton of content, there is more than enough to keep a racer busy and the quality of said content is spectacular.

A highly-polished title that shows that the ageing 3DS somehow still has legs in it. Aside from the Pokémon Sun and Moon sequels, Samus Returns could very well be one of the last big 3DS titles, but with games like this, I’m just not ready to let go of my 3DS just yet.

Dragon Quest VIII isn’t the perfect port in coming to the 3DS. It is, however, very close to the perfect classical JRPG.

It may not be for everyone, but if you’re thinking you might like it, you’re probably right, so long as you don’t mind the learning curve. Even with its slow pace, its charming presentation and looming challenge will pull you back for more.

Dragon Quest I and II HD-2D Remake achieves exactly what developers should always be trying to achieve with a retro remake: Breathe new life into something that fans love. With enough new additions to surprise and delight even the most veteran fan of both titles, combined with a gorgeous art style that does so many favours to Dragon Quest, I somehow found myself genuinely excited, enchanted by, and unable to stop playing something I’ve played almost annually for decades now.

If you enjoyed the original Legend of Grimrock, odds are you will feel right at home here. It is bigger, more polished and provides greater variety than its predecessor.

Crusader Kings III is a hobby all by itself. When you start a campaign in this one, you’re going to need to settle in for the long haul, and in the initial stages, where you’ll make mistakes (and often not understand why), it can all be too overwhelming and you’ll give up on it. That’s fine if you decide on that basis that the game isn’t for you. It’s not for everyone and it’s certainly not Civilization. However, there’s no other way this game could have been made, and when it all finally clicks, the depth and intelligence of what Crusader Kings III offers also make it impossible to put down. You’re not going to find a more complex strategy game, nor a more rewarding one, on consoles.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is arguably the finest Nintendo platformer ever, for the way that it managed to perfectly capture Nintendo’s entire philosophy towards platformers. This review might sound flat on the game, but that’s only because the “DLC” that’s been added to the Switch 2 upgrade is difficult to be quite so enthusiastic about. Still, if this is your first time with Super Mario Bros. Wonder, it’s adding more to an already brilliant package, and if you already have the game, the “DLC” is only $20, which is more than reasonable as an excuse to dust it off for another whirl.

I know I’m being vague in what I write and say here, but I really am restricted from talking about the best that 13 Sentinels offers by embargo conditions. What I can say, however, is that this game stands proudly with the likes of NieR Automata, Persona 4 and Danganronpa as something truly intelligent and meaningful. Without ever losing sight of its need to entertain players, 13 Sentinels intellectually engages with and challenges them, respecting their ability and willingness to engage with the game on that level. It is, in a games industry that increasingly frustrates me for its lack of artistic intent, deeply and proudly artistic. The fact that it just happens to have such an excellent strategy game layered over the top of the narrative is the nicest icing on the cake.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is the perfect Legend of Zelda game. Where Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom took the series in new directions, to the point that they're barely related to what came before them, Zelda’s first outing as a protagonist feels like it fits seamlessly in with the traditions of Ocarina of Time, Link’s Awakening and Link to the Past. Not only that, but Nintendo has built a gameplay system that is more whimsical and creative than any of those previous titles, making this a more complete and fully realised vision of what the series has always wanted to be. I desperately hope that this wasn’t just a one-off experiment, and The Legend of Link is here to stay.

For the first ten hours or so I thought that The Outer Worlds would become a game of the year contender. Unfortunately it ultimately proves itself to be a little too shallow for that, but the combination of stunning vistas, excellent party members, and entertaining gunplay make it much like the 70's and 80's science fiction that it's clearly inspired by: A lot of fun when you're looking to switch the brain off and just unwind.

“Director’s Cut” is the right term for this Yakuza 0 release. The biggest addition is additional minutes of narrative footage, and it’s been spruced up to work on a handheld console for the first time. That’s really all it needed, because it was already the pinnacle of one of the greatest JRPG properties we’ve ever seen.

As one chapter in something that is almost experimental for video games – a genuine epic, spanning decades of game development, a half dozen consoles, and a dozen titles – Trails From Zero is a very fine entry indeed. The rich complexities of the narrative engage the brain, while the charming writing and characterisation also make for an entertaining experience. The story is everything to this series, so it’s just as well that is spot on, though thankfully the combat is enjoyable in its own right, and it’s all backed by excellent aesthetics. If you are new to The Legend Of Heroes, this isn’t a bad place to start. If you’re a veteran of the series you must surely love how one of the best games in the series has finally got the full localisation it always deserved.

People will be talking about the first two Doom games for decades more – those two games may well be remembered as true classics of the gaming medium a century down the track. This Doom won’t. This new Doom is terrible...Like the greedy organisation that unleashes hell on Mars, this is the product of exploitation; the developers at ID Software and Bethesda are playing with fire in treating a property as valuable as Doom this way.

With stunning and highly stylised character art, some exceptional and efficient writing, and some excellent “death game” scenarios, Paranormasight is one of the better visual novels that I’ve played in some time. Square Enix might not be known for this genre, but perhaps the company should look for more opportunities to participate in it, because while this won’t outsell Final Fantasy XVI (to put that mildly), it does remind us of how, among the bigger publishers, it is probably the most creative and willing to take risks on smaller scale projects like this… and just how good it is when big publishers support creative projects that aren’t expected to sell millions of copies.

On the one hand, we’re talking about the game that is to Kojima what Dr. Strangelove is to Stanley Kubrick (i.e. the masterpiece in a resume that basically has no misses). Even considering how brilliant Death Stranding is, Metal Gear Solid 3 is just something special, meaningful, and important as a work of art. It’s hard to see how anyone could improve on it, so it didn’t really need a “remake” in the way some other titles do. On the other hand, this really isn’t a new game, and while it wouldn’t be fair to say the remake’s efforts were “lazy,” it’s also hard to shake the feeling that where the Silent Hill 2 remake was exciting by virtue of how new it was, this is just that game, that we’ve already played and loved to death, in a prettier dress. But hey, if you’ve somehow not played Metal Gear Solid 3 before, this is going to blow your mind.

Cellar Door Games' Rogue Legacy is inherently hardcore and unapologetically retro. It's a game that should be marred by repetition, yet its careful blend of genres features such great variety and personality it's near impossible to stop playing.

It’s a little annoying that so many people will play Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess and not then take it upon themselves to learn something about where the game comes from. To suggest it’s an “action tower defence” game is doing it a disservice. No. Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess uses the action tower defence mechanical framework to share something an authentic and meaningful interpretation of Kagura through the video game medium. Capcom previously did something similar with Okami, only to have people limit it to a “Zelda clone.” But just as Okami had something sincere to say about Japanese spirituality, so too does this game. Hopefully, at least some players are inspired to learn where this game comes from.

If we were too look at 3DS version in isolation, it does miss the point of why people play Smash Bros. in the first place.

Ultimately the irreverence of Final Fantasy X-2 means that the quest isn't as memorable as its predecessor, and while it's good fun, it's also not something to play on rotation. But combined these two games are incredible value, and a great alternative to the XIII series on the PlayStation 3 for people that were put off by those more recent Square Enix games.

It’s the perfect example of a passion project done right, one that realises that it is important to look back, in order to move forward.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky isn’t just a wholly brilliant example of the genre done justice – it goes the extra mile in crafting a lengthy game that also maintains its initial entertainment value right through to its end.

One of the highest quality board games on the iPad. Pathfinder fans are probably itching for a ‘real’ game, in the vein of Dragon Age, but in the meantime, this is a good start to the digital side of the IP.

It's not going to be forgiving on any level for players in their first couple of hours. Move past that, though, and you're left with one of the greatest examples of sheer precision in rhythm game design, and, let's face it, there's nothing more important to a rhythm game than that.

Monster Train does indeed deserve to be noticed; it's the epitome of something that is better than it looks. Underneath that blandly homogenised aesthetic and equally bland promise of yet more roguelike lies a game that offers players some deep, invigorating, challenging and rewarding turn-based strategy. You may well find this one very difficult to put down.

When we think about this Halloween season and all the horror games that celebrate it, we rarely think about a dungeon crawler. After all, the 'crawler doesn't feature visceral action or jump scares. It's all too turn-based for that. But, of course, horror can be much more than jump scares and visceral action, and Undernauts demonstrates that beautifully. Strong atmosphere, challenging combat and Experience Inc.'s mastery of the genre combine to create something that is nearly impossible to put down.

Whether it’s called Clap Hanz Golf or Easy Come, Easy Golf, it’s one of the finest efforts from this highly specialised, legendary development team. The Switch lets you enjoy the game without the subscription model attached (which is an inherent plus), and the price is more than reasonable for something that is this big. Grindy, yes, but once you fall in the habit of playing once or twice per week to check in, unlock a few things, and participate in a tournament or two, you’ll realise that you just never stop playing it. Over a year later, you’ll realise that you’ve chalked up dozens of hours and that this is one of the most fundamentally enjoyable sports games you’ve ever played.

I have nothing but positive things to say about Date Everything!, and that’s saying something considering I’m a pessimist. It’s a love game that was meant to launch for Valentine’s Day, but it’s also a queer game launching in the middle of pride month, so the launch timing is still wonderful. It is an amazing game, and its fictional relationships hit me in my very real feels. The characters vary greatly in everything from appearance to personality, and despite there being 100 of them, it’s easy to remember each as someone special. The voice acting is exquisite, and shoutout to the devs for including the voice actors on every dateable’s profile. I expect to be recommending Date Everything! to others for years because there are so few quality games as quirky and heartfelt.

Just as I have a special reverence for Demon's Souls, even as I recognise Dark Souls was able to refine and improve on "the formula", I recognise that Nioh 2 is the better game, while also missing spirit and originality, which has gone by the wayside. That said, Nioh 2 is still going to be better than just about everything else that will be released in 2020. Brilliantly creative monster and level design come together with subtle - but important - improvements to the complex-but-rewarding mechanics. This is something that only people with patience and perseverance should sign up for, however this is also a rare case where the rewards truly exceed the demands made of players.

The Witcher 3 tells an excellent story and offers a massive, epic adventure, but the compromises made to this Switch version mean that this is a (significantly) lesser version of one of the most respected blockbusters out there. In doing that, a little of the magic and prestige behind The Witcher itself has been scrubbed away.

Octopath Traveler II’s core strength is its characters, and this bunch of eight heroes are some of the finest you’ll find in the genre. There’s a real emotional rollercoaster built into the way you’ll experience their stories stacked on top of one another, and it’s backed by some amazing worldbuilding, a slick and strategic combat system, and, of course, those stunning HD-2D aesthetics. The original was already exceptional. This is even better.

Two Point Hospital is wildly entertaining, with a great sense of humour and production values that pop with light-hearted, satirical style. It's worth playing through if for no other reason than to see what zany diseases and treatments you'll need to deal with next. It's just odd that for a game with such strong nostalgia for Theme Hospital it would neglect to recreate the challenge that was such a feature of those early-era simulators. Still, that's me showing my age, I know, and I can't imagine anyone failing to come out of Two Point Hospital with a giant smile on their face. If nothing else... it's a great cure for boredom (okay, I'm sorry, really. In my defence, I did resist getting that stupid joke out until right at the end).

Football Manager Classic is an incremental improvement on the previous games in the series on the iPad, but between those improvements and the updated roster, people who belong to its niche will find this absolutely essential stuff.

For all its humour, its intelligent noirish thriller narrative, and the sheer amount of stuff to do, Yakuza’s real strength forever remains in the little details that it gets right about its representation of Japanese cities... Every Yakuza game to date has been a genuine classic, and Yakuza 0 continues the fine form for a series of JRPGs that is right up there with the best of the genre. It’s completely essential.

BattleBlock Theater feels like it was designed for the child that still lives inside me. It’s juvenile, colourful, and silly. But more importantly, it achieves everything it set out to do, with a near masterful level of execution. The addictive multiplayer and excellent level creation tools are just the icing on the cake.

MLB The Show 17 is the only AAA baseball game in town, but the series is clearly not content resting on its laurels. With notable improvements in several areas and increased accessibility to try and hook newcomers, baseball fans should find a lot to like about this year's release. Play ball!

Death’s Door is a tremendously well-designed game, with superb production values and a tight core gameplay loop. I was immersed and impressed the whole way through, ready to rise to any challenge the game would throw at me, because I was so in love with its design and its world. You don’t have to be a fan of Zelda-style games to see the appeal of this one: Death’s Door is simply the tried and true fundamentals of game design, refined and polished to the ultimate degree.

Aside from the cooperative experience and the massive amount of online options for competitive multiplayer (the number of maps is absolutely staggering at over 100 and the mode variety is quite extensive), Halo's single-player also feels compelling.

Doki Doki Literature Club (and this Plus version) is both a homage and a challenge. It’s a homage in the way it delightfully plays with the dating visual novel genre – sure, it ends up subverting that to horrific effect, but there’s such glee in how it does that that hugely entertaining. On the other hand, it’s also a challenge – a suggestion that the genre can be a bit more reflective, look for ways to approach things differently, and that there is a lot that this genre can do with characterisation and relationship dynamics. The director has been outspoken that the initial seed of Doki Doki Literature Club from his “love/hate” relationship with anime and VNs. There’s much more of the love in there, I think, but developers making games in this genre should certainly play this game to encourage them to think about the structure of their own work from a different angle.

It is a fun, balanced and accessible fighter by a veteran development team that knows how to make an excellent arcade fighting game. However, it still finds a way to be true to the source material, despite the game being of a very different genre.

With a core gameplay loop that is this utterly intoxicating, it's hard not to love AAC. It's an addictive and elegant score-chaser that has the power to bring newcomers into the shmup genre, as well as the legs and tail to truly satisfy shmup veterans.

So Pikmin 3 isn't the massive game. It never has been. It wasn't on the Wii U, and it's no "bigger" on the Switch. What it is, however, is a load of fun, and the charm is irresistible. Have we had more impressive remasters of games that were, to be frank, more impressive in the first place? Sure, but Pikmin isn't meant to be "AAA" and it doesn't try to be. Whether you've played this game previously or not, it's still a charming delight.

It's a bloody brilliant game.

I truly love West of Loathing. It's charming, silly, fun and, most surprisingly, offers genuinely engaging combat and questing. This made it easy to play until my Nintendo Switch battery was running flat over, and then have me itching to play again while the battery was charging. And it did convince me to start playing Kingdoms of Loathing again. I guess I'm never going to get away from these nonsense stick figures.

The idea of a role-playing game built on the South Park universe is borderline genius.

The visuals, while still appealing, act a bit unsteady at times and the episode could have been longer. Telltale is asking for a fair chunk of cash for an episode that is measurable more in minutes than hours. But the art style, excellent voice acting and interesting story do more than enough to make up for those other deficiencies as Telltale Games turns in its finest release yet.

Mind you, apparent lack of confidence aside, Rogue Legacy is still an essential game, and it's good to see the roguelike still getting so much traction, because it is a wonderful, versatile and ultimately entertaining RPG sub-genre.

AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative is an exceptional game that hits the same beats as the original, while introducing plenty of fun new characters and a winding, complex plot that is going to keep you second-guessing right to the end. If only we had more games that respected the intelligence of their players like this one does.

A package of three of the best twitch racers out there, and given that we need to wait for Sony to find a new home for the WipeOut series, this will keep us going just fine in the meantime, you’d think.

For such a simple formula, it's a testament to Geometry Wars' ability to do it better than anyone else that it is still the premier dual stick arcade shooter, even after so many releases and clones on the market.

Ratchet & Clank is a return to form for the series.

I’m not the world’s biggest fan of platformers, but I can’t help but delight at what Kirby and the Forgotten Land offers. It’s bright, wholesome, charming, funny and memorable. It’s also a near-flawless example of Nintendo at its very best.

Regardless of which way you choose to play, you get a supremely balanced, intelligent, and deeply strategic game in Total War: Three Kingdoms.

Still, the beautifully crafted world teaming with life and and almost never-ending sequence of quests is an alluring hook to keep players coming back, in the same way that it doesn't seem to matter how empty a Hollywood blockbuster is, so long as the explosions get bigger and better every time, the audiences will keep flocking back to them.

What impressed me most about Shantae and the Pirate's Curse is its sense of humour.

Digital Eclipse is onto something special with its “interactive documentary” approach overall. Atari 50 has become the standard against which all retro compilations should be judged. Additionally, I appreciate the intent and effort that went into Tetris Forever a great deal. I just hate, so much, how licensing has let everyone involved with this effort down.

For a debut game, Moss is a remarkably mature, intelligent, confident and purposeful game by Polyarc...Moss really is the best VR game we've seen to date.

I don't have much to say about Death Stranding that I didn't already say back in 2019. The game remains the excellent and unique piece of art that it is. The "Director's Cut" stuff is an absolute bust and I'm disappointed that such cynical "blockbusterisms" have been applied to Kojima's work in particular. However, this is more than outweighed by the utterly different tone that eminates from the game, now that it comes across as reflective rather than prophetic. It might be sobering, but it's worth musing over.

I was absolutely wowed by this game the first time I played it through because I was paying so much attention to the cut scenes and redesigned Lara Croft was a joy to behold...But having had a year to sit and consider the game's broader meaning, the second time around the game's flaws are all the more apparent.

A handful of technical hiccups mixed with an aggressive monetisation strategy could very well leave a questionable taste in peoples' mouths.

There’s something for every sports game fan in there, and the overall package is of immense overall value. The problem EA has is that in trying to supply an ever-growing range of tastes, what its adding to the package for existing fans, who already have preferred gameplay modes, is really quite limited.

DiRT 4 does a remarkable job of creating a sense of speed.

This is an intense, clever, thoughtful and intellectually challenging JRPG that should remind people that when it comes to this genre, visual presentation and even the gameplay itself aren’t the drawcard. It’s that story that counts, and Radiant Historia manages to achieve something truly remarkable in giving players a time travelling plot that is genuinely interesting and worthwhile.