Those new to the series should strap in and hold on tight - it’s one heck of a wild ride - but AiRace veterans might want to let this one stay in the pits.

Distant Worlds: Universe is a corker. But make no mistake: while it’s not as forbidding as some Grand Strategy games, patience and a degree of head-scratching will be required. But it’s worth the effort. It’s enormous, complex and – above all – fun.

The character depth and story detail might feel somewhat lacking compared to newer JRPG titles, but there is an expansive world here that begs for exploration as you grow your characters for future challenges. The overall package is an easy one to recommend.

Fantasy Grounds isn't a game in and of itself. But it's almost certainly going to end up being my most valued piece of Steam software.

Concave have made a game which, while it isn't broken by any means, just barely meets the tenets of its genre and rarely aims to go past that. In being no-nonsense, Pulstar also throws away its sense of individuality and its lasting appeal, making it a hard sell unless more content is added in the future.

But I can't get over the fact that this is meant to be a survival game that doesn't create a convincing argument for being a survival game. And because it compromises its vision, How To Survive is a fun game, but little more than that.

The levels are hard and they offer a good challenge for those who are willing to stick it out through the long loading times.

A solid tower defence experience that really does raise the bar for the tower defence genre. It might still be the simplest example of strategy gaming out there, but at least this one has merit for long term play.

As a time waster good for short bursts of play between more meatier games, EPOCH does a great job.

Focused as it is on simply giving players a good time, Dragon Quest VIII enjoys an X-factor quality and remains fun on the iPad despite the very odd choice to force players to play the game on an odd and uncomfortable device orientation.

It’s worth delving into the multiplayer, since after a multiplayer game you will win experience that will level you up and allow you to buy even more things from the shop.

Capcom has shown a good deal of skill in refining an already great fighter in Ultra Street Fighter IV. Surely, now, it's time to move on to a proper sequel.

There is an occasional awkwardness to movement that can make the single player story a bit of chore at times, but it does a nice job teaching the basics and serving as an almost extended tutorial for the good stuff - multiplayer mayhem.

8BitBoy is a great throwback to the NES era of platform gaming where skill and mastery were required if you were to make it through to the end of the game. It’s games like these that remind us that button mashing does not always win the day and sometimes, just sometimes, perseverance can be a reward into itself.

Mind Zero is still a very entertaining game, it's just that when you deliberately compare yourself to the greatest, you're inevitably going to disappoint. Were Mind Zero to stand with its own narrative drive, and free of the comparisons to Persona, this game would have appreciated for what it is, rather than what it is not.

The difficulty creates some unnecessary grinding, and finding materials to craft some spells is a pain, but short of these two aspects Sweet Lily Dreams is a well worthwhile adventure.

I have no doubt that when everything is said and finished, this chapter will prove to be important to telling the story as a whole, it just lacks the depth and impact I have come to expect from The Wolf Among Us up until now.

These new features combine to make trade an even more vibrant strategic opportunity than it was previously.

Managing your deck is nearly as exciting as the battles in its own way. Nabbing new booster packs and busting them open with the touch screen is a simple joy that offers a little joyful suspense every time you acquire new cards.

It's still a great looking game, and the core narrative is a fun, if underdone and derivative one. It's simply disappointing that this game had a reasonably large budget, and in the process it lost some of its identity and seems to be shoehorned into some very unnecessary and destructive mechanics. This game would have been far better off being made for a fraction of the budget by a small team willing to take real risks.

Another decent, if unspectacular effort from Nintendo. The series needs better balancing if skill is to ever become a factor again and the single player mode may be a total slog, but Mario Kart is still a hit where it always mattered: with friends.

Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection is an attempt to blend the idol management sim with the crazy universe of Hyperdimention Neptunia, and it largely works.

The gameplay gets quite repetitive after a while as there isn’t much change from one level to the next especially after the first ten to fifteen levels of each campaign. Frankly, Warhammer does deserve more rounded games than this.

A game that is from start to finish filled with difficult choices, and demands multiple replays in order to fully appreciate all of the different possible paths through the narrative.

There's a lot to this game and I cannot recommend it to anyone new to the genre as tutorial does almost nothing to help you learn the game. For hardcore RTS fans out there, I suspect that this game will be right up your alley.

Sparkle 2 may certainly be a game that has been played a hundred times before, but as it is on the PlayStation 4, it is truly a treat. The pick up and play aspect shines and the difficulty curve is spot on. It does get repetitive though, so short bursts are recommended. And I just can't get over how disappointing the lack of multiplayer is.

The Game Bakers, the developer of Squids Odyssey, has created a game that largely misses everything that makes the RPG genre great. As such, it quickly becomes tedious, and while I do think it would work as a free iOS game as a time waster, it doesn't work as a sit down experience on a home console.

Machine Games has taken an aged franchise and brought it into the current world of gaming, yet they’ve done so without compromising the core tenets that are at the heart of Wolfenstein’s identity. As competent as it is a shooter, The New Order elevates itself from your standard run-and-gun action game by crafting a world that is actually worth caring about, and it’s done so with a level of confidence that is worthy of commendation.