This here is a masterpiece of narrative storytelling, one of the strongest examples of game-as-art that we’ve had in years, and a remarkable, cinematic, triumph that has the rare distinction of also being a major studio project that is both creative and original.

This is precisely the kind of small, warm story that is fundamentally impossible in our bombastic, capitalist conception of the games industry. If all we celebrate are the big games, the ones that leave us feeling like we got our money’s worth, the ones which have us posting screenshots on Twitter and the ones which blow up on Twitch – if this is the zeitgeist of our medium’s discourse, then what place could there be for the ordinary, the mediocre, the quintessentially human? I don’t know if Essays on Empathy will find an audience. If anything, it incorporates numerous design decisions which seem to impede its ability to find an audience. But it is a game which I, personally, am thankful for, and will be for a long time to come.

Paper Mario is such an eclectic and generally experimental series that it's difficult to define what makes a good entry in it. Some people like the specific combat systems that the series plays with. Others enjoy Mario in the JRPG context. For me it's the sense of humour that's important. On that basis I couldn't be happier with The Origami King. I feel that there will be discussion about that ring-based combat system and some of the world design elements, but through it all I do think that most people will be too busy enjoying the deadpan, dry, droll and refreshing humour that they won't care about much else. This is a fine return to form for Paper Mario at what it does best.

Despite the long turns and multitude of menus, Total War: Attila succeeds because it gets you invested in your armies and the period of time.

I thought going in that it would be something special. I think it still probably is something special. But with the console and television set up that I've got, and no apparent way to make the text and font more legible, I wasn't able to experience what makes this game the stand-out horror experience that the other reviews suggest that it is (and I've got no reason to believe that those reviews are in any way inaccurate). Unfortunately for me Darkwood is unintelligible, and I'm genuinely sad that I wasn't able to appreciate the many merits of a game because I simply had no way of actually making sense of it.

Really, the best way to describe Everything is that it’s a game that lets you play as everything. I don’t mean that in the sense that you can play as anything, though you can do that (at least, any of roughly 1000 different things coded into the game). Rather, I mean that it’s a game that lets you play as a conceptual Everything – that one grand, all-encompassing thing that we are all part of, that binds us together, and that exists within all of us.

Ultimately the only complaints that I can levy against SEGA Mega Drive Classics Collection are that there is not quite enough icing on what is an admittedly very generous cake. With this compilation you’ll be getting 50 games at an absolute steal – and while some of them are historical curios that won’t be worth your time, most are fantastic.

I would say Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival is a release for the more hardcore side of the Taiko fanbase, but that would be overlooking the sheer joy and accessibility of the main game. Perhaps I’m merely bitter at the lack of supplementary features, shallow party modes, and a somewhat cynical subscription service that makes Rhythm Festival lag behind Drum ‘n’ Fun. But ultimately, this is more Taiko, and more Taiko is good. It’s not my favourite of Bandai Namco’s outings on the Nintendo console, but it’s not without its charm either.

It combines some of the finest production values we've seen on the iPad to date, with some streamlined, but truly entertaining empire strategy elements.

All in all SMITE offers up a refreshing take on the MOBA genre. It is not a genre I spend a lot of time with, but I can already say that I have found SMITE to be more to my liking than any of the others I have played so far.

It’s a fitting tribute to an incredibly talented musician, with proceeds going to a good cause, and I hope it will help to champion the artistry of AVICII’s body of work.

The audio and visual presentation are awesome and The Walking Dead seasons 1 and 2 are favourite narratives of mine, so immediately this table appealed to me. Smart table design makes this table a good deal of fun, if perhaps just a shade more cramped than I would have liked.

It lacks the charm and wit of Danganronpa, but Zero Time Dilemma, like its prequels, is still valuable, smart, and stimulating. Its presentation really badly hurts it, but once you push past that distaste, what you’re left with is an intense, engaging and intelligent narrative with some thoughtful and well-designed puzzle rooms to sort through.

The whole experience feels so utterly soulless it’s hard to really care about any of it. It feels like a game that has been carefully pieced together with every feature, bit of narrative and gameplay moment structured out of commercial desire, rather than any love or respect for the Lord of the Rings franchise. And as far as I'm concerned, for a game that's quite explicitly a Lord of the Rings game, that's a fail.

Truly, SEGA’s Ryu Ga Gotoku studio is one of the very few studios that we can rely on to push narrative boundaries and really explore the potential for what video games can offer as a traditional storytelling medium.

NBA 2K20 is a fun game that has tweaked a handful of different modes, provided a better story than usual and modified the gameplay in a challenging new way that takes some getting used to.

Putting aside my disappointment at the lack of AI competition, Transport Fever 2 is every bit as good on console as it is on PC. And since it’s a very, very good game, you’ve got no excuse to skip it for the second time.

Getting right down to it, the purity of Death Mark’s horror to Japanese ghost story traditions is also what makes it so appealing. The underlying mystery in getting to know the story of each ghost provides the page-turning quality – it’s a whodunnit in a true sense – but the dark majesty the aesthetics and direction are what help it stand out as a truly creative work, however niche its audience will be.

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.

Obviously the Switch loses the neat, but ultimately gimmicky PlayStation VR mode with Chess Ultra. What it replaces it with is a far superior featureset, though; cross platform play with anything but Sony’s console, as well as that really neat local multiplayer mode that turns the Switch into an impromptu board. That is so much more convenient than lugging a chess board down to your local café, park, or pub for a lazy afternoon of chess with friends.

Where the Arland series introduced me to Atelier, it was the Dusk series that really solidified in my mind that it really had become my favourite JRPG property. By the end of Shallie I was six titles in and knew I would play anything else that came out of Gust the second it landed. If you're one of those that is new to Atelier (and thanks to Ryza I know that there are a lot of you out there), then here's your chance to catch up on three of the most distinctive and interesting JRPGs of the PlayStation 3 era.

Good stuff. Coupling a downbeat, grim pulp fantasy narrative with enough alternative routes that you'll want to play this a couple of times, and throwing in a combat system that fits on the PlayStation 4 like the most comfortable glove you've ever owned, Lone Wolf finds itself comfortably at home on console, and this more than makes up for my disappointment with the iPad original release.

The Forsaken Maiden is not really a sequel or successor to the first Voice of Cards. There's no effort to build on the previous game. Instead, The Forsaken Maiden exists in parallel to the first Voice of Cards, as another module to sit on the virtual bookshelf of adventures. I only hope that Square Enix is being rewarded for these and the plan is to fill many shelves with many more parallel modules like this. I will forever find the time to more Voice of Cards if it's going to keep being like this.

Taken exclusively as a rhythm game, there is so much to appreciate about Metronomicon. It does bring some new tricks to a genre that often feels quite stale for ideas, and has a truly killer soundtrack. But, this was meant to be a mix of RPG and rhythm games, and Metronomicon did let me down with the former.

Nothing about Space Invaders Extreme is fundamentally different to how it was in Space Invaders, but it is the greatest arcade game packaged up in a way that the modern audience will find it palatable. Hopefully people are still playing this 40 years down the track, as I am still playing the original, because it deserves to be. It's just that good.

Truly, once you get over the initial hump with Tangledeep, you’re looking at a game that you can play over the long term. If nothing else, it’s lovely to know that there are some developers out there that understand what Rogue when creating their “roguelikes.”

Many people assume that the only point of otome is the romance, and the appeal is minimal beyond your interest in male fan service. Anyone who has played otome games realises that this is not the case, and Homura: The Crimson Warriors is a particularly strong example of this. It’s both “girl and reverse harem of pretty men” AND quality historical fiction, and that’s a combination that’s hard to put down.

When a favourite song comes on, it is impossible not to feel like you are a part of the music, making it happen, and it is a glorious feeling when you nail that song at 100 per cent accuracy.