It's the kind of experience that, like Gone Home, people will dismiss for lacking action or having a narrative that doesn't treat its players like idiots, but it's also the kind of game that shows that the games industry is growing up and pushing the limits of what can be achieved given the freedom and resources to be properly creative.

More than anything else it's nice to see Koei Tecmo continue to support the PlayStation Vita. Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires won't convert anyone who isn't an existing fan of the series, and I've got to admit that after playing the recent Nobunaga's Ambition, I can't help but wish Koei localised the PlayStation Vita version of that instead, as I've already got a lot of Warriors games on my Vita, but nothing that approaches the depth of Nobunaga's Ambition. Those personal issues aside, this is a content-loaded, engaging, and entertaining entry into the Warriors series, and well worth playing for anyone who likes their action a little more cerebral.

Stranger of Sword City is a stellar, and surprisingly unique example of a dungeon crawler. It's dark, grim and gothic at times, and revels in the same difficulty that Experience Inc was able to throw at players in Demon's Gaze, but its unique mechanics and themes make it one of the most boundary-pushing dungeon crawlers we have seen in recent years.

Abyss Odyssey is a thematically deep game. On the surface it's a simple action platformer crossed with roguelike, but under that surface is a true rarity; a game made by South Americans that rejoices in South American mythology.

On a whole, while Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus offers more than a dozen hours of content, it doesn’t offer much variety in terms of gameplay. That being said, the visual novel-like storytelling does add enough of an interesting plot and characters that, assuming you're okay with seeing them in underwear most of the time, makes this game worth playing through.

Maquette - and the development team - deserve better. There's some real talent evident in the unique, interesting, contemplative and rewarding puzzle design here, and that kind of quality occurs less and less frequently in this vapid and action-obsessed industry. The development team also know how to write interesting and emotionally engaging narratives - we don't see stories about love told with this kind of sincerity anywhere near often enough. Unfortunately, the one and only problem that the game has is also the thing that almost breaks it; the two elements that the entire experience relies on are at near-complete odds with one another.

Mother Russia Bleeds is a solid debut for Le Cartel Studio. The production is top-notch and the soundtrack is arguably one of this year's absolute finest. It's crystal clear from the onset that the game was born to be wild. It's the culmination of walls gone soft after repeated exposure to drone music and the countless hours spent playing arcade classics. It's a heavy metal game for the most hardcore, and while there's more style than substance to a lot of it, I doubt the fans of that style are going to care in the slightest.

At its core, Democracy 3 is a mass of pretty spreadsheets that visualise an intimidating amount of data systems that are all linked to one another.

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.

The developers have done what is needed to bring the game to the Nintendo Switch as a highly proficient port, though they’ve done nothing of substance to update what the original release offered. Aside from the localisation, it didn’t need any updating anyway, and even considering that terrible localisation Banner of the Maid is one of the most refined, enjoyable tactics JRPGs on the console. Also, Pauline really is an excellent protagonist, and she is just that pretty. I hope it’s not the last we see of her… now that this is on Switch, let’s get her into Smash Bros next. I might even start playing that game again if she was.

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.

In some ways, Destroy All Humans! shows its age, being a remake of a game that's now 15 years old, in a genre that's grown a lot in those years. But it's also got a sense of humour and parody of American life that feels more relevant today than when the original game first came out. That's a depressing reflection on the state of the world today, but it also means that the satire that underpins everything else in the game hits harder than the original creators ever could have imagined.

The big question for me, personally, though, is whether Project Cars 3 just zigged when it should have zagged. The thing is, that I do like accessible racing games. I spent many, many hours with Real Racing. But this new entry with Project Cars has given the series an identity crisis, and where the developers could have taken their existing learning and delivered the previous Project Cars vision to an all-new degree, instead we've got the team effectively starting from scratch again. I guess we can look forward to Project Cars 4 being a repeat of Project Cars 2, in taking and refining the initial idea and actually delivering to the vision.

I really enjoyed this game. It’s not quite on the level of the fighters I really love (that being Dead or Alive and BlazBlue), but I can see myself coming back to this one fairly often.

As an adventure that does just about everything right in the fun and technical sense, CoE's most valuable triumphs are its sense of humour and accessibility; whether you’re politically knowledgeable or oblivious, and if you have a near-romantic relationship with turn-based RPGs, you will risk yawning through a filibuster if it means becoming the Vice President of this world.

Warriors All-Stars is a delight. It’s explicitly a love letter to the Koei Tecmo faithful, and it doesn’t pretend to be otherwise.

For anyone who came to Mario Golf to play golf, Super Rush is greatly lacking. I'll be willing to grit my teeth and buy the DLC if that's what it takes to get this game up to par, but Nintendo's going to need to at least double the number of courses to get it there, and at the time of writing there only seem to be four new courses on the roadmap (though they are, at least, going to be free). It's still not going to be enough to return Mario Golf to that pedestal that it once had on the N64 and Game Boy Color.

If the contents of each game’s track list don’t matter to you, then I would strongly suggest picking up the second game and skipping the first. The first game has infuriating random encounters, a weaker 4-character-party-system and simpler maps to explore – and while the second game’s 9-character-party and monster fusion systems don’t make the role-playing that much more meaningful, it’s still a smidge more engaging to play around with. Both games are much better in their standard Taiko game-modes however, and so I’d still recommend Drum ‘n’ Fun before either of these two – the party game mode in Drum ‘n’ Fun is a lot more complementary to the Taiko experience compared to the JRPGs in this collection. Combining the JRPG and Rhythm genres can make for some very engaging gameplay experiences, but Taiko Rhythmic Adventure 1+2 does not do it meaningfully enough to achieve any lasting appeal.

Even as a dedicated single player game, Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers is one of the best games available on the platform. It’s just so perfectly balanced, invigorating, intelligent, and rich.

Vampyr is the vampire story that I’ve waited for many, many years for. As a fan of Anne Rice and the deeper tales around vampires – and as a fan of stories that are focused on moral conflict and consequence, Dontnod have crafted something that feels custom-designed for me.

Spellforce III is, effectively, a throwback game, being both old-school RPG and old-school RTS, stuck on top of an old-school fantasy setting. The developers have done a remarkably good job of taking complex controls and making it work on a controller, and while the game isn’t particularly boundary-pushing, innovative, or stand-out, it is engrossing in the way that it combines genres so seamlessly and entertainingly.

None of the characters or situations in Coffee Talk are simple or black-and-white. Rather, the world is a beautiful, complicated shade of grey. People aren't "good" or "bad," they're just trying to do their best. The message is hopeful. The pace is soothing. The music is well-suited to the environment. Coffee Talk really delivers on all fronts, and even offers more game time post-story. Now, it's time for me to return to my customers, I think the orc has arrived...

The talent is there, and it's wasted on a game like this which, fun as it is, doesn't live up to the promise of its screenshots.

Rainbow Moon is not a good choice for people who are looking for a narrative, but for fans of the old school, punishingly difficult, hardcore JRPGs, this is a nice throwback with an awful lot of raw gameplay behind it.

This is one of the more unheralded Super Nintendo JRPGs, but the update is of a high quality, and while I don’t think it’s a classic example of the genre by any means, it is still a very enjoyable game. A clean, enjoyable combat system, plenty of enemies to fight, and a bit of exploration and puzzle solving on the side; this is the kind of classic JRPG experience that I’ll never get tired of.

On the one hand, the base game itself is so good, and the extra stuff doesn't mess with that. On the other hand, the extra stuff doesn't do much for the overall experience.

The journey is captivating but it's over all too soon, and for all its beauty the game's world feels empty without other characters to speak to.

The Sims 4 leaves me feeling like the potential for greatness is there, but at this point we will have to wait and see if it ever gets realised.