These moments are why you play Skyrim, because in the instance of breathless excitement, triumph or discovery, you invest completely in its world.

Bigger doesn't necessarily mean better, but OlliOlli World pulls off that rarest of tricks: it's a sequel that loses none of its capacity for challenge, while lowering the barrier to entry sufficiently to welcome in a new audience. [Issue#369, p.116]

This series has always felt like a breath of fresh air in a genre that grows ever more obsessed with the fidelity of its simulations. With Forza Horizon 3, Playground has flung open the biggest window in the building, then stuck on a few fans for good measure. [December 2016, p.106]

Even as it wraps up within four hours, Mixtape feels like an exemplar of the form: generous, indulgent and expertly curated, a crowd-pleaser with just the right number of deep cuts. If it doesn't persuade you to make one of your own, it may well convince you to call up an old friend to reminisce about the moments you spent together. When the world simultaneously sucked and felt so full of potential. When you were bored and rudderless and didn't realise how good you had it. [Issue#424, p.114]

Super Hexagon weds zen-like design purity with the highest order of twitch-reflex athleticism. It revels in the ineffable dance of muscle memory, the act of shutting off your brain and trusting your thumbs to guide you improbably to safety.

That Infinite can handle the collision between its philosophical concerns and its dead-end thrills without seeming hopelessly crass or overly portentous testifies to its often touching script, excellent pacing and the kind of unparalleled world building that shows you all of this coexisting cohesively in a golden city in the sky. But it also demonstrates something else: BioShock’s mechanical evolution as a firstperson shooter.

This one's for the fast and the curious. Whiplash or no, brace yourself. [Issue#366, p.100]

It's a dazzling experience, combining carefree spectacle with careful score attack, a game that's as concerned with its looks as the precision of its underlying mathematical systems. [JPN Import; June 2009, p.94]

The Wii addition sends players on the same astonishing, grisly funfair ride with a slight new twist. But, though it does little to take the experience to new heights, Resident Evil 4 is still an immense pleasure to return to. [Aug 2007, p.95]

Paradise loops its action into an endless rush, the possibilities, for arcade racing and battle enthusiasts alike, increasing with every hour. It’s hard not to see it as the birth of a new era, but in truth it might be the last Burnout you ever need. [Feb 2008, p.86]

A fairytale comeback. Extravagance was one of the signatures of the graphic adventure: extravagance to bring them in, and a cracking story well told to keep them.Both tenets of the Broken Sword series remain intact here, and that's all the devoted fans could have wanted. [Christmas 2003, p.94]

It bears all the hallmarks of its maker. The future, it seems, is in safe hands. [Aug 2015, p.110]

This is the most unforgettable side-scroller Nintendo has put out in three decades. [Issue#391, p.98]

It has, through painstaking effort, upgraded the card duel into a thoroughly modern form. It has resisted the dark lures of free-to-play, and has made deep systems simple to parse without neutering them. In short, Hearthstone is borderline alchemy, turning physical systems into digital gold.

Persona 4 Golden is full of surprises. Perhaps the biggest is that a console JRPG is so well suited to portable play, and that a four-year-old PS2 game is, by some distance, Vita’s best game to date.

Yes, it's a little light on content, but what's in there is delightful, accessible, intuitive, playful stuff. From the off it's fun and, before long, it becomes oddly magical, too. Over time, it may become wondrous. At launch it will just have to settle for being merely excellent, and yet another standard bearer for Nintendo's new console. That, we suppose, is really the most important thing about ARMS. [Aug 2017, p.102]

Simogo’s greatest triumph, perhaps, is to intensify the potency of the written word. In using its text both as narrative and as geography – and through its impressively restrained use of illustration and sound – it generates an almost unrivalled sense of place.

The Witness conjures magic from the simplest of components, rustling up a sensational array of experiences without ever deviating from its core conceit. [March 2016, p.106]

In an era of flagging service games, it is refreshing to se an old favourite so thoroughly rejuvenated. Blizzard, take note: this is how it's done. [Issue#391, p.112]

Ostensibly it's a game about overthrowing aliens, but really it's a war against the forces of probability. [March 2016, p.110]

A step forward over both previous entries, combining those elements with meticulous campaign craft and a gallery of inventive ideas. [Issue#409, p.116]

Nintendo has still made something uniquely enjoyable, while wantonly shredding the playbook in the process. Whatever plans might be in place for Mario's next adventure, Donkey Kong has changed the lay of the land. [Issue#414, p.100]

The game's greatest triumph is in delivering a truly singular vision. This is not the work of a team in thrall to trend or fashion, its designers given the opportunity to build from their own imagining instead. At a time when many rival studios are guided by the whims of focus testing and audience pandering, it has resulted in a game with one elusive quality. Dragon's Dogma 2 is, more than anything else, unforgettable. [Issue#397, p.98]

Apex Legends arrives fully formed, feature complete, free and quite, quite brilliant, a game that pushes its host genre forward, refining and redefining its template in the process. [Issue#330, p.102]

Criterion has taken the series back to its first principal of cops vs racers, and constructed a high-octane combat racer of beauty and depth. [Christmas 2010, p.82]

This might well be one of the finest hint systems (certainly in this type of game) that we've ever seen. [Issue#384, p.120]

The action-racing genre has delivered numerous treats this generation, but not one of them has been as rewarding and relentlessly entertaining, nor as feature-packed, as this. This is Ridge Racer unbounded from the shackles of its heritage, rebuilt from the ground up into one of the most subversive, sublime street-racing games ever made.

Is 2010 about the show or the sport? It is, like the UFC itself, ready to be both. This confidence is what makes it such a complete and compelling package – a great MMA sim, a near flawless UFC sim. In a year, it’s made the kind of studious jump that took FIFA almost ten.

What it does have is something an Activision or EA would kill for: a game built up around one good idea that drew in a community of unprecedented size. And that counts for a lot against PUBG's flaws: its rough-edged movement, animations, collision detection, character customisation, spectator functionality, and presentation. Perhaps you might hear all that and think this isn't worth your time. To do so would be to miss out on an absolute, and absolutely deserving, phenomenon. [March 2018, p.106]

When was the last time a game managed to pierce your heart with its third or fourth dialogue choice? [Issue#381, p.96]

The variety of ways for a player to interact with a single narrative is breathtaking, and the way Barlow has paralleled how we shape our own view of a story in the digital era - clicking back and forth across an exploded timeline - truly incisive. [Issue#337, p.104]

The action creeps up slowly, starting out like a gorgeous-looking but fairly standard shoot 'em up. However, by the middle of level two, it's pummelling you with a relentless parade of conceptual set pieces so audacious and inventive you'll laugh with delight as you gape in horror. [Sept 2004, p.94]

After the peerless Bayonettas, this is the best game Platinum has yet made - and better yet, it reflects a developer growing in talent and ambition. [Issue#337, p.108]

For a game with a premise as simple as kill the aliens before they kill you, Ziggurat's stylishly retro visuals, gleeful arcade precision and deeply interlocking mechanics trigger a chain reaction that kicks off like some interstellar combustion. Not the sound of a world ending. But the sort of bang that would make Richard Dawkins lean back, fold his arms and grin like a chimp.

For all its little tweaks, Dark Souls II is, foremost, a game made for Souls players. It is a game that asks everything of you and gives so much back, keeping its cards close to its chest, and revealing them only to those prepared to die and die again. It is made to be played for hundreds, if not thousands, of hours as you try new builds, explore PVP and experiment with covenants, all the while slowly peeling back the layers of its lore.

A scintillating racing experience, and as a revitalisation of the Race Driver series it's utterly successful. [July 2008, p.90]

Rare are the games that can make us see the world a little differently; step outside and look around after playing Gorogoa and you'll realise it probably deserved that round of applause after all. [Issue#315, p.110]

From Dust's not magnificent because of its breezy intricacy and rugged grasp of geology. It's magnificent because it's designed with a playful deity in mind. It's built for a god who knows that to succeed is human, 
but to err – and to be creatively led astray time after time – is truly divine.

Neon White's story might revolve around a bunch of dead people in the afterlife, but when its magic is upon us it's hard to recall a game that has made us feel quite so alive. [Issue#374, p.106]

At a time when everyone wants to turn the entertainment world on its head – or at least be seen to – it proves that the entertainment itself, whichever way up it may be, is what matters most. [Christmas 2008, p.86]

A game world that keeps bettering itself, until some kind of disbelief sets in. This dazzling technical feat is mirrored by some terrifyingly fast loading times, with no in-game loading and restarts from any save point in the whole world taking around two seconds. [Feb 2005, p.72]

If it's an imperfect game for an imperfect world, that in itself is something to aspire towards. [Issue #404, p.104]

A beautiful and brilliantly demanding game that barely contains its dense population of ideas. [Sept 2008, p.89]

No other beat 'em up developer is quite as willing to experiment with the form in a bid to stave off the moribundity that's gradually subsuming the genre. [Import - June 2003, p.88]

His masterstroke is Eliza itself. [Issue#337, p.120]

Sure, occasionally it beats you up just because it can. [Issue#397, p.116]

Halo exhibits a single-minded focus that the modern FPS, with its choreographed set-pieces and thrilling scripted sequences, largely disregards. This is a game about the arc of a perfectly thrown grenade, a game about tense games of cat-and-mouse with foes as powerful as you, a game about constant improvisation with the tools at your disposal. It's a game that always feels tactical, and a game that – even now – has the capacity to surprise.

Nintendo has clearly been experimenting with how to better exploit its system's obvious potential, and its solution is a natural, graceful implementation of 3D that complements and even improves its games, rather than feeling tacked on.

Visually, kinetically and intuitively, however, Modern Warfare is relentlessly exciting and an overwhelming triumph. [Christmas 2007, p.88]

Animal Crossing: New Leaf has a revitalising new flavour, and in 3DS it’s finally found the ideal place to settle down and make its home.

It's a pity Poinpy's audience is limited to those who haven't been put off by Netflix's recent price hikes, because this is a game that helps to justify keeping that subscription rolling. [Issue#374, p.122]

For an expansion, HOTS is a dense package, adeptly fashioned and hugely enjoyable. But while its core game might be perfection, HOTS itself isn’t.

This is a game built from great art and clever mechanics, but it's an adventure born of both deeds and words.

You may think you know Diablo, but you don't know it with this level of polish, from the clean brilliance of interlocking skills and classes to the sheer amount of chaos the game's comfortable with conjuring in its later dungeons. It's a testament to what money and confidence (Blizzard's own equivalent of mana and health) can do.

Doom's shimmering, bombastic combat is as absorbing as it is revelatory. [Aug 2016, p.100]

With the first instalment, BioWare built a universe of words – a deeply convincing multicultural sprawl you could read about without ever quite getting to touch. Here, you’re inside it from the start – and the view is often dazzling

That the game hangs together visually is remarkable; that it should cohere so well in design terms, unfathomable. [Aug 2016, p.104]

With the focus on elaboration rather than evolution, Twilight Princess triggers more memories than it creates, yet it's still an effortless classic that towers over the gaming landscape. Ignore it at your own cost. [Christmas 2006, p.68]

A dazzling package. A singleplayer campaign crammed with set-pieces that pull the player through at breakneck speed sits alongside Spec Ops, 23 co-op missions and a MW greatest hits package, before that superlative multiplayer, which really needs no introduction. With such attractions on offer, this is a shooter that demands playing, and playing again. It is still Call Of Duty, but its execution is skilful, mostly thoughtful, and it boasts the highest of production values.

No other beat 'em up developer is quite as willing to experiment with the form in a bid to stave off the moribundity that's gradually subsuming the genre. [Import - June 2003, p.88]

We can't wait to see what he comes up with next. [May 2016, p.104]

If it’s a demo, Ground Zeroes is the best demo ever; if it’s a prologue, it sets up the story so well you’ll spend the next year thirsting for revenge; and if it’s a tutorial, the systems it teaches are so intriguing that the prospect of spending an entire game with them is irresistible. Ground Zeroes is a resounding success in every respect bar its price tag, but value is relative. Fourteen hours in, we’re still learning.

Whatever the project's origins, the result is a thrilling blend of ideas, a game that, despite its fashionable and familiar components, feels wholly unprecedented. Moreover, Nightreign firmly establishes the studio's designers as not only masters of their own domain, but now a new, hitherto undiscovered realm. [Issue#412, p.100]

Every moment feels like it's been lavished with attention; Little King's Story is as rich as it is long, and it's a very lengthy game indeed. [May 2009, p.90]

The degree of refinement and technical polish across every facet of Gears 3 is enough to make most other games look tatty.

Polybius is a profoundly consuming and transportive experience of eye-watering intensity that'll leave you dazed and bewildered in the best possible way. [Aug 2017, p.118]

A monument to the entire trilogy, it allows IO to move on (the studio has another numerically monikered agent in its sights) in the confidence that these masterful feats of in-game architecture will last in the lone and level sand of a new console generation. [Issue#356, p.88]

Rare is the game that comes along, one that believes in its hero - in you - so earnestly, and shows us the real value of being brave. [Issue#334, p.116]

It is a game you've played a thousand times before - yet there is nothing else quite like it. [Jan 2019, p.106]

The feeling of achievement and closure as the credits roll on this wonderful, soulful game is every bit as keen as the time we looked out from the summit of Celeste Mountain. [Issue#364, p.120]

Even more than in Returnal, the Roguelike elements here seem to exist more for flavour than systematic depth. And in that they complement the unmatched action, and the incredible visual, audio, haptic experience. It will be hard for Housemarque to come back stronger than this. [Issue#424, p.92]

Nidhogg is not about lengthy stage lists, improvable online systems, fussy control mapping or AI. Nidhogg is about the purity of two friends on a couch duking it out as Daedelus’s moody dynamic electronica frames acrobatic displays of wits and reflexes. In that sense, it has no equal.

In pairing back its design and focusing on only a few key elements, the studio has created an uncommonly beautiful, open-hearted game. The team's self-deprecation and shaky confidence belies an assured, courageously executed vision. The resulting adventure will give you chills and should stay with you for a very long time indeed. [July 2017, p.102]

GTAIV's modern weapons spit bullets like angry hornets until a health circle depletes; here, lives end in uncompromising fashion. For the western aficionado, it is viciously accurate; for the fan of wanton sandbox carnage, it is comically frank.

As always, the perception of good value lies with you, but even without a penny paid this is still one of the most fluid, elegant, and strategically rich online shooters available. It's a beautiful game to play – in the elaborate motion of its tactics as much as its bright, crisp worlds.

If at times its volume of perfunctory unlockables remind you that this is a Ubisoft game, elsewhere Kingdom Battle boasts a generosity of ideas that feels startlingly Nintendo...It's perhaps not quite good enough to bring you to tears, but if Odyssey is to be Mario's best game this year, it has a pretty high bar to clear. Not THERE's something we never imagined writing. [Issue#311, p.100]

It's still Monster Hunter. This latest - and surely greatest - entry simply makes it easier than ever before to understand why its fans fell in love with it in the first place. [Apr 2018, p.104]

Complex but accessible, inventive yet familiar, a game that has gripped browser windows is every bit as troublingly addictive in the palm of your hand.

Above all, this is what few pretenders manage to imitate, and ensures that even when your stated mission is to 'kill time', you feel like you're doing much more. [Issue#417, p.104]

ODST doesn’t quite take Halo into unfamiliar territory, but it does show how robust and adaptable the core of the game is – and, more importantly, stands on its own two feet as a spin-off that’s better than the vast majority of original games.

It's a rare delight to play a game with such consistency of vision, its art design, level architecture, rulesets, storylines and writing all working in lockstep.

It's harder than ever to resist embracing the chaos, because with so many ingredients its bound to surprise you more often than not. As its title suggests, this is a sequel that pulls out all the stops, as you sense that Sakurai is going all-out to indulge his inner nerd for maybe the final time. It's a rapturous celebration, not just of Nintendo, but videogames as a whole. Now for pity's sake, let the poor man have a rest. [Jan 2019, p.102]

In a word, unbeatable. [Issue#417, p.106]

Grid still offers the most on-track excitement (and better car damage), and the forthcoming GT5 already looks graphically superior, but anyone looking for the most rewarding console driving experience to date has found their ride.

So perhaps, we conclude, it's the right balance of the two styles that pays the biggest dividends, tagging each other in at intervals, oscillating between tension and release - after all, it's only when one character goes absent for too long that the game strains. [Issue#422, p.98]

Vlambeer’s game is, as its title suggests, ridiculous. In its simple, gleeful rhythms of play, it’s sublime, too.

Scrape away all the new bits, though, and crucially the magic is still there, the imagination and ingenuity within level and boss design as potent as ever. If you're experiencing it now for the first time, we're rooting for you at every step. Umbasa, as they say. [Issue#353, p.108]

A remarkable, big-hearted game from a developer whose debut gave barely a hint of the storytelling confidence and poise on show here. What Remains of Edith Finch is anything but unfinished; it might even set a new benchmark for the narrative adventure. [July 2017, p.114]

It provides a revolution, but only inside its own idiosyncratic attitude and aesthetic. Sackboy remains Sackboy, and he won't convert those who didn't like the way he behaved in LBP. And for all the fascinating flexibility of its toolset, clearly this is still a framework: you can stamp a creation with your own style, but the overall vibe will ultimately be Media Molecule's. For those who are happy to embrace it, though, LBP2 represents a dazzling new opportunity for creating deep, diverse and ingenious play.

Whether you're a mere mortal or a puzzle demon, then, you're all but guaranteed to enjoy the ride. [Issue#417, p.119]

That past half-decade, then, was evidently time well spent. Barring one or two lingering frustrations, where certain randomised elements combine to produce inescapable hazards, this feels like Cuphead distilled: an amalgamation of the best bits of the base game, with few of its shortcomings. Naturally, it's an exhilarating showcase of the Moldenhauers' breathtaking art and animation... [Issue#373, p.100]

Statik's greatest trick, among many, is to make the DualShock the star of this darkly comic puzzle game. [July 2017, p.118]

Portal 2 delivers, and it does it in style, creating one of the most meticulously designed, thrilling and delightful playgrounds we've ever seen. It's a game with a magical take on momentum, where single bounds over tall buildings are business as usual, where every surface is a potential launchpad, and the entire experience is a belly laugh.

It feels, in other words, an awful lot like classic Street Fighter, and praise doesn’t come much higher than that.

The freedom of movement requires a new level of spatial imagination. Before Prince of Persia, platform games were like playing Tetris with only the blocks and bars. [Christmas 2003, p.100]

Crucially, Autosport’s career structure and nuanced vehicle handling combine to alleviate any potential frustration for players weaned on effortless victories.

While there may be plenty of JRPGs with greater mechanical depth, few are capable of such affectionate and playful subversion. [Issue#375, p.114]

This is far, far more than a nostalgic return to form - instead, it's a game so adept at exploiting its own heritage that it can integrate thorough modernity into its design without denting its retro appeal in the slightest. [Sept 2006, p.78]