It's a sparse recipe that makes for a sometimes infuriating, but always compelling, puzzler which is spiced up by the inexorable progress of your dot.

This is a game that lives well within your comfort zone no matter how many bullets are flying, and how many enemies are kiting along behind you. It's a game about games, in other words – and a very good one, at that.

The game is divided into four tournaments, each containing four unique courses. It's when you get to the second stage of the first tournament that the game's major failing makes itself apparent: there's only one composition to race to. Presumably, the developers thought this would be enough, as differences in course layout and sound effects provide a little variety, but in practice it's just too repetitive.

The convincing sense of speed is dulled by a lack of weight to the handling, while collisions betray some erratic physics: you can easily be shunted into a respawn by other racers, yet left relatively unscathed by a head-on smash into trees.

Gravity Rush might not always live up to the promise of its tutorial, but it's exactly the kind of original game that a fresh-faced system such as Vita needs, taking subtle, thoughtful advantage of its control inputs while showcasing its power.

The shift from WiiWare to 3DS, meanwhile, may not see Art Of Balance really benefiting very much from either the handheld's touchscreen or the developer's range of depth tricks, but it does add a generous suite of new levels - and it does raise the chances of a larger audience finally discovering this playful, wonderfully-calibrated puzzler.

It's a game confident enough in its core ideas to simply offer greater volume and variety of enemies in its later stages, and it has the balance and poise to ensure that's more than sufficient.

Despite its hectic invention, then, Velocity retains a rare kind of focus. Vita owners finally have something tart to see them through the drought, and the Minis just got a new standard bearer.

Gauge, then, is throwaway, minimalist, score-chasing brilliance, a game that's pulled together from the smallest selection of pieces, but that also feels bold and new and intensely imaginative.

And though a clutch of score-based challenges are both too few and too brisk, they contribute to an iOS game of rare generosity and substance.

The series' modest ambitions are here scaled back to a glum inventory of FPS conventions, its spectacle dampened by hardware limitations and dormant art direction, and its platform-specific novelties largely revealed as fussy irritations, presumably born of a need to promote the struggling Vita's features.

Showdown is not just a party game, nor is it the limp refurb you might expect this late in a console life cycle. It feels like something as crucial to Codemasters Racing as any of its predecessors – less a spin-off than a deliberate change of tack.

The game's angled view and coloured stacks mean that some of the best moments – cascading chains that ripple outwards as the landscape collapses in a shower of points – can sometimes be the result of luck instead of judgement.

A bitter reminder that pedigree is no guarantee of quality.

Beneath EA's layer of crafty monetisation, however, Flight Control Rocket is a stellar effort. The generic sci-fi visuals and overly busy menus might lack the instant appeal of Flight Control's handsome '50s styling, and that game's purity is sorely missing here, but underneath all that EA sheen is a game with genuine heart.

Future Soldier exemplifies a developer honouring the 'fun first' ethos of its publisher's canon, even as it stays true to the seriousness of its espionage licence. Yes, it's lost some tactical edge, but a disciplined commitment to entertainment focuses the experience. In the overmasculine world of the thirdperson shooter, this is a game that stands out for being delicately beautiful even as it delivers brutal thrills.

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.

If Spellsword's enemies are disappointingly generic, there's a tactile joy in dispatching them: slimes and bats explode messily as blasts of wind launch them into walls, and it's possible to enjoy a brief game of swingball with the laser-shooting eyes that dangle elastically from the ceiling.

Its magpie picking of influences leaves it with too little personality of its own, and comparisons with its sources are often unflattering. Still, it boasts scale, action and variety that make it a welcome addition to PS3's multiplayer roster.

Cheap bosses and stingy save points ensure that it's a drag as well as a bore, while a handful of crash bugs do very little to improve proceedings. My Little Hero's greatest charm is its air of sweet innocence, perhaps, but in truth this adventure is primitive rather than childlike.

They're gimmicks, sure, but good ones, rounding out another strong title for 3DS. [June 2012, p.126]

Capcom might not have crafted the kind of world in which players will invest, but it understands the powerful draw of party building and gear tweaking, the immediate thrills of slashing and spellcasting, and the spirit of adventure in sallying forth on a dragon hunt. [June 2012, p.106]

A surprisingly conservative game from Rockstar. Its absorption of cover mechanics makes Payne feel more familiar than he should, but even then his signature tricks are over a decade old. This is a game about a world-weary killer doing the only thing he knows how to, and for all its spectacular action beats there's something apt about Max's fatigue.

Its rudimentary puzzles may not satisfy point-and-click fans, but those who enjoy interactive drama will be happy to tune in for Episode Two after this solid season premiere.

The detection of item-grabbing slashes is often fumbled, and since moving your finger can leave you prone to missing punches, it ruins a promising risk-reward system.

Its keen sense of drama is as authentic as it is exhilarating: arcing a 40-yard free-kick around the wall and into the top corner in the last-minute of a cup final is as thrilling a moment as you'll witness in any FIFA match. It's hardly the beautiful game – its visuals are perfunctory at best – but Simon Read's creation smartly captures the capitalism, the artistry and the sheer, glorious unpredictability of its subject.

Colourful, crafty, and cheerily free of ambitions, it's the perfect companion for a drowsy early morning commute.

You'll trudge endlessly around the forest, cursing your protagonist's languid walk speed as you wander from one already visited landmark to the next in the vague hope of triggering the next bit of scripting in a narrative which goes out of its way to confuse the player.