For the vast majority of the gaming world, this is quite easily the best 3D beat 'em up ever made.

Against the odds, Bloober Team has delivered a remake that both expands Silent Hill 2 in just the right places, and gives careful attention to what it preserves.

Simply a stunning, magical game.

Bold, accessible, deep and rich, Mario Kart 8 is premium video game development. It feels expensive. But this isn't the vacuous lavishness of the Hollywood blockbuster; its excesses and indulgences work towards a common goal - or rather, finish line.

A simple extension of the Galaxy concept, Super Mario Galaxy 2 can't possibly have the same impact. But it does have the same spirit, throwing new ideas at you with gleeful and impulsive abandon, leaving you breathless, scrambling happily to keep up.

It is the most formally inventive Zelda in a long time (admittedly, that's not saying a great deal). But it's the game's carefree attitude, quick tempo and warm heart that do the most to make it feel new...Skyward Sword will surely be the greatest adventure money can buy.

It's as well-designed as Zelda, as involving as Final Fantasy, and as beautiful as anything you've ever seen; it belongs with the best of the Zelda series at the very apex of its genre.

This is, in almost every way that matters, the perfect Street Fighter.

In terms of how it performs on an Apple touchscreen, the answer is: flawlessly.

I think I could play Spelunky forever, and now that it has come home to PC, assuring its permanence, I believe I will.

Tight, inventive gameplay, cascading card synergies, and gentle, witty character-writing ensure that, while Cobalt Core might not slay Slay the Spire, it does indeed slay.

The third of LCB's weird narrative experiences is a reminder of what makes this series so special.

It's overflowing with character and imagination, feeds off and fuels a vibrant community of players and performers, and it only stands to improve as Blizzard introduces new features, an iPad version and expansions. And now it's finally finished! I can't wait to see where it goes next. Job's done.

Psychonauts studio Double Fine returns with a surprising, shapeshifting adventure of captivating wonder and beauty.

The graphics are a match for anything else on the market, and the game doesn't need a supercomputer to run it.

The simple joy of exploration is at the very heart of the appeal of video games. In Fez, it's absolutely unfettered.

The Last of Us is a deeply impressive demonstration of how it can and should be done. It starts out safe but ends brave; it has heart and grit, and it hangs together beautifully. And it's a real video game, too. An elegy for a dying world, The Last of Us is also a beacon of hope for its genre.

The second game from Disco Elysium studio ZA/UM, this text-heavy, dice-driven RPG is an exquisitely constructed take on consumerism, empire, nostalgia and beyond.

Almost everything you do in Liberty City would be good enough to drive its own game, and the best parts would be good enough to outrun the competition, but the reason it works so well is that Rockstar has made a game that requires no patience to play. This, as much as its usual coherency and the best script in the series, is what makes GTA IV the best openworld game yet, and why it will take something miraculous to rob it of game of the year status.

Moody and atmospheric, compelling and addictive, this is first person gaming in grown-up form, and it truly is magnificent.

A legend is brought back to life with Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, in a surprisingly sensitive remake from Konami featuring developers from the original.

Part visual novel, part rhythm game, part interactive animated movie, Goodbye Volcano High taps into the sacred relationship between music and coming-of-age in ways that would be impossible in any other media format.

A fantasy role-playing game of astonishing spectacle. This is the best Dragon Age, and perhaps BioWare, has ever been.

Despelote's creators tell a remarkable, pseudo-autobiographical tale about football, Ecuador, and community - but also one about the act of remembering, and the creative act itself.

Suspicious Developments' latest builds a witty, wonderfully generous adventure around a smart, rewarding, and endlessly imaginative turn-based tactics core.

Compact by the standards of the Galaxy adventures but still loaded with bountiful secrets, beneath the warm familiarity of 3D World lies one of the strangest Mario games in years - or at least one of the most random in its influences and its moment-to-moment indulgences. And that's a very, very good thing.

A sequel that takes the thrilling cold-survival city-building heart of Frostpunk and evolves it in every way, while losing none of what made the series so special to begin with.

It's a short game, and quite a painless one, then, but it feels dense: rich and imaginative and the result of some insatiable curiosity for putting things together in new ways. Even at the end of the adventure, five or six hours in, Cocoon was happy to introduce a new mechanic. By which I mean, of course, it was happy to wordlessly teach it, complicate it, turn it inside out and then twist it into something almost unimaginable. I'm sorry to be vague, but you need to see this for yourself. There are no easy words, but also seeing it, witnessing such clarity and ingenuity, is where the pleasure lies.

The politically-charged 1997 PlayStation original is one of the finest tactics games of all time. This remaster offers a brilliant new reading of what was already a classic text.

Just like its young hero, The Wind Waker is crisp and energetic, spirited and soulful, just a little bit wayward - and it hasn't aged a day.

Chrono Trigger is a masterclass in RPG design, its execution so far beyond the quality and poise of contemporary JRPGs it's embarrassing. It represents the work of a company at the very top of its field, a team of designers so confident with the rules that they helped establish that they felt free to subvert and invert them to glorious effect.

It's everything a videogame should be; innovative, compelling, challenging, long-lasting. And spiked with controversy and a wonderful wit, it's also something that so few videogames can ever be - cool.

Minecraft is a towering achievement in the very possibilities of gaming, and it does this without losing itself to either esoterica or cynicism. It is a game anyone can play and anyone can get something out of, no matter how skilled or imaginative they are. They will make something and they will have an experience that feels like theirs and theirs alone.

It's beautiful, though that's entirely the wrong word. This is a war game, so the word should be "visceral" or something. Models are hugely detailed for an RTS, physics implemented impressively and so on. But relevantly, it's a functional sort of beauty (or - er - viscerality).

Expertly paced and bursting with fresh ideas, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess kicks down the door of the real-time strategy genre like few others, combining energetic action with spectacular demon slaying.

The Orange Box offers everything any fan of first-person shooters could possibly want: some of the best single-player gaming ever in the shape of Half-Life 2 and Episodes One and Two; wonderful innovation from Portal, and the most refined, downright fun team-based online FPS currently available in Team Fortress 2. If that doesn't warrant a 10 out of 10, nothing does.

Is BioShock the greatest game of all time? I honestly don't know, but it's one of the most interesting and immersive experiences to grace our beloved medium.

The platform game has been around for so long that it's easy to assume that the genre has run out of surprises. A showcase for the game designer's art and one of the greatest platform games of this - or any - year, Rayman Legends disproves that in glorious style.

Right from the start it conjures an atmosphere of being something special, but to keep that level of quality up consistently over 60 hours ensures that this will be a game that will be talked about for years to come...A work of art, you might say.

Absurd, unrelenting and endlessly creative, Turbo Overkill is a masterfully composed symphony of violence.

Can't sleep? Moon too bright? Want to eat it? It's a simple goal for a demon in the underworld, as you'll find in this gorgeous, extraordinary narrative adventure that just so happens to require skateboarding.

When it's all done I'm left with that strange feeling of being very well cared for. I've seen a bunch of wild sights. I've messed around with cool gadgets, used the controller in unusual ways, tilting it, yes, but also blowing into it, trying to read the buried hieroglyphs of its rumble, I've ticked boxes, collected things, unlocked things, nodded at references that make me feel old, or sharp-eyed, or generally in the know. But when I close my eyes I see the tumbling fruit, the hundreds and thousands, the gems stacked so high I can kick through them as if I'm wading through autumn leaves. I think, more than anything, of all the glorious bits and pieces.

Wholesome, harmonious and completely unwilling to settle, this is one of the most generous games in years.

It carries the sensibilities of its inspirations, and it feels and looks just as it should. There's some irritation there, but like the best folk tales, Never Alone is all about sharing the game with someone else.

I wanted more strange possibilities from the spaces I lived around. With Blue Prince I get that. What an extraordinary game this is.

The rest you probably know about already: the fantastic visuals, the cracked humour, the five contrasting chapters that keep you transfixed right to the end. If a better game ever comes to the iPad, you might well spontaneously combust.

It only works as a whole, and it doesn't hit you like a flavour; it builds up in your system like an intravenous solution. If you took away the masks, or the blinking colours, or knocking over guys with doors, or the stuff about answerphone messages, or the DeLorean, or the wobble on the screen, or the super-fast movement, or walking back through what you've just done, you probably wouldn't understand why it stopped working, but it would definitely stop working.

Developer Coal Supper's relentlessly inventive absurdist comedy might, by necessity, keep a tight rein on players, but this is an impeccably constructed masterclass in gag-telling.

Joy has rarely come so reasonably priced and, whatever the price, videogames, rarely come so joyful. Indispensable, then.

Sunless Sea's method of storytelling isn't unique, but it has never been realised with such impact and elegance.

Densely imagined and as complex as you fancy, this roguelike RPG is brilliant.

Inclusive and often thought-provoking, this is a daring portrait of a game-world with all the failure cut out, and it's hard not to love a game that loves you so much in return. Fable II will charm you, thrill you, and leave you very, very happy.

In weaving together the extraordinary craftsmanship evident in the music, storytelling, adventure and world design of Skyrim, Bethesda has created a very special game indeed - one that's likely to remain in the affections of gamers for many years to come.

The feeling of jubilation once you have Gold awards for every area of every test is immeasurable.

Cataclysm doesn't just make WOW better. It does something even more valuable than that; it renews it. It fires your excitement at starting on that long road one more time, and invites you to relish the journey just as much as you'll lose yourself in its ending.

Micro-developer Lunar Division melds scientific rigour and faithful devotion into one, creating an entirely singular game about the depths of space, the limits of your own mind, and the divine beauty of mathematics.

Lorenzo Redaelli follows up 2020's uncompromising The Milky Way Prince: The Vampire Star with a pulverising, shape-shifting visual novel of friendship, post-COVID trauma, and horror in the blistering Italian sun that's as artistically dazzling as it is emotionally raw.

An exotic cocktail of entertainment for Nintendo fans, who will slurp up every last drop, and if you want to talk about longevity, I've had this game on import for about six months and I still haven't finished it.

A huge improvement over the original, and a captivating journey from beginning to end.

Half-Life 2 has astonished us from start to finish. Valve has done to the FPS genre what restaurants in Chinatown do to ducks; shredded it, smothered it in a delicious sauce of their own devising, and served it up in a way which you simply couldn't have imagined when looking at them in the pond.

An indispensable game, combining arguably the finest RPG/adventure the 16-bit era ever produced (even compared to the likes of Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy VI) with an expertly realised multiplayer rendition of Zelda.

Persona veteran Atlus flexes its expertise with a fresh take on high fantasy. What it lacks in subtlety, it makes up for in grandeur and heart.

With a new found sense of tension, and showpiece Contract missions, Citizen Sleeper is transformed. This follow-up has improved the RPG formula in every way.

Never the same game twice, Against the Storm is a rare gem of a city builder that thrives on chaos but exists in perfect balance, evolving with you as you learn and adapt.

BioShock Infinite doesn't blur the lines between your reality and the game's to quite the same extent as its predecessor, but it's a more complete and polished story, and that's the thing you'll remember.

So utterly complete that comparing it to consumer racing titles like "F1 2000" from EA is pointless. This is on another level entirely; another plane if you will.

The best game yet in one of the best FPS franchises of the era. Better than either of its predecessors, Halo 3 still can't quite escape the category of flawed masterpiece - but this time around, the flaws are so minor that even the most churlish of reviewers would be hard pressed to mark the game down.

Breathtaking in ambition and crafted with the skill of a studio that's been making music games for 15 years, Rock Band 3 is Harmonix's masterpiece – a towering achievement not just for the genre, but for the medium itself.

Maybe it's witchcraft. Maybe it's magic. Either way, Supergiant manages to draw down the moon with its Herculean action and epic narrative in Hades 2.

FromSoftware delivers a superlative action game that builds on its Soulslike pedigree while staying lean and laser-focused.

Explore a bright vision of subterranean nature in this astonishingly rich Metroidvania.

World of Goo is breathtakingly fresh while built on the foundations of genre classics. It offers a gentle challenge as you make your way through its seasonal chapters the first time, and then a fiendish one as you try to fathom quite how it's possible to attain the OCD targets.

Capcom marks Resident Evil's 30th anniversary with a stellar return that's both a masterful bit of suffocating horror and a nostalgic, fan-thrilling victory lap for the legendary series.

Part of the team behind Sang-Froid are back with a spiritual sequel powered by some truly dazzling thinking.

Portal is perfect. Portal 2 is not. It's something better than that. It's human: hot-blooded, silly, poignant, irreverent, base, ingenious and loving. It's never less than a pure video game, but it's often more, and it will no doubt stand as one of the best entertainments in any medium at the end of this year. It's a masterpiece.

Movement, meaning and mindfulness combine in Giant Squid's latest, a game of free-form expression and flow.

This game is one of the greatest things that video games have ever achieved.

Where Galaxy matches "Mario 64" is not quite in its quality of execution - alongside the brilliance of some stars are others which fall a bit flat, and there isn't the overall sense of implacable perfection that that game had - but in its confidence and originality.

Braid is beautiful, entertaining and inspiring. It stretches both intellect and emotion, and these elements dovetail beautifully rather than chaffing against each other. Still wondering if games can be art? Here's your answer.

Perhaps BioWare's greatest success in Mass Effect 2 has been taking a complex RPG and making it effortless to understand, play and enjoy on a constant basis, because it has done this in a manner that should prove utterly essential to veterans and newcomers alike, and more than enough to suggest Mass Effect 3 will be the most important game in BioWare's history.

For the vast majority of the gaming world, this is quite easily the best 3D beat 'em up ever made.

A beautifully crafted addendum to The Last of Us, a game that already stood tall above many of its peers. While it could have benefited from yet more exploration, its impeccable level design utilises its environments to take Ellie and Riley - wonderfully portrayed by Ashley Johnson and Yaani King - on a trip that is not easily forgotten, underpinned by sparing use of Gustavo Santaolalla's beautiful score.

It’s a masterfully understated, beautifully simple, engrossing ride that's as palpitatingly thrilling as it is serenely calming. It's also one of the most consistently compelling and memorable games we've ever played (or witnessed, for that matter).

Spelunky's astonishing creativity and the spectacular depth that opens up as you make progress make it easy to forget that it's also an extremely competent platformer, with tight, poppy controls that work far better on an Xbox 360 pad than they ever did with a computer keyboard.

Pretty and charmingly mean-spirited, this is a game filled with revelations and genuine personality.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is a triumph, not just in terms of bringing a difficult game to a new platform intact, but because it actually improves it in the process, and demonstrates a mastery of DS form and function.

Threes! is at once nicotine and soul food, magnificent and deadly, a machine for playing. It is flawed and broken and perfect and you must start playing it today.

Tribes Ascend is, by more than 300kmhh, the most exciting first-person shooter I've played in years.

A crew searches a watery world for a missing friend in this evocative game of exploration and conversation.

As with any game that dares to be ambitious, deconstruct Mass Effect 3 into its constituent parts and of course there are flaws, but taken as a whole this is arguably the first truly modern blockbuster, a game that transcends the genre boundaries of old and takes what it needs from across the gaming spectrum in order to finish its story in the most compelling, thrilling, heartbreaking way possible. Few gaming sagas come to a definitive close, but this one signs off in breathtaking style.

Whether or not the multiplayer sticks, however, is arguably a footnote, because at the core of Uncharted 2 is an action-adventure masterpiece whose minor flaws are washed away on a tide of rhythm and spectacle - one that would still be an essential experience even without the option to pull your friends off cliffs and play capture-the-heirloom.

Super may lack the impact of its immediate forebear, which grabbed headlines with its heady combination of brilliance and novelty. But this is the very best sort of evolution, a perfection of detail, one that diminishes its faults and amplifies its successes.

This is a special game. The kind that makes you stop and think for a long time about whether it's ever been done better.

A luscious, sprawling epic of a game and one of the most complete experiences I have ever encountered. If this is what I've waited a year to see on my PS2, then I would have waited ten. Magnificent.

In a genuinely striking move, The Burning Crusade simultaneously gives World of Warcraft veterans the swathes of new content they've been crying out for, and makes the end-game experience vastly more open to casual players or new players.

For the vast majority of the gaming world, this is quite easily the best 3D beat 'em up ever made.

An endless cascade of ideas in a game that takes Mario to some wonderfully strange places.

There are a million and one awe-inspiring moments saturated with detail waiting to be uncovered in Metroid Prime. Each new area is like an art exhibit.