The important thing, above all else, is that it's extremely good fun, a fantastic showcase for the technology (particularly on iPhone 4) and comfortably the most rewarding mobile driving game money can buy right now.

This is the greatest fantasy MMO in existence, the absolute state of the art in orc-bashing. But the nagging feeling I can't shake is that, for me, that's not quite enough anymore.

It's the sort of game where you still yearn for goals even when you're 5-0 up in injury time. [JPN Import]

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

Outstanding artwork and glorious combat bring Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's bold, painterly world to life.

The gameplay is just as well-balanced and finely tuned as it is in the PC version. The presentation is up to the same high standards, while the control system is perhaps even improved. Like so many PopCap titles, PvZ is slick, pretty, charming and funny.

A technical marvel, but with all the clever stuff turned towards the aim of very basic gratification. There are no branching paths, no complex decisions, and no multiplayer modes, but this particular game is all the better for it, since the results are rich and focused rather than drawn-out and a little ragged. Ultimately, if you want to revel in old-school pleasures decked out in the very brightest new armour, this is about as good as it gets.

One of the key successes is the complete abandonment of convention - screw physics, we want to breakdance on the boards in mid-air. SSX Tricky is bigger and better, with more explosions.

And with the improved mechanics of the second game, the old songs work even better - Bark At The Moon's once nigh-impossible solo is now made a hell of a lot easier while Frankenstein goes from being a chore to an absolute delight.

You've probably done a lot of the things you'll do in Prince of Persia before, but never to this standard, and apart from the innovations, the consistency, the logic and the spell-binding presentation, what makes it so special is just how well made it is.

It is a majestic tribute to cinema, a movie game in the literal sense, and your enjoyment will be in precise step with your appreciation of that objective - and whether or not you believe it to be Drake's great deception, or Drake's great delight.

Rebirth is a playful take on an emo classic that's bloated but full of character in a bid to justify its own existence.

Karaoke and guitar specialists certainly won't want to throw out their SingStars and Guitar Heroes, but with the peripheral set-up now established and regular infusions of downloadable content, the future's bright for Rock Band - and the present's pretty rocking too.

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

Forza Horizon 5 is an excellent title that is still one of the best-looking racing games ever made. Nothing really comes close to the level of raw environmental fidelity that Forza Horizon 5 so effortlessly accomplishes across its vast open world. Plus, the car models look great, lighting quality is excellent, and performance is typically impeccable across its target platforms. Panic Button's porting effort certainly does the job too, though the base PS5 essentially comes in exactly as expected. Relative to Series X, it's a near-perfect match. That's not a bad thing at all, as the port is consistently high quality and arrives without significant issues.

You should buy this game because it's frightening in a way that few games ever have been, and because it's a vividly explored, engrossing narrative the likes of which few out-and-out storytellers like "Final Fantasy" can compete with.

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.

The lack of any real objectives becomes somewhat tedious after a while, but it is still hard not to recommend The Sims to everyone.

With Microsoft's typically brilliant online implantation underpinning everything, alongside its determination to break technical boundaries Forza Motorsport is a quite staggering achievement for a first attempt and is a must have for any driving game fan.

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.

Playground Games delivers yet another gorgeous and enveloping pocket holiday, smartly restructured but reassuringly unchanged. [Eurogamer Recommended]

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

The game also does a lovely job of framing your relationship with other players and nurturing them.

The bottom line for us is that it has morphed into a dumbed-down experience that is no longer anywhere near as gripping and compelling as it once was, and while the multiplayer does bail out the overall value of the package to a large extent, it can't mask the decline elsewhere.

It's not hard to see us looking back in five years time and seeing FFXII as a pivotal, changing moment in how RPGs are designed; a game which drew on the experience of Final Fantasy's branches into tactical strategy and massively multiplayer, as well as on the more mature storytelling of other mediums, and folded it back into the number series, to wonderful result.

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.

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.

Street Fighter 6 rights the wrongs of its predecessor while dragging the famous fighting game franchise kicking and screaming into the modern era.

Much of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is more of the same gruelling beauty - but a shift to explict storytelling and signposting means its essence as a living, evolving shared text is lost.

In any real-time strategy game you'll fight desperate battles against hopeless odds, but here, thanks to the strategy side, you know the precise cost of loss will be. It's a magical, beautiful synergy and there's nothing quite like it in the entire gaming lexicon.

Turn 10 has sacrificed flash for a faultless 60 frames a second, and understood that in simulation, what you feel is far more important than what you see. It has diverted all of the 360's resources to giving you the smoothest, most believable, most physically rewarding drive you've ever had.

There's friction between the original and this lavish remake, but this is a scintillating launch title that shows off the PS5's strengths. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Fans of the caped crusader really shouldn't hesitate - this isn't just the best grown-up Batman game, it's the best superhero game, bar none.

The sheer variety in level design and objectives will keep you coming back for more even if you think you're bored.

It's just so massively detailed, so thoroughly improved and so gloriously playable that we have to recommend it. We haven't even touched on the multiplayer aspect, which we'll be doing in our PS2 Online review very soon, but to be honest it wouldn't have to be good - the rest of the game is enough on its own.

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

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.

I never got into the original game, yet I find AoE II enchanting. The sheer depth of the technology tree and evolution of the civilisation are always a surprise. I particularly like the intuitive logic that makes battles more tactical.

The PAL conversion with its enormous borders is a big disappointment, but the strength of the story, the battle system and the combination of clever dialogue, visuals and soundtrack conspire to captivate the player.

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

Smash is still too unrefined to be the choice of the Nintendo connoisseur, perhaps, but as long as you don't take it too seriously, it is riotously good fun.

For me, Guitar Hero's real genius was its universal appeal, its ability to cater for any taste and any ability with its varied track list, infectious enthusiasm and unique immediacy, and that inclusiveness is - arguably, I must stress - not quite so present here as it was before.

Karaoke and guitar specialists certainly won't want to throw out their SingStars and Guitar Heroes, but with the peripheral set-up now established and regular infusions of downloadable content, the future's bright for Rock Band - and the present's pretty rocking too.

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.

If Journey is about God, then God has played an awful lot of video games. One of the most fascinating things about thatgamecompany's sand-blown chunk of spiritual eye candy isn't that it reinvents gaming, or extends the medium's reach: it's that it takes old ideas - sometimes very old ideas - and repackages them in clever, stylish, and unexpected ways.

It's a game that invites us to reassess an entire genre, pointing to a bold future while nodding its respect towards the past. It's a towering triumph.

More or less every concern and complaint we had about the original game has been addressed, the new tracklist is very much to our taste (with 20 more free songs to come, remember), and with the rebalancing of difficulty, modes like Battle of the Bands and the No Fail modifier and Drum Trainer, Harmonix has completed the awkward job of broadening the game's appeal at both ends of the skill spectrum successfully. It's an excellent, measured sequel that should appeal to all.

The detail, the care and the craft on show amount to a package that feels luxurious, a feeling only emboldened by this deluxe edition, and the few tweaks made here underline its brilliance. There was some debate when it originally came out about whether Mario Kart 8 was the best in the series - with Deluxe, that's now no longer in doubt. [Essential]

Device 6 is designed to linger in the mind long after the last code has been cracked and the last sentence read.

It's a lovely restoration job, then, and the kind of thing Ubisoft could learn a thing or two from. Beyond the joys of seeing the games sharper and less shaky, and in 3D if you've got the right telly, is the simple pleasure of having them on the same disc and the same loading menu, where you can flick back and forth between them and ponder the way that they fit together.

Don't let the muted disappointment of the multiplayer discolour what is among the best single-player experiences we've ever experienced. Certainly up there with literally anything else, including "Half-Life 2," "San Andreas," and as far as enjoyment, intrigue, reward and challenge, far surpasses the likes of "Halo 2" and "Killzone," and shows up the competition in more ways than we could care to mention.

My favourite 2D Metroid yet... [and] the best platform adventure the GBA has.

In 1994 the fresh gameplay ideas Final Fantasy 6 brought to the RPG genre, coupled with the highly enjoyable story, brilliant ensemble cast and stirring score would have made the game an easy, trailblazing Eurogamer 10. It's either a remarkable testament to the original development team's vision and skill, or a damning indictment of a genre that this is so very nearly the case thirteen years on.

This is what 50 games will get you, then. The surprise of it: a premise that seems to be all scrolling and endless variation and swiping for something new, is actually about the pleasures of ignoring everything except for this one glittering thing that's in front of you right now. UFO 50's an improbably rangy confection that's secretly absolutely all about focus.

Ultimately, Madden is a sensational game in the literal sense, delivering unparalleled replayability for those with open minds.

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.

Hours are casually tossed aside in the process of ensuring that a ball safely reaches its destination, via moving walkways, spiked traps, bounce pads, industrial crushers and laser fire.

Strip away the relentless good looks and the generous open-source playpen, and the bare, underlying platformer's shortcomings may hold it back from classic status. But as a package, as a concept, as an unfinished story, LittleBigPlanet 2 is a world apart.

A technical marvel, as well as an education and exploration of the joys of flight. [Eurogamer Essential]

Space Invaders: Infinity Gene heaves and grows through infancy to maturity. It's rare that a game builds into its play arc those design iterations it went through from inception to completion. Yet this is exactly what Taito has achieved: leading players from beginning to end, providing a mesmerising journey through both the game and its genre's conceptual history.

It's a king among peripheral games, using most people's underlying fascination with the hidden art of axe-wielding as a foil for delivering one of the best beatmatching games I've seen.

Wrath of the Lich King takes the best-of-breed MMO and improves everything about it. It's a work of supreme confidence and quality that is twice as fun and ten times as beautiful as classic WOW, not to mention anything else in the genre. But above all else - in the breathtaking sweep of Northrend, in the assured, epic storytelling, in the constellation of brilliant quests - it is a grand adventure. Perhaps the grandest adventure in all gaming.

Playground Games does it again: equal parts adept teacher and artisanal tour guide, Forza Horizon 6 takes the lessons from 14 years of series history and applies them with panache.

Even if you're not a hardened follower of the board game scene, Ticket To Ride stands out as a great turn-based strategy game in its own right, and right up their with the mighty Carcassonne as one of the finest examples on the iPad to date.

Laid end-to-end, you're looking at maybe as much as 100 hours of top-quality entertainment in Metroid Prime Trilogy. Although it's hardly been spoken of as a high-priority release by Nintendo, this could well be the finest single product it has released for the Wii. For all its quirks, Metroid Prime remains a landmark action series, and as such, owning it ought to be mandatory.

Bayonetta 2's biggest disappointment may be that it's an iterative sequel, but it's not such a problem when it's iterating on genius.

Tekken 8 is a marked improvement over Tekken 7 and a perfectly executed balancing act, keeping older players happy while revealing its trademark freedom to newcomers.

But playing the game makes you realise just how little effect any one pilot has on a war, and how futile and dehumanising the whole thing is. I'm sure it wasn't meant to, but there you go... The world's first pacifist space combat sim?

Nice work, Revolution. With BASS and now Broken Sword, the developer has proved that the iPhone can handily support some of the best classic adventure games.

You can't cut-and-paste the artistry and attitude that Vlambeer has brought to this extravagant bit of disposable nonsense. You can't copy a true original - even before it's out.

One of the best of its genre, of that there is no doubt. But is it really acceptable to release a game that's so similar to the previous two that it would take the most devoted fan to spot the difference at first glance?

This is multitasking under galactic pressure, making you constantly shout instructions while trying to work out if the Lustruous Prismneck someone else is bellowing about is on the dashboard. If this sounds like chaos, that's about right, and fantastic chaos it is. This is about working together and ribbing your chums after it's all fallen apart - because in Spaceteam, everyone hears you scream.

Ubisoft Montreal has never been afraid to try new things, but after a few missteps with games like last year's Prince of Persia, perhaps the bravest thing it could have done with Assassin's Creed II was simply to make a classic open-world adventure, filled to the brim with things you want to do and the narrative motivation to continue doing them. The fact it's done so suggests we really should trust the studio when it says it's taken its lesson, and fills me with hope for the third game in the trilogy. In the meantime, we not only have the Assassin's Creed game we'd hoped for in the first place to play with, but one of the best open-world games of the year.

Only poor pacing early on, a frustrating mechanical legacy and a sense that Konami still hasn't quite cracked the union of storytelling and gameplay prevent this scoring higher.

A suite of enhancements help bring the virtues of this staunchly traditional RPG into focus. [Eurogamer Recommended]

It's just a shame that one of the best ever action games has become another casualty of the Wii controller. Indeed, for a controller that was supposed to herald a new dawn of inclusive gaming there are a lot of third-party publishers who have yet to get their heads round it.

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).

A game that feels supremely engineered, like a precision machine, or a German automobile. It's makes "Half-Life 2" seem old and frail, but by the same token it does nothing to diminish the imaginative achievements of that series. Crysis is impressive, but not imaginatively bold. Nor does it engage us like some other great shooters - such as "BioShock" - have done with their world and their personality. It's far better than "Far Cry."

No other game manages to deliver on the potential of controlling a ninja with this much flair and authority - it is, no bullshit, one of the finest action games ever made. Sever my spinal cord if I'm lying.

For all its faithfulness, though, it's not quite a full God of War game. It relies on short, sharp, repetitive combat encounters over and above exploration and puzzles, and there are far fewer enemies to fight or massive, screen-filling bosses to worry about. It feels lightweight next to the originals.

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.

A melancholy masterpiece is reborn in this faithful and breathtakingly beautiful remake.

An engrossing and highly entertaining adventure game with characters that you can care about, an involving storyline to keep you hooked, and settings and characters that are both beautiful and bizarre.

Killzone 2 is a taut and muscular game, a shooter that gives back more than you put in, provided you have the intestinal fortitude. It may take its time revealing its true depths and pleasures, but the journey is well worth taking. Between Killzone 2's unforgiving grit and Resistance 2's alien-bursting excess, the PS3 finally has both ends of the shooter spectrum covered in grand style.

Reach captures what you love about Halo, refining it on the multiplayer side and preserving the fluid, dynamic, ever-surprising campaign action that makes most rivals look like clumsy shooting galleries.

Where it doesn't quite hit the mark for me is in the action stakes. Although it underpins the game with all sorts of excellent ideas that ought to make it a deeper, more intelligent and immersive experience, the simple truth is that the minute-to-minute combat simply isn't as intense and involving as you'd expect from a game in 2007.

Although at times little more than a culmination of spy films and stereotypes over the last forty years, No One Lives Forever is an adventure and a half for the single player, and well worth investigating if you’re sick of world-threatening plots and Quake-engine oddities.

The series' steely heart has softened, revealing a game that's as exhaustive as it is exhilarating and that's now been infused with a little extra passion. Forza has always been a series to admire, but now it's a little easier to fall in love with it too.

Fantastic from start to finish, Split Fiction is one of the most inventive and joyful co-op games to date, and a testament to the power of human imagination.

On a server packed full of humans, with a decent commander and motivated, organised squads it plays like an absolute dream. So hurrah for that.

Far from being mere exercises in nostalgia, these hugely entertaining HD versions underline exactly why we all got so excited about them in the first place, and suggests that while God of War III faces off against a lot of big names in 2010, the greatest threats to its dominance lie in its own past.

This is not a game to play casually - it requires a major investment of time and effort to get anywhere. But if you're willing to give it the commitment it needs, it can soon develop into a rewarding relationship.

In its multiplayer, all you could have reasonably asked for; in its visuals, new heights reached, while cracks of old age are papered over; in its story, a fitting conclusion; and in its campaign, though short of the consistent brilliance of its predecessor, a mostly rousing and memorable spectacle.

The single player campaign is, if anything, too long, and focuses more on continuous combat than actual role-playing. The lack of any support for parties in the single player mode is also disappointing, and makes the game far less involving than it should be.

A bloody good game... If you like first person shooters and have a sense of humour, the only other thing to stop you playing this game is the central role of a pink-suited woman. Are you man enough?

In its desperation to infuse this setting with "maturity" - be it of the sober, political kind, or the game's painfully clumsy gore and sex - BioWare has forgotten the key ingredient of any fantasy: the fantastical. Without it, you're still left with a competent, often compelling, impressively detailed and immense RPG, but it's one that casts no spell.

A verbose and rich psychological roleplaying game that doesn't offer enough choice in the role you play.