If Abyss Odyssey stumbles, it at least does so while attempting a genuinely thrilling, high-wire juggling act of game design rather than simply milking obvious and proven gameplay features. For all its missteps, it remains utterly unique, absolutely gorgeous and delightfully eccentric.

Among the Ruins is The Walking Dead doing what The Walking Dead does well, but it's spinning its wheels when it should be racing towards the finale.

More than anything, what really stands out about Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty! is the sheer coherency of the original design. It was startling back in 1997 on the PlayStation when games did not often turn up with proper themes to think about, and it's still just as startling in 2014, to be honest, where the grace with which the plot unfolds and the relevance it still has for the real world remain something of an anomaly.

What a treat, finally, to be able to say nice things about Battlefield 4. Onwards, upwards, and never look back at the destruction you left behind.

Light should be better than it is, but it was doomed from the start. Very few great stories have come from such an uninspired setting, and hiding all empathy and humanity behind a haughty desire for a slick minimalism doesn't help.

Lifeless Planet is bold and memorable and oddly sweet in the earnestness of its message and its preoccupations. It's a truly efficient payload. Fire it up and be transported.

What it is is a well written, enjoyable adventure that nevertheless feels slightly underwhelming once the credits roll.

Civilization Revolution 2 does some things well and others poorly. Its relative simplicity within the series will deter many Civilization fans, but this same distillation will make it more palatable to players who want a quicker and pacier game.

MouseCraft is always, noticeably and unapologetically, Lemmings meets Tetris - and like the mice of its title, it seems happy to scrabble about in the twin shadows of its genre-defining inspirations.

Certainly, I have no hesitation in recommending Original Sin to RPG fans old and new, provided that you're up for a challenge from very early on and don't expect to romp through, Diablo-style.

Viewed on its underlying merit, this is a weaker game than its years-old inspirations - both Radiant Silvergun and Einhander best it in terms of interesting systems and set-pieces - but Astebreed is, nevertheless, a strong and idiosyncratic proposition.

Exploring the ruins of ancient civilizations under the watchful eyes of a race of paleo-people isn't just surreal; it's also unnerving to see how little power you really have here. Without air, without any technology to speak of, without your friends or family, you're truly lost.

Xenonauts knows exactly who its audience is, exactly what it's aiming for and, while it may never achieve a wider appeal, it will capture that audience in a very familiar act of alien abduction.

More will follow, but despite what its name might suggest, Infinity is extremely limited, both in terms of what little content it offers and your ability to access it.

Chibi-Robo simply isn't much fun.

It is, at best, a functional shooter that asks little of the player and offers the bare minimum in return.

While Distant Worlds may be a paragon of its style, I can only recommend it to a select few: those with beefy computers and plenty of time to really dig into the meat of this stunningly elegant and impressively wide-ranging bit of software.

The meagre number of maps means repetition soon kicks in, but the gorgeous visuals, frenetic carnage and demanding teamwork make for the tightest Horde variant since Mass Effect 3's. A surprisingly good time for all.

The package as a whole is still very much a rough diamond, but it's a definite improvement over its predecessor.

There is gold in these old genres, and Shovel Knight is a successful dig.

While Valiant Hearts struggles to make sense of itself as a game, in its odd, playful innocence and in its focus on four friends (and a dog) it at least offers a fleeting human perspective on a new kind of war that turned out to be far, far worse in its mechanised violence than anybody was quite expecting.

The fact that this is a standalone expansion really sweetens the deal. If you'd like to pick up just one of the new factions, that'll only run you £10, and with that you can start playing one of the best World War 2 strategy games ever made... alongside its near-perfect predecessor, of course.

Grid Autosport is a fine racing game, though it's never a thoroughbred one. It's the muscle car that was Grid 2 stripped out and retooled for the track, but too often you can see the solder-work at the seams. In 2008, Race Driver: Grid was a partial reinvention of the racing genre, equipped with a handful of fresh ideas. Six years on, Grid Autosport - while a definite return to form for Codemasters - is simply a rediscovery of it.

Add the graphical overhaul, refined handling and experimental modes together and you end up with a racer that feels much more competitive that its immediate predecessors.

For now, enjoy what is still one of the best and most undervalued puzzle games around.

Enemy Front is a bad game on almost every level, but it gives me no pleasure to report that. It's not a lazy game, as you can see the developer trying as hard as it can to mimic the juggernauts that dominate the genre, but nor does it show enough personality or ambition to break out of the tired old paradigms.

EA Sports UFC is a game capable of brilliance. It's let down by some curious design decisions, signs of a team perhaps too interested in capturing non-essential moves seen on YouTube rather than nailing the essence of the sport. But when it flows against human competition, it offers beautiful destruction and glorious drama. Landing a picture-perfect head kick in the final minute of the fifth round of a title fight? Well, it doesn't get much better.

While it's a fine tribute to Panzer General's mechanics, it actually ends up feeling a little dumber and more obtuse than the venerable vintage it pays respect to. It sings its tune well and it will entertain fans of the original but, unlike the generals whose battles it represents, it fails to either innovate or inspire.

It's a game that strains for profundity and meaning - that's particularly evident in its Trophy titles - but finds them ever beyond its grasp. Some will be soothed by its contemplative mood, others will relish the challenge of mastering those devious patterns, but to me the two felt like an awkward mismatch.

In many ways, it's a spiritual sibling to Far Cry 3's Blood Dragon expansion. Both are fuelled by a heady brew of nostalgia and adrenalin, and both have tongue so firmly implanted in cheek that it bursts out the other side. Where Blood Dragon built to a manic crescendo, however, after the first few hours SUDR3ARHEEXPA too easily turns into a fun but flawed grind for all but the most dedicated Capcom aficionado.

It's a hard game to sum up. The flashes of genius in Concursion's construction are some of the freshest and most engaging gameplay I've seen from the indie scene in years. I want to be able to recommend it for that reason alone. But there's a lot of game surrounding those moments, and a lot of that game isn't particularly good. It's fiddly and annoying in a way that the best hardcore retro games - the Mega Mans and R-Types - never were.

The abundance of surreal moments make for game that's fun to tell others about, but dull to play.

That's what's most disappointing; there's absolutely the spark of a really cool whatever-this-genre-is game in Among the Sleep, and for a while it looks like it's going to get there. Too bad it ends barely a quarter of the way in, passing the baton to something both much less interesting and perpetually trapped in its shadow.

State of Decay's imagination and ambition do not excuse the presentational shortcomings, but it's easier to celebrate an interesting yet crude game than one that's beautiful and dull.

I can't pretend that Soul Suspect is a particularly great game, but I do know that it's the sort of game I'll still remember - and remember fondly - in five years' time, which is more than can be said for most of its glossier rivals.

It offers highly refined gameplay married with a rich art style, and by acknowledging fan feedback in an effort to make a well-rounded game even more polished, Ultra feels like the work of a developer that's content to please its core audience rather than trying to grab everyone else's attention. That's rare, especially from a studio that was responsible for Resident Evil 6.

While research shows that the majority of games remain unfinished by their players, Kero Blaster draws you steadily through to its conclusion, a three-hour trip that demands to be finished. Amaya's singular vision is beguiling and, while this game is a more straightforward proposition than the enchanting crisscross complexity of Cave Story, it's no less delightful.

As a story, then, The Wolf Among Us is coming together nicely. As a game, it still feels remote, a little snagged on the same repetitive systems. With The Walking Dead, Telltale showed us a new way to experience stories via a joypad. As it takes on more and more projects, it really needs to show that its new formula is as flexible as it is formidable.

Drakengard 3 isn't a very good game, then, but it's an interesting kind of failure, and as such is impossible to completely dismiss.

Watch Dogs doesn't have that promising kernel. It certainly entertains, but mostly through borrowed concepts, and the central notion that could have made it stand out - the hacking - is the most undercooked of all. It doesn't get anything horribly wrong, but nor does it excel at any of the genre beats it so faithfully bangs out. It's good, and yet that always feels like a criticism when a game comes weighed down by this much hype.

It works well for now, then, but Tropico 5 is clearly more concerned with introducing new concepts atop the old than it is with overhauling its base mechanics. Looking ahead to the future, this long-running series would benefit from having the fires of revolution lit beneath it.

Always Sometimes Monsters isn't the first game to get clever with morality. It's not the first game that's had a few grey areas. It also isn't about either of those. It's about perspective. It's about empathy. It's about who we are and why we do what we do. That narrative is one of contradiction and hypocrisy, because that's what real people are about.

Enjoy the artful approach to science-fiction, enjoy the hoops Supergiant's jumped through to position you in the right place to engage with its combat, and you can even enjoy the very fact that the game often struggles to get its deeper messages across. After all, if the developer had something straightforward to say, it might not have had to make a game in the first place.

It's built on an impressive world but it doesn't do enough with it, and as a result it's curious, but hardly compelling.

Expedition will satisfy those who've spent the past two months regenning, arc mining and "standing by", and is further proof (if any were needed) that Respawn is rather good at this whole first-person shooter thing.

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 wonderfully idiosyncratic creation that, despite its smorgasbord of influences, feels like nothing else.

It's exhausting, but when it all clicks it's amazing, too.

What could easily have been a mid-season lull feels instead like a peak. If Telltale can maintain this standard for the rest of the season, it could yet top The Walking Dead's first run in terms of quality - if not novelty.

Simply by staggering across the finish line first, Bound By Flame may seem to be an attractive proposition for PS4 RPG fans, but don't be fooled. With its shonky cut-scenes, its outdoor sound effects that play indoors and its linear maps, this is in no way a current-gen experience. It's a budget offering at a premium price - and a poor one at that.

Even in the cramped indie survival game genre, there's nothing quite like Sir, You Are Being Hunted.

It's still a disappointment to see that, after so long, Age of Mythology doesn't quite hold up to modern RTS standards, but there's enough here - and likely enough coming - to warrant a look regardless.

Sportsfriends is a celebration of the social side of games, their ability to bring a room together in one loud, raucous moment and how they're so much more fun when enjoyed with company. Alongside like-minded titles such as Towerfall and Nidhogg, this compilation is a pleasant reminder of that power - and, just like its companions, Sportsfriends represents video games at their very, very best.

Developer Beenox showed in the past, with Shattered Dimensions, that it not only has fresh ideas for Spidey but the development chops to create a polished and impressive game built around the character. There's none of that inspiration or attention to detail here.

To call Lost Swords a failed experiment would be an insult to every ambitious game that fell flat on its face. It feels like Namco put barely any thought into making the not-so-micro-transactions justifiable or even making sure that the single-player focus felt consistently engaging.

A pleasant anomaly: a stealth game that breaks out of rigid patterns and an episodic game that visibly evolves and improves from one chapter to the next. The game isn't quite everything it could be just yet - the occasional puzzles, although slightly more involved, still feel like the weak link in the chain - but with more episodes to come, there's a strong sense that by the end, it's going to be something very special indeed.

If you approach All-Star Battle as a fighting game first and foremost, you'll discover a satisfyingly complex combat system with a few lacklustre modes. Not a 10, then, but this Jo is far from average.

Daylight has neither the creeping sense of psychological dread of Fatal Frame nor the poster man antagonist of Slender, and its reliance on cliché lacks distinction. But if the game's straightforward purpose was simply to panic and upset its player then it is an indisputable success, no matter how cheap the tricks employed.

Child of Light stands as a wonderfully realised venture into unfamiliar territory for Ubisoft - and a welcome reminder that the industry's major players still have the creative flair to push beyond the lucrative safe ground that they so often favour to create well-crafted, highly-polished gems such as this.

Where Arzest failed, HAL has triumphed: Kirby might be a little late to the party, but he's arrived laden with treats.

Elder Scrolls fans will be put off by its rigid structure and weak storytelling, while your average MMO player will tire of wading through the wan questing to get to the good stuff. Even the good stuff isn't outstanding, and the game doesn't represent good value compared to its competition.

Hitman GO might not be broad in its scope, it might be a relatively straightforward puzzle game at heart, but it's still clever, cute and creative in quite a few ways, so much so that I don't really want to spoil some of the surprises it introduces as you make progress. Perhaps most importantly, it's loyal to its forefathers by upholding the tradition that the best of the Hitman games have displayed: it makes killing a pleasure.

The natural comparison is with Everybody's Golf - which, of course, developer Camelot was responsible for in the first instance - and while the Vita game has, by a distance, the superior single-player structure, World Tour is more than a match for it in the quality of its courses and the breadth of its options.

If you do like games that challenge you to work out the rules for yourself, to find the edges of the world by falling over them, then Fract is a unique and often remarkable experience, best savoured in the dark at full volume. Go on, get lost.

About the only thing I can say in favour of Rollercoaster Tycoon 4 Mobile is that it accurately captures the experience of visiting a theme park: it costs too much to get in, the stalls are all overpriced, you have to wait ages for all the rides and the whole experience will leave you feeling decidedly nauseous.

War of the Vikings, much like its predecessor, is a rough diamond. It's limited, but also unique. It's scruffy, but also capable of surprising beauty. It's frustrating, but also incredibly fun. On balance, it's a game I admire more than I like, but I'm glad it exists and can see why, at least for the niche audience that clicks with its offbeat rhythm, it's already a beloved cult favourite.

I wanted to love Secrets Of Raetikon. It's always intoxicating when you see a project so clearly fuelled by passion and vision - but its substance just doesn't live up to its style.

At this point, criticising a Lego game for being much like the other Lego games feels somewhat pointless. It's tempting, especially after so many, but it's a series that's long been more comfortable changing the wallpaper than rebuilding the entire house, and that's not likely to change any time soon.

Trials Fusion is still a supremely enjoyable game, but it takes very few risks in its desire to stand the test of time, preferring to adopt the neutrality of a platform holder and stick to things that worked well in Evolution - a game with which you sometimes feel it should swap monikers.

David's control scheme has clearly been built around the touchscreen, but while the game's a delight on iOS (on iPhone, at least - the buggy iPad version is awaiting a fix at the time of writing), it works surprisingly well on PC and Mac, too.

As it is, Sepp Blatter's EA Sports FIFA Coca-Cola Budweiser World Cup 2014 Brazil is partly a game many of its audience will already own, and partly a very, very well made promotional souvenir - one that will aid your enjoyment of this summer's festivities hugely, but that doesn't quite justify its price tag.

As a game that endures precisely because of its easygoing, laughable nature, Talisman is far from ideal.

Its old-fashioned mentality won me over: while other sims can seem to favour a rather coldly analytical approach to management, here you feel as much a fan as a manager, cheering your team on from the sidelines. It might take away much of what makes a truly authentic sim, but in doing so it gives back plenty besides.

Despite some familiar trappings and a shortage of genuine wonders, Age of Wonders 3 delivers a more tightly focused experience than Firaxis' behemoth Civilization series, to which it initially appears to owe so much. In doing so, it proves that even after a decade away the Age of Wonders series can still stand proud beside its modern-day contemporaries.

You'll still catch glimpses of the game you remember in amongst that clutter; whether that's enough to have you splashing out on virtual gems is another matter.

I hope that Telltale is playing the long game here and that the final two episodes will pull everything together in a satisfying way. Not so much for the story - I find myself curiously unconcerned by the prospect of discovering the identity of the killer - but because I want to feel like I made a real difference during the time I spent in Wolf's clothing.

Both a brilliant modern riff on classic arcade games and a frustrating chore.

Kinect Sports Rivals is a well-constructed game with an enjoyable structure and smartly integrated multiplayer. But it's already looking dated as it continues to struggle against the limitations of its chosen interface.

Small and fussy, Storm of Vengeance crudely pastes Warhammer 40K branding on top of a thin and generic one-button mobile game framework. What depth it does offer is limited in scope and too often obscured by game mechanics that become irritating or repetitive almost immediately. It's simply no fun to play.

The physics engine, as always, is the main attraction - it's just a shame that Milestone didn't apply a little more drive and ambition.

It's rough around the edges, and amuses only for a short but sweet time, which may lead some to look askance at the price tag. Yet there are plenty of games which cost more and entertain far less, so while Goat Simulator is a joke, it's at least one in which the player is a willing participant. No kidding.

Reaper of Souls is a huge improvement for Diablo 3; it does what was needed and a whole lot more besides. It's overkill - right down to the removal of any cap on the endgame Paragon system, which now invites you to play forever, taking your characters' stats to infinity and beyond.

Cloudbuilt succeeds remarkably in proving that how a game feels and what you do within it can tell stories all on their own.

There's something about Bohemia's world-building that inspires people. Importantly though, Arma 3's vanilla content now stands on equal footing with those third-party inspirations. It's still a little rough around the edges, but it's a darned impressive package nonetheless.

Betrayer is rougher around the edges than its stylish exterior may suggest, but it's never less than fascinating.

Impressively crafted and polished, it's a fitting end to Irrational's body of work. The story of BioShock might belong to Ken Levine and Irrational Games rather than to its players - but it's a story that's been well worth telling.

The genius of Blek's design is that it channels that weird sense of freedom you get from helping a doodle unfold - the freedom that comes of kicking yourself loose from life's formal structures, even if your only rebellion is seeing where a curving black line will take you.

With humour too dumb to even be offensive and one-note gameplay blighted by clumsy design, it's really only possible to cede Yaiba a couple of plus points: wading into zombies with a katana is moderately amusing even in this shonky form, and some of the jokes might raise a smile if you've recently suffered a head injury.

As pretty and playable as it is, in no sense is inFamous: Second Son a post-Grand Theft Auto 5 open-world game. It's just a tidier, shorter and shinier one. It's easy to enjoy and has a winning personality, but it's reluctant to deviate from a stale streetmap of game city. It's no rebel, then. In fact, it's a conformist.

The game is extremely generous with its hidden hint coins, with hundreds of the things hidden in every background. You'd have to be a full-on Kardashian to use them all.

Daredevilry is exactly what this astonishing shooter delivers.

As a precursor to Phantom Pain, it suggests that greatness awaits, but even on its own terms Ground Zeroes is something special. In the purity of its systems and the focus of its action, it's not just an antidote to the glut that had begun to weigh down Metal Gear Solid but also to the bloat that weighs down so many of the series' big-budget peers.

10 Second Ninja is a brief but expertly built piece of work; a game that offers the most hardcore of action-platforming but does so under the guise of simplicity and accessibility.

In its current form, then, Titanfall is perhaps more of a step forward for shooters than a giant leap. But that still represents the most positive momentum seen in the genre for at least five years. Quite simply, if you feel like you're in danger of falling out of love with multiplayer shooters, Titanfall is the game to win you back.

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.

Out There also reveals something of the human pioneering spirit and its twin: the urge to survive till the final lungful of oxygen is expended. And if and when you do manage to scrape through another day, it's a game that allows you to marvel at the unlikeliness of all this as well as the miracle and fragility of life.

It might look a little like Yoshi's Island, then, but it's a worse game in every regard. 19 years on from the original, its design has been denuded of almost everything that made it great: a series once fecund with ideas is now coasting on past glories.

This is the type of game that creates memories and dissolves friendships, soundtracked by the pained swears of the defeated and the uproarious cheers of the victors. If that's not worth moving your life around for, then what is?