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.

Some excellent enhancements make this the ultimate version of Dragon Quest III, but it could still do more to make it wholly welcoming to newcomers.

Enslaved is a solid, well-built offering which is a pleasure to play. The excellent storytelling, great acting and fantastic pacing elevate it above the ranks of your average action adventure, and indeed your average videogame.

A highly accomplished sequel that innovates without losing sight of what made the first one great. [Recommended]

Every now and then I get a reminder that video games are magic. And weirdly, this collection of things that pre-date video games has reminded me just how magical video games are. This is a history of the world, in part. It's also a TARDIS of fun. It's wonderful. [Eurogamer Recommended]

As a developer that always seemed most interested in plain craftsmanship, it's a suitable capstone. As a return to one of the 360's most popular universe, it's about as good an RTS as a Halo fan could expect. And as a game, Halo Wars is a genuine pleasure.

The inconsistent quality of Pacific Rift's tracks and vehicles ultimately gets the better of it

Few series have enjoyed such an assured and enjoyable update in the current generation of consoles. Far from being a weary evolution, SSX is a vibrant, eager advance for the Cool Boarder/Tony Hawk's lineage of extreme sports video games. EA Canada has effortlessly married the score-attack DNA of arcade gaming's earliest days with some of the most interesting and exciting multiplayer design seen in the past few years. A towering achievement then, as tall as the mountains it so diligently reconstructs.

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

It’s fun while it lasts, but requires relatively little skill – just an iron will and determination to progress through 16 lavish, on rails, scripted levels.

One of Capcom's most handsome Ace Attorney remasters to date, the Investigations Collection brings welcome improvements to some longstanding series weaknesses, but divorcing it from its courtroom setting and structure is its biggest and most fatal flaw.

When the game clicks, which it does often enough across its many modes and missions, it overcomes the inadequacy of its storytelling and reminds you why Splinter Cell was so appealing in the first place.

Occasionally turning subtext into text, Citizen Sleeper's real magic is found in the boundless warmth of its characters - and the humanity of its own design. [Eurogamer Recommended]

NetherRealm has shown what can be done to make the genre appeal to those who don't fancy getting torn to shreds online. Unfortunately the developers at Bandai Namco's Tekken team seemingly failed to notice.

Metro: Last Light is not a bad game, but nor is it a good one in quite the same sense as its predecessor. Metro 2033 was flawed but trying to do its own thing. If anything, Last Light feels like a regression. Similarities abound, but this is a more conservative FPS, one looking at the competition rather than itself, and one with some terrible missteps. So go in with low expectations, and you might be pleasantly surprised.

It has excellent local wireless multiplayer.

Arcade Paradise made me think of Outrun and GTA and Mr Driller, and also my own working life in my teens as a dishwasher and a double-glazing salesperson, sure. But it also made me think of those mazes tiled on the walls of Warren Street tube. Warren Street! Get it? Little puzzles made to be solved between trains, but tricky enough to encourage you to miss your train in the first place. Then you solve the maze and you're off into a wider maze of the underground network. And maybe, who knows, there's a maze beyond that too. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Another one of those weird little offerings that is as much a place as it is a game: an old tree filled with strange life, in which dazzling secrets lurk under every stone. Click!

By simply making sure that absolutely everything in the game is designed to remove the usual restrictions on fun, Sumo's created something that practically transcends rivals like PGR3 and Burnout before you even done anything.

The game 999 most reminded me of was the similarly dark – and bafflingly underrated – Lux-Pain, which was equally inconsistent and suffered from a significantly weaker translation, but arguably blended shocks and laughs a little more skilfully than this does.

A quest to find phone signal leads to a glorious game of exploration and reconnection. [Eurogamer Essential]

A game clearly put together with care and passion, built around a core of delightful feedback and quite simply fun at a very deep and instinctive level. It still feels great. There's just a sense that there remains a bolder and more ambitious, game lurking just under the surface and only occasionally showing itself.

The game will draw attention for its wonderful weirdness, as it should, yet that's only half of the story. Catherine plays its eccentricities against its more down-to-earth side, which makes for a richer comic world than you might get from bizarro fare alone. The upshot is an experience that's both fun and provocative - a nightmare worth staying awake for.

One perfectly formed, endlessly absorbing, regularly amusing word game. If you're looking for some brainial stimulation, find logic puzzles like Sudoku and Slitherlink a trifle soulless, and have a nasty 'untreatable' case of leprosy or beriberi, then I really can't recommend Bookworm Adventures enough.

EA can quite fairly claim to have again delivered the best football game ever made. But every year the developers seem to have less of an idea what that means.

Probably the best and worst thing about de Blob is that it's got 'Destined For Cult Status' written all over it. It's certainly not the first game to mix platform and puzzle elements, but the fact it manages to do so in such a clever, endearing, stylish and instantly playable way makes this a game we'd heartily recommend to anyone who thirsts for a 'proper' Wii game, whatever that is.

Would be an impressive game even if it weren't based on Lord of the Rings. It's a clever and well-constructed strategy title with plenty of innovation of its own, and a genuinely great use of the franchise. Easily the best of the Lord of the Rings games to date.

There aren't enough two-player tablet action games knocking around; this one is clever and even-handed and, like its courtly leads, unlikely to outstay its welcome.

In single-player and in co-op, Saints Row 2 is one of the most ridiculous and enjoyable games of the year. Some will dismiss it as GTA's "gangsta" offshoot, but they're missing the point; with its immense scope, fun physics and focus on entertainment over realism or grit, Saints Row is what GTA would have become if Rockstar North had followed Vice City to its pimpin' conclusion.

There’s more fluency to the [Hitz] gameplay, and the “on fire” element is handier than EA’s aptly named “gamebreaker”.

An excellent 'story so far' game that delivers pretty much the whole Tekken experience thus far for an astonishingly inconsequential seven quid. More than that though, it's a hard-hitting fly-kick to the face of the software industry - a standard bearer that redefines the value and content level of downloadable games.

Starship Patrol presents a package of rare calibre on DSiWare, a game that, through its tight breadth and expansive depths, would make for a worthy defining title on a service still trying to find its identity.

With its demented twist on tower defence, ZombieSmash is not only a quite brilliant timesink, but a sure-fire way of getting a train carriage all to yourself.

A great card battling game, and only a few niggly details hold it back from being even better: the lousy locked decks, the half-baked multiplayer tournaments, the quick and dirty iPad port. Nevertheless, it offers something fresh and creates battles that feel like two massed armies clashing across their ranks.

Pleasant but undemanding, gorgeous but lacking in depth - fans will be forgiven for expecting something a little more chewy, a little more experimental, from a developer who made his name by turning adventure games upside down. Here's hoping Act 2 builds some gameplay muscle to go with the supermodel looks.

For those burnt out on WOW's content, WildStar is easy to endorse. Immediately familiar to anyone who's visited Azeroth and with enough new twists on the tried-and-tested theme park formula, Carbine's game is so overflowing with stuff to do that it's certainly justified in asking for a subscription - even if less people seem prepared to sign up to one.

A fascinating experiment in narrative techniques, even if there's some tonal whiplash along the way. [Eurogamer Recommended]

The creators of Flatout channel a little of the classic Destruction Derby as this brilliantly destructive racer emerges from Early Access. [Recommended]

Children band together against the darkness of a collapsing France in this bleak and beautiful if somewhat rickety medieval fantasy.

Much like Resistance 2, Retribution is more than the sum of its parts. The single-player campaign may be linear and stagey, but it's also effortlessly fun and incredibly polished. The multiplayer doesn't contain many surprises, but it does a better job of matching the online modes of "proper" consoles better than most rivals in its genre. Annoyances are minor and fleeting in nature, and the game punches above its weight with a substantial and coherent feel that too many handheld offerings lack.

In spite of the fact that all you're doing is pressing a button three times, over and over again, it never gets boring. It would probably be too controversial to call it the best golf game, or the best PS3 game. But on both counts it's a remarkably close call. [JPN Import]

An extraordinarily detailed economy and range of interlinking systems make Victoria 3 a grand strategy to rival some of Paradox's best. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Feels like an uninspired, by-the-numbers sci-fi B-movie of a game with high production values. It's 'fun', for the nine, ten hours it lasts, but only in the same brainless sense that allows us to enjoy dumb popcorn action movies.

Closure may stop short of delivering the sort of swashbuckling adventure one might hope for from a journey through this shadowy netherworld, but it remains thoroughly enjoyable puzzle game that twists your brain in all sorts of maddening directions while keeping the answers just out of reach.

Photography opens up a complex world of timely, timeless narrative. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Mega Man 10 doesn't quite perhaps have the sparkling feel of reinvention that its predecessor enjoyed, but if you were one of the many who considered MM9 a welcome return to form, then this is another must-buy. Everyone else is perfectly entitled to look confused.

It's a sign that next generation gaming may offer a wonderful audio visual experience, but it needs to be a tad more ambitious in the game design stakes.

Battleheart's also far deeper than you might give it credit for, and horribly addictive. It truly is the Pringles of gaming.

While exaggerated and impossible, it's all executed properly. Every wobble, every turn, all motion-captured. The ragdoll on the bails is barking mad, even allowing you to augment its lunacy by extending the skeleton-destroying impacts, but that just makes the boring bit - falling off your skateboard - more fun.

Saints Row 4 may lack refinement - nothing thwarts a superhero quite so frequently as an overhanging roof or your homies standing in a doorway - but it compensates with sheer exuberance. It's a heartfelt love letter to the superhero genre and to a medium that makes such madness possible.

Riders of Doom should be more than capable of ransacking your spare time over the Christmas period, and the generous complement of new Skill Games means it would even work well as a multiplayer distraction when everyone in your family is drunk, ratty and hyper-competitive on Boxing Day afternoon.

Mechanics and content can make or break a modern fighting game, and Injustice delivers on those fronts.

The new levels feel rich and generous, and will absolutely reinvigorate the game for anyone who played it to death at indie gaming events.

Where other RPGs are still content with a dragon or some apocalyptic end of the world boom, here the stakes are personal, as well as both asking and inviting far more interesting questions than how much fire you can fling from your fingertips. It's a far more welcoming game than the original Torment, though a slower burner as far as the main plot goes, and one that never quite has its predecessor's dark confidence. It is, however, as close as we've had in the last 15 or so years, and certainly doesn't invoke the name in vain. [Recommended]

Wordament is a fresh take on a classic formula that works brilliantly. It's my prediction for this year's next big thing.

The convincing banter between the two doctors, the tale of John's carer and her relationship with her children, the stories of friends and families and how they intersect along the passage of life... To the Moon takes the details of human life in its stride, and delivers them with a breezy effortlessness.

Without a doubt, EA isn't treating the expansion of The Sims 3 lightly - World Adventures might be a bit of a thematic stumble, but it makes for a significantly bigger and more varied game, far more so than any prior Sims 1 or 2 expansion has achieved. It's impossible not to recommend it to avid Sims players, but anti-Sims snobs will inevitably find it to be an annoying side-order of collectormania and repetitive puzzles.

Ninja Theory crafts a highly competent action game and a nuanced, powerful exploration of mental health. [Essential]

Bugs aside - and indeed notwithstanding the bugs in our case - it's relentlessly entertaining and commands your attention as well as anything else on the handheld to date. We only wish it put up a bit more of a fight, and did more to take advantage of a system that once seemed purpose-built for it. [Import]

When scoring a goal is as satisfying as getting that last-bullet headshot in Resi Evil 4 or nailing a perfect insane stunt in GTA, you know you're playing a great videogame, not just a great sports game.

Given Blizzard's determination to make us wait as long as possible for Diablo III, you may as well sink it into a game that eats time for breakfast.

With a clean, pleasing visual style and gameplay that reveals its nuances through natural play, Fieldrunners is a wonderfully crafted casual nugget. It's a shame that more hasn't been added for this version, but that's no reason not to surrender to its charm.

While component tales and battles can be hit-and-miss, this elderly Squaresoft anthology is a wonderful testament to its genre's flexibility and range. [Eurogamer Recommended]

In an age where self-consciously clever design can become an end in itself, there's something reassuring about a game that opts to be so deliciously old-fashioned, yet offers a deceptive amount of depth via well balanced upgrades and a robust scoring system.

Where Is My Heart? is a video game about video games - about the possibilities that still lurk within even the busiest of genres, and of great new ideas brought to life by ingenuity, focus, and flair.

Sure, it's probably the most morally bankrupt game we've ever come across, but if you delight in extreme violence, language that would make Tarantino blush and a more forgiving take on the GTA theme then you've come to the right game.

Trails to Azure is an important second entry to the Crossbell saga, adding some neat touches and forming two parts of a whole with Trails From Zero. [Eurogamer Recommended]

The problem with moving a lot of the skins over to songs familiar to a Western audience, though, is that it's harder to maintain that illusion of interaction when the player already knows the song intimately.

If you're a SupCom player, think of this as pretty much your dream patch for the game, but with the unfortunate but understandable addition of a price-tag.

It's possible you'll tire of Drill Dozer's slightly repetitive drill cycle, and there's less room for exploration and investigation than you'll find in something like Super Mario World, but given it's 15 years and about 48 million 2D platform games later, it's nice to find a developer who can still offer a fresh line of questioning - and a nice suit to wear while doing it.

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

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.

It's still a fun game, and an incredibly slick one at that, but the law of diminishing returns has well and truly kicked in. It's time Insomniac got some rest and put Ratchet and Clank out to pasture - goodness knows they deserve it.

Nippon Ichi has crafted yet another stunning game with Phantom Brave - accessible, flexible, and as deep as the player wants it to be.

Perhaps the only downside about Lego Star Wars II is that the melee combat remains weak throughout, some of the latter puzzles can be wilfully obscure, and that Traveller's Tales neglected to allow co-op to be played online. Apart from that, it's one of the most instantly enjoyable games around.

Look past its lo-fi style and you'll realise its production values are hardly stingy, with unlockable time trials and other Easter-egg modes, and generally slick presentation. More to the point, it's excellent for its entire length. How many big-budget developments can say that?

It requires enormous quantities of patience, planning and persistence. If you're up to the challenge, prepare yourself for one of the most rewarding opportunities in gaming.

Unable to combine the best of two beloved series, this JRPG can't really find its focus.

I've never read any of the Moomin books, but last year or maybe the year before I did read a memoir by Jansson about a period of her life in which she settled on a little island, Klovharun. It was "a rock in the middle of nowhere", no running water or electricity and any shelter had to be constructed. The book presents a dream landscape, but it's one of those dreams in which you have so much to do. Sorting wood and fuel and things to eat and drink: Jansson loves all this, but she doesn't hide any of it or try to frame it as something that was easy. I see that same resilience, that same fortitude, when Snufkin calmly dismantles a park and pushes back the forces of order and regulation.

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

A fairly unremarkable Sims expansion pack on the same disc as a new cut of the original game.

If you’re open-minded enough to kill low-poly Axis troops and don’t mind being led by the nose, then don’t let a clutch of angry graphics whores dissuade you: this is top fun.

Viewed abstractly, Dual Destinies is a straightforward sequence of locked narrative corridors.

It's true that Lone Survivor owes a lot to the atmosphere of early Silent Hill, and there are a few thematic nods to David Lynch's '90s weirdo drama, Twin Peaks. But beneath them lies an intricate and unique game that takes the best of old-style survival horror and warps it into something all of its own. It's brave, uncompromising, and a little bit knowing - and, crucially, it's got more than enough substance to back up its style.

It's certainly not a bad game, at least in terms of core mechanics and functionality, but in terms of praise it only ever feels "good enough" rather than just "good".

One for those who value story and character over technical innovation then, but definitely a game worth trying if the concept has tickled your fancy.

While not the most ambitious sequel, Overcooked 2 still ranks among the best couch co-op has to offer. [Recommended]

Larger and more intricate than The Knife of Dunwall, The Brigmore Witches emerges as one of the finest examples of how to not only expand a blockbuster video game, but also of how to enrich and deepen one.

Virtua Fighter may no longer be at the cutting edge, but Final Showdown proves that it still runs deeper than any of its peers.

A stylish, dreamily wrought open-world detective adventure that dances masterfully on the edge of cosmic nightmare. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Not only are there better looking, more advanced games on the shelves now, there are also simply better games out there; this genre hasn't stood still since Jade Empire came out.

All minor gripes aside though, SWOS remains a triumph of playability over tedium and proves the franchise is still a strong contender for the greatest football game of all time.

If you're prepared to expend the requisite effort, there's a decent game of golf to be had here, but there's substantial room for improvement.

A moody, well-wrought action role-player with striking, desolate landscapes and a couple of great dungeons. [Eurogamer Recommended]

The further you go, the more hazards await, and the more colourful your language gets. One day they'll be forced to put blood pressure warnings on these things.

As lovely to watch as it is to play.

With the inclusion of a Software Development Kit in the package, the door is also wide open for user modifications and new missions for the game, which should extend SWAT3's life for the foreseeable future. I couldn't recommend your acquisition of this game any more.

If you fancy some utterly ridiculous, relentless twitch gaming action, full of drama, evil henchmen and a posse of minions to pump full of lead, then Time Crisis 3 stands as an essential purchase.