"Solid" is one of those terrible damning-with-faint-praise words which will have anyone cringing but it's the one that applies. It's a well-built, well-made, well-designed well-solid RTS, and of its type, one of the finest of the year.

This is a saga that has clearly been tugged and squeezed, compromised and spoiled by many, many cooks.

If, however, Konami plans to turn this into an ongoing spin-off with commercial potential then it needs serious work to either shape it into something outlandish that could only be done online with the Metal Gear series, or to better blend the Metal Gear elements into the established tropes of the multiplayer action genre.

A beautifully realised old school JRPG whose only downfall is its story of all things. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A sapphic, sci-fi fever dream that finds horror and beauty among the stars, Signalis is dense and alluring to the last. [Eurogamer Essential]

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

That's Ultros: a green-fingered Metroidvania that wants you to experiment. Experiment with nature, with the environment, and even, ultimately, with not killing everything you come across. I'm on board.

As fanciful as the game can be, the technology feels unnervingly true to its period - right down to the inherent awkwardness of microfilm readers. [Recommended]

Compact and terrifying, this score-attack shooter feels like it's come from the future. [Eurogamer Recommended]

It's just a great pinball game, with intelligent table design that manages to pack in features without losing focus. I cherished the version I had for the homebrew GP32 handheld, so the sight of it resurrected once more for the PSP is a genuine joy.

Perhaps the biggest flaw though is that the controls never stop being cumbersome. With several important information screens requiring more than one button to be held to be seen (never mind a strange and convoluted "emoticon" system for multiplayer matches).

Even with the dreary visuals Tiger Woods 09 is certainly the best golf game on the Wii so far.

Sadly, the game which unfolds around these interludes isn't half as enjoyable. The first instalment to be set in North America, Far Cry 5 is Far Cry at its least engrossing, clumsiest and most basic, though there's still just enough going on here to keep a returning fan involved.

An otherworldly journey that runs out of things to do.

A solid storyline backed by hauntingly good graphics and sound, with entertaining combat and weaponry make this a hard game to put down.

Still, discarding relatively minor mechanics issues, Crimson Butterfly gets along by virtue of its intensely unnerving atmosphere, crafted by delicious graphics, decent storyline and even better-than-usual voiceovers.

An entertaining side dish that easily justifies its asking price.

The two styles of play - high scoring or Pokemon catching - allow you to explore the tables twice over with different motives, while the immediate accessibility will suit players who are looking for some purely basic pinball fun. Only the most demanding of pinball wizards would be right to turn their nose up at Pokemon Pinball's charming slant on the genre.

Dawntrail ups the ante with exhilarating combat experiences and builds a stunning new world, but meandering storytelling highlights the MMO's flaws.

A wonderful piece of entertainment, and easily the best adventure game since the days of "Grim Fandango."

An enjoyable history lesson that survives the test of time.

History repeats itself with a joyful, educational flourish in Age of Empires 4, a game of sweet simplicity and bottomless depth. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Mastering the game's in-body platforming is an urgent thrill, beaten down less violently here under the auspices of our old friends keyboard and mouse, and stands out from the homogenised interfaces of modern first-person and platform games.

Limp and lumpy online isn't quite enough to distract from the brilliantly reverent package curated by Digital Eclipse. [Recommended]

The core of SteamWorld Heist still burns brightly in this turn-based tactics sequel, but its bid to go bigger and better is a risk that hasn't quite paid off.

A game that captures that rarest commodity in gaming: joy. It's an experience where comedy, camaraderie and personal improvement are tied together in one glorious whole. It's also a game that hasn't even got off the ground yet, as its community get to grips with the track creation tools and the potential for re-designing the environments.

Motorsport Manager's a couple of tweaks away from greatness, then, but it's far from a disappointment.

Robert Louis Stevenson used to play with his stepson's soldiers when he was sick in bed, an act that seems impossible to disentangle from his rangy, childlike, often febrile imagination. The Pathless is a little chillier than that - there are clear reminders throughout that key people from the team that made this also made stuff like Journey, with its cold poise - but it retains something of that dream of play. Speed and imagination and great beasts burning in the trees. I had fun.

Fun, cheeky and irreverent, Death of the Reprobate prances through art history with a wicked twinkle in its eye, and is one of this year's most memorable adventure games.

The combat's fluid, relatively deep and involving once it gets going, but it's also a wholly repetitive game that's been surpassed in so many meaningful ways that you can't simply be content with 'more of the same' anymore.

Veteran trainers, on the other hand, need to ask themselves if they want more of the same… again.

When you've battled through all 14 single player levels, played it on co-op and worked your way through some solid multiplayer action, you won’t feel like you've played a next generation title; heck, you won't even feel like you've played the best shooter out this Christmas.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole is an RPG with tangible qualities and enjoyable passages, but without the bite or imagination you'd expect of the name.

There's much work to be done before LucasArts can boast it has created the ultimate Star Wars FPS. Sure, it's the best one yet, but with some often laughable AI and creaking tech underpinning it, the flaws are there for all to see.

The Warriors more than holds its own on its transition to the PSP. For a start, it's still a perfectly playable, charming and downright brutal game - there really is nothing quite as ludicrous on the shelves today.

Smackdown vs RAW is the wrestling "FIFA" - drowning in customisable settings, but the gameplay isn't always completely there. However, like "FIFA," SvsR has made some admirable steps this year.

There's a difference between kicking your arse until you learn from it, and kicking your arse until you get lucky, and Ninja Gaiden 2 fails that crucial test all too often.

As a puzzle formula, it's incredibly simple but alarmingly addictive once you get going.

It's more professionally made and superior to the original campaign in every way, and likely to clock in at around 12-15 hours depending on difficulty settings: enough to tell its story, but not enough to outstay its welcome.

Navigating a tonal minefield with just enough confidence, Company of Heroes 3 is a big, refined, and beautifully textured addition to an already brilliant series. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Intriguingly, the presence of an all-encompassing online mode called Conquest ties up all the various strands of multiplayer game into a coherent whole.

The long overdue samurai spin-off is classic Yakuza under its period dressing but also underwhelming as a current-gen remake.

It's a 9-flavoured 8, but again the mechanics of the court sequences are often so stupidly frustrating that it would be wrong to mark any higher.

Stellar Blade has a fair bit of weirdness, but its killer tunes and vibey, flow-state combat - plus a transformative hard mode - are enough to leave you entranced.

It's another small step forward for the series, but that's not quite enough to dispel the suspicion that Codemasters' F1 team doesn't have the resources to create iterations compelling or different enough to justify the annual churn. F1 2012 is a good game, but it's some way off from being the classic it could be.

Veteran trainers, on the other hand, need to ask themselves if they want more of the same… again.

What we have here essentially is an exceptionally polished product with a smattering of new additions that, Xbox Live aside, don't make an especially significant leap forward after last year's return to form.

It's a scope and scale that can be daunting, but it allows for an unparalleled level of player agency within an RTS.

I'll be totally honest. After Slay the Spire I thought I had the only card battling RPG I needed for the time being. But I should never bet against the SteamWorld team, and so it proved here. Wit, warmth, smart mechanics and a surprising challenge all make SteamWorld Quest a delight - and then there's Orik, of course. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Competent strategy pastes flat-footed, surface-level sci-fi over a genre that lives and dies by its nuance.

Action-packed dungeons make Lost Ark's early stages a real romp, but without a convincing hook beyond the combat, things get a little stale.

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.

For a game that's entirely happy to plunder the past and repackage it all with a nod and a wink, this cheery portion of nostalgic blasting is well worth dusting off your neglected PSP for.

Despite - or possibly because of - its simple premise, Critical Mass is a game that's hard to put down once you get into a groove, and its a game we're likely to see a lot more of on handheld platforms once word gets around.

Of course the idea with Deluxe is that even if that's beyond you so much has been brought together that there's enough to entertain regardless.

It might look cuter than a kitten, but Rotating Octopus can be just as savage when it wants to be. And we still love it, fools that we are.

With the gameplay mechanics reduced to a largely predictable run of conversations and (in)appropriate use of objects, The City That Dare Not Sleep feels stuck in a rut much of the time.

Its dramatic and spectacular boss fights just about keep Black Myth: Wukong afloat, but behind all its glitz and glamour is a frustratingly hollow and rudderless action game.

As with the first Puzzle Quest, then, the concept is what's truly brilliant - the one-more-go aspect of spatial challenges threaded into the reward schedule of an RPG. While the middling implementation's been somewhat improved this time around, the result is still a game that's supremely effective rather than genuinely brilliant.

Unfortunately, AOE3's ship has sailed for most folks, and this just isn't exciting enough to quite justify also splashing out on the original game if you don't already own it.

With the trademark sharp witticisms layered onto challenging and inventive puzzles, this is the best possible start to the new season.

An intriguing response to one of Nintendo's greatest ever games.

Although decent fun in short bursts, Age Of Zombies is a little too relentlessly repetitive to enjoy over the longer term, and this general lack of variety makes the inflated price seem a tad questionable.

The platforming fluency is seductive, but it's a language of indifferent thumbing yawned through timing windows as wide as a house. The crushing thing about Prince of Persia, however, isn't this. It's that we're faced with yet another poor game planted in a bed of fantastic technology and interesting mechanics, which, rather than empowering the player to solve interesting problems in new and exciting ways, merely sends you for a long and elaborate stroll through a beautiful world devoid of challenge or variation, and marred by excessive repetition.

Hellblade 2 continues Senua's story with grace, confidence, surprising brutality and thundering conviction.

For all its ambition and the obvious effort put into creating a fun and somewhat original title, Ghost Master doesn't have a lot of life in it past the initial novelty of scaring the crap out of people.

May not be the best-looking tactical shooter ever made, nor does it bring anything to the genre in terms of progress, but there's little else on Xbox worth looking at in the genre until "Rainbow Six 3" shows up.

Playtonic tightens up its nostalgic take on platforming and turns its eyes to the future. [Eurogamer Recommended]

To me, Kena: Bridge of Spirits very much has first game syndrome - something with all the right ideas, weakened by their execution. If it does well - and given the fever with which it's been followed leading up to its release, I expect it will - it'll be because we often value AAA looks and mechanics more highly than attempts at innovation. I'm sure with this foundation Ember Lab has a great game in it, but this isn't it just yet.

The interface is instantly intuitive, while menu choices are always clear and easy to find.

Becomes so compelling that you're rarely at a loss for motivation. If you're not simply revelling in the design or your own massive combos, you're hopelessly addicted to securing the requisite number of bananas and coming through unscathed against the boss.

If you're from the crowd that remembers it the first time around, you'll get the chance to revisit an artful and wonderfully atmospheric gaming oddity filled with sudden deaths and clever set-pieces. If you're new to it, you're probably in for an hour or so of intrigued confusion, followed by a quick trip to a FAQ.

Compared to "Virtua Tennis," the undisputed king of the tennis franchises around here, Mario Power Tennis is a bit fuzzier and more forgiving in every respect, but, unless you turn them off, the power shots shift the dynamic in quite a different direction.

And like a lost relic of our now-mythical past, it's a love affair with all things spiteful.

A competent tactical retooling of the Gears formula, even if the execution isn't always spot-on.

An inventive twist on both the musou formula and the acclaimed Three Houses RPG, Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes is a high point for the genre. [Eurogamer Recommended]

It's fundamentally a great game and the best option for console-owning quiz fans.

Right now, though, the game as it stands is a rough diamond - very good, bordering on great thanks to a regular stream of comprehensive patches from Funcom.

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.

A strategy smorgasbord rather than a focused expansion of any one area.

A heavyweight update of a marvellous game. Indeed, it emerges as the strongest RPG for the system, an extraordinary feat considering its long journey to get here. Blue moustache and all.

Dorfromantik is sunshine on the screen, with a puzzling heart that will keep you busy for days. [Eurogamer Essential]

Nintendo's long-running fantasy series looks to its rich history for this smart, satisfying turn-based strategy game. [Eurogamer Recommended]

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.

All told, it's quite a lot of newness from an expansion pack, and in many ways makes for a pretty considerable shift from how the original game works.

A beautifully crafted exploration game brimming with combat and puzzles. [Eurogamer Recommended]

More than anything else, we're just happy to have another Ace Combat game we can genuinely say we really like, rather than just saying we don't dislike it. The series has rated a categorical "meh" for some time now; but no longer. Ace Combat 6 can be our wingman any time.

KT Racing celebrates 50 years of WRC with a generous, enjoyable package - even if some old problems persist. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Like its predecessors, Lego Marvel has surface flaws - but it's so generous with its content, so clearly head-over-heels in love with the characters and world it's inherited from the comic page and cinema screen, and so reliably, reassuringly designed from the ground up to both enchant and inspire young minds, that it's impossible to allow the slight technical scruffiness to sour the experience.

Had the crash problems not made it into the retail code, we might have scored it higher, but Rockstar's programmers are in detention this week sorting it out, so hopefully within a few days of your reading this we won't feel like beating them up behind the bike-sheds as we do now. The fact we're so happy to be playing Bully again in spite of this ought to speak for itself.

Black and White 2 offers a compelling record of all that's great from 16 years of catching, collecting, collating and coaxing pocket monsters into ever more exciting forms, bit by wonderful bit.

A great package that any squad gaming fan will take to immediately - it's not everything we hoped it would be, admittedly, but don't let that put you off what is still a worthy offering.

Had Namco spent a bit less time on the forgettable Scenario Campaign and more on sorting out the netcode, however, this could have gone higher. A miracle patch would be very helpful.

In a time when Xbox Live Arcade seems to be lurching towards bigger and slicker titles, Rocket Riot takes you back to the early days of the service, when colours were bright, goals were simple, and the score meant everything.

Assault on Dark Athena certainly isn't the next-generation sequel it deserved, and compared to the cream of the current shooter crop it's an average effort. In trying to make it consistent with its five-years-old predecessor, Starbreeze has effectively crafted a game that is inescapably and fundamentally outdated.

A superb game with a truly deep story. Couple this with a rather good looking graphics engine, some great dialogue, detailed environments, and an all round attention to detail, and you have a great game. Unfortunately though, thanks to the nature of the adventure system and the pauses while loading scenes, the game can become tedious at times.

Ultimately, your perseverance with the sluggish pacing can be rewarding, but Shenmue 2 consistently proves itself an ageing game with ageing looks. It should never have happened like this.

The cult classic mobile RPG finally gets its due, for lovers of mechanics over story who can rise to the demands of its extreme challenge.