FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage isn't perfect, and doesn't quite live up to its promise; but it's sitting on the doorstep of absolute, legendary greatness. Everyone with a spark in their soul for high speed, ultra-destructive fun should play this game, and cross their fingers that just that tiny bit of extra care can be lavished on the next game in the series.

Star Ocean isn't a game that everyone will instantly like, thanks to the real-time battle system which is likely to divide opinions significantly, but it's a game which has moments of absolute genius, wrapped up in a solid, competent but not particularly remarkable whole.

With this episode the Myst series goes out in respectable fashion. There's still nothing on offer for anyone that craves action, exhilaration or an easy ride but frankly that's no great surprise.

Slightly better than its predecessor, Metal Gear Acid 2 also sneaks a higher score, too.

FSX is the finest non-combat flight-sim money can buy assuming you've got the sort of cutting-edge system that can do it justice.

Better than Midway’s "RedCard," and more violent than the average ice hockey game, Sega Soccer Slam is pure arcade fun, albeit not very long-lived.

This button mashing hackandslash lark needs an injection of new ideas - RPG pretensions don't hide the core fact that Otogi feels a pretty vacuous beast: gorgeous or not.

Plague Inc. reminds you in its own little way just how fragile yet tenacious humans are. Be a real shame if anything were to happen to them.

A greatly expanded and improved action game let down by a dreadful story.

Sega's spin-off has a few ideas of its own as it takes a detective's perspective on Kamurocho, though it all ends up feeling a little flat.

With Forza Motorsport 5, Turn 10's created a driving experience both accessible and beautiful - but it's been stripped back to make Xbox One's launch, and augmented with a host of ugly extras that only serve Microsoft's bid to make a few dollars more.

Those with an addiction to high scores will love the many hours they spend smashing themselves repeatedly against the levels' pitiless design. And those who aren't up for the challenge? Dustforce will just take them to the cleaners.

Absolution is a slick, responsive and mechanically confident game - and on occasions it's one of the most satisfying stealth games in a year that already includes Dishonored - but a range of compromises to Hitman tradition mean it's still going to rub some people up the wrong way.

A fun, solid RTS. But that's all. It fatally lacks a sense of creative vision other than just being a bit better than "Rise of Nations," with its step-forwards more half-steps.

I would say that EA has landed a knockout blow to the competition, but that would probably result in actual violence against my person, so I won't. Anyway, it's good. You should get it.

Food and family converge in this beautiful slice-of-life tale.

Whether you play this via DLC or as part of the forthcoming Gold Edition of Resident Evil 5, it's an essential episode.

What remains is a relentlessly enjoyable action-RPG, which offers a unique insight into Japanese culture despite its exaggerations. The Western version of Yakuza 3 might have suffered a few heartbreaking cuts, but it's still intriguing at every turn and shouldn't be missed.

Rare said that the game was basically completed on past systems anyway, then touched up, and that's incredibly obvious.

The old-style defending, rushing players by holding X and square, now feels rather simplistic, and close control is a bit unresponsive next to what we're now used to.

An exquisitely thought-out tactical shooter that's instantly a PSVR great. [Recommended]

As a lovingly crafted evolution to one of oldest and most respected fighting series in gaming, KOF 13 is - hands down - Playmore's greatest accomplishment in years.

When I reached the end of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, I didn't feel like I'd had a rewarding experience. I was relieved it was over. With some side-meandering, it took around 30 hours, and I didn't enjoy a lot of them. I'll admit crunching a Souls-like in less than four days is an unnatural and gruelling experience: I imagine if I'd played Fallen Order over several months, I would have been less frustrated, but probably still bored. It's such a shame, as Fallen Order has an incredible gameplay experience at its core, with fantastic environments and well-directed action sequences. Yet it's unable to sustain this thanks to some fundamental design problems.

A lovely-looking, unique and tightly designed rhythm-action game built of equal parts FreQuency and Rock Band. The track selection's good, it's far from a lazy port, and its similarity to Harmonix games past makes playing it an unexpectedly nostalgic pleasure.

It's totally no fun. It's interesting, but there isn't a fun bone in its mopey body. But I've paid to go into modern art galleries. I've paid for really oddball, minimalist art films. I've gone to gigs where music is divorced from any physical reaction and raised to some cerebral, abstract place - and plenty of gigs where most sane human beings would consider there was nothing actually musical going on. I haven't, but could pay for experimental theatre tickets. Lots of poetry. Whatever.

The unlikeliest of developers has created a game that manages to encapsulate huge chunks of the series' traditions, even as it pushes it onwards in a slick new direction. Metroid has spliced its genes once again, and the results are typically fascinating.

Adorable, not only for kids as the presentation may immediately suggest, and very silly, it's another big success for PopCap. If only it would get properly challenging it would be a giant classic. As it is, it's a thing of loveliness you should buy this instant.

A clever, huge and charming strategy game. While the puritanical focus on retro minimalism means it might not be as rich in visual variety as its contemporaries, the breadth of the strategy coolly grants it safe harbour from the grey reaper of rinse'n'repeat boredom.

For all its effortless charm, the game ultimately offers a window into an immersive world, fires up the imagination and then tells its young players to simply mimic the actions of others. That's enough to amuse kids, but it won't inspire them for long.

Like a playable poster for an iconic rally event, funselektor's top-down racer is a blast. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is not a platform game. The game it has become instead demands thoughtful, exciting challenges that inspire the player to pitch in and help get the most out of each level, but it fails to provide them, and even though it's worth persevering with for the occasional hurdles race, egg-and-spoon and a game-world in aptly Rare form, ultimately it's a brilliant shell with a mostly hollow centre.

Ultimately, there's no single aspect of the game that really demands your interest.

Although it gets a lot right with a well-structured fighting system – which has a solid mix of subsystems to master – it doesn't have the same level of hardcore appeal as the current champion.

Light on action but humorous and made with love, Knights and Bikes holds something for adults and kids alike. [Eurogamer Recommended]

An enjoyable and detailed racer successfully invokes the spirit of the 90s arcade, even if it doesn't quite have a spark of its own.

The most impressive feature of NHL 07 is the Skill Stick control, but it's not enough to save a game that is light on content and slack in other areas.

The biggest flaw Temple Run 2 betrays is its conservatism. The amount of work that has gone into the game is evident, and it's hard to fault an accessible, thrilling game that offers itself to you for free - but it's so similar to its predecessor that it ultimately feels a bit unnecessary.

Ubisoft have given us a gripping, gorgeous, WW2 submarine sim, it's just a bit of a shame its fundamentally so similar to the last gripping, gorgeous, WW2 submarine sim they gave us. Finger-crossed Silent Hunter 5: Meerkats of the Med will be braver.

The best game currently on the 3DS and the best portable fighting game ever made. It's no less than the pocket fighter of choice.

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition feels like it had the potential to be a pared-down shooter classic, but never quite manages to make the core combat exciting, varied or challenging enough to elevate it to the lofty realms that early showings suggested it would reach. Nevertheless, with a glorious setting, some memorable boss encounters and some staggering visuals to enjoy, Lost Planet has enough going for it.

For Battlefield fans, this is an essential expansion.

A subtly tweaked and well fleshed out return to the dirty streets of Dunwall, and its handful of shortcomings and taste for blood over stealth are never really enough to stop it from being essential.

What you've got here is a deep, distinctive game that should satisfy all but the most slaughter-obsessed strategy gamers, and cause deep vein blood clots the size of turtle eggs in all but the most fidgety and small-bladdered.

A lack of depth doesn't stop Chime from quietly turning its own genre on its head either. Zoë Mode's game shows what can happen when you give up destruction in favour of creation, and exchange tension for a kind of dreamy calm.

The reverse city builder is trickier than it appears, but utterly committed to its environmental vision, taking the genre - and every level - to new places. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Chug through the earth and navigate ingenious levels in this terrific platformer.

If you missed out on one of the finest puzzle games to grace the download scene, then don't make the same mistake twice. Puzzle Dimension demands a place in your heart.

The wonderful narrative, great cast, enjoyable battle system and stunningly beautiful music and artwork are all compelling reasons to explore Chopin's deathbed dream. However, we can't escape the feeling that this isn't so much an eternal sonata, as an unfinished symphony.

Flight simulations are notoriously difficult to get right and Battle of Britain is a valiant effort: experienced pilots looking for a challenge or a history lesson should consider this game - beginners might be better off elsewhere.

A remaster of a remake - or something along those lines - this is an exceptional beat 'em-up experience. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A beautiful turn-based RPG whose brutality can sometimes get the better of it.

Shinji Mikami has yet to make a poor game, and The Evil Within does not blemish his record. But neither does the game enchant and disrupt in the way that Vanquish and the others managed. This is Mikami revisiting his past glories and, as such, it's both a delight and a disappointment.

The FMV thriller is fully exhumed in this splicing of game and cinema, where high production values fail to obscure the creative fissures.

You'll enjoy the gunplay, you'll probably be numbed by the slo-mo gunplay repetition, and then see it through anyway because it's all quite undemanding fun with a decent story. On horseback. Just don't expect Gun to change the world. It really is just "True Crime in the Wild West."

Could it have been even better, had they waited and used more space to include absolutely everything? Undoubtedly, but a big chunk of Soulcalibur for 800 Microsoft Points is still one hell of a treat.

I feel for Immortals a bit. Blame Covid, blame budgets, blame Ubisoft, blame the paradoxically thrifty, endlessly repurposing way the publisher makes all its huge, expansive, generous games, but Immortals never really finds its own voice until the very end. It's a skilful, lovingly made product, but it is unmistakably a product, and the best games in this genre all feel like genuine adventures.

By turns minimalist and luxurious, this is a thrilling exploration of the art of photography.

It's simply a phenomenally assured game, a pleasure to explore, and bursting with barely contained enthusiasm for its comic-book universe.

This is a game designer's game, one that cherry-picks ideas from gaming's contemporary landscape and melds them together into something at once fresh and familiar.

Certainly one of the more passable products of the recent retro-gaming fad, but packaged up in the guise of a modern RPG - without the decency of the NES Classics range in terms of admitting to its own clapped-out state - it's going to be a major disappointment to most who pick it up.

And, of course, there's the music. Which, as we've already is discussed, is awesome. The fight to have this music piped through every PA, loudspeaker and radio station in Britain begins now. Viva la revolution.

The game offers variety, excitement, thought and pace all in tiny bundle you can wolf down in a sandwich break. In fact, that's what this actually reminds me of - the gaming equivalent of a snackette.

Difficulty is introduced by sheer numbers and, for players who aren't grabbed by the core mechanics, the game will soon become tiresome. But the combination of sumptuous 2D art style, interesting structure, enjoyable storyline and ever more unmanageable fights to tackle, for those who are, GrimGrimoire will be one of the most interesting games to come out of Japan in some time.

The hardcore will lap it up, but anyone who still remembers what it's like to grin like an idiot while blasting hundreds of enemies will more than get their money's worth as well.

Quarrel is still the horribly compelling single-player game it's always been on mobiles, with an extra dollop of polish and a few new tantalising game modes for the console release - and all for the laughable sum of 400 Microsoft Points.

Despite a rather forgettable supporting cast, Telltale makes up for it with consistently excellent puzzle design, and occasional flourishes of comedy genius.

Gentle and generous, Good-Feel delivers its best game yet in this imaginative and breezy platformer. [Eurogamer Recommended]

It's intelligently designed, skilful and quick to play, and intentionally egalitarian.

It mixes it with the big boys in the early bouts, but it's never going to go the distance. We'd hold out for "Soul Calibur II."

If there's a problem with the whole set-up, it's that the mysterious business of creating truly punchy feedback has eluded the developers. The feel of a rebound's not bad by any means, but the sense of genuine connection that could have rendered this an instant classic is missing, and the game can occasionally feel a little sleepy as a result.

I Am Your Beast is a sensationally rapid-fire action game in every sense, but there's also a surprisingly well-realised thread of narrative running through.

One of the best expansions for The Sims, but as the latest in a series of six it's about as exciting as news of another "Friday the 13th" sequel.

It's a slight game, but a fiercely memorable one, and like all the best puzzlers, it flicks its players back and forth between two simple states: moments of rage when a level seems impossible, and that sudden rush of adrenaline when you finally beat it.

Rewarding and frustrating in equal measure, but rarely boring, it's a memorable dose of mass slaughter.

At a lower price point, this underachieving might be tolerable, but for 1000 Nintendo Points we'd hope for something that had more than a good idea and abundant promise to its name.

Limbic's stylish shift in approach makes a substantial difference, and any indifference is swiftly swept away as you attempt to cut a swathe through the undead hordes from the air.

Indeed, where each title on the disc has its own relative strengths and weaknesses, every one of them is perfectly playable and enjoyable even alongside more recent releases.

An ornate and clever if slightly under-cooked System Shock successor, which makes the most of a truly magnificent space station setting. [Recommended]

Not quite a stone-cold classic, but close enough to make the low asking price a no-brainer.

Just don't expect a welcome return after frolicking with today's less punishing fighters, because this KOF is far from forgiving.

Sure, the slightly inexact nature of the controls make it somewhat hard to be as effective as you might be, but The Hero is still well worth checking out.

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.

Despite a dozen little annoyances, despite that sluggish pace and some dated visuals, Case Zero remains a lazy pleasure to plod through as you divide your time between story missions and a therapeutic culling of the masses.

Although we're very impressed with the superb quality of the things which the game does well, the multitude of things it doesn't even attempt do smack of a missed opportunity.

It's mean-spirited, dizzyingly deep, and snarkily nostalgic all at once - and those are just the skills and attributes I look for in a roguelike.

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.

New Pokémon Snap captures the strange joy of the original game without being derivative. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Active 2 on Wii is a confident addition to the best fitness series on any platform, and the new features strengthen the offering - if not revolutionising it as EA would have us believe.

The problem, ultimately, is a philosophical one. I'm not sure if Lucid really gets the mentality behind this series, and that makes for a perfectly serviceable shooter when the lineage requires something more.

Waiting six months for what amounts to some minor tech tweaks and four additional mini-games certainly hasn't changed my mind.

Before you know it, you're navigating the winding maze-like 3D structures with aplomb, unpicking their devious secrets.

When the curtain falls DeathSpank feels like something of a disappointment, but there's undoubtedly a market for the end product. If you like your loot-'em-ups, and you're looking for something humorous and a bit different, this is clearly the game for you. Just don't expect it to sparkle in the way which many, myself included, hoped that it would.

Held together by Sellotape rather than superglue, LittleBigPlanet 3 is in constant danger of falling apart.

While Future Soldier risks losing itself in the crowd of similar widescreen War on Terror blockbusters, it at least borrows its elements wisely, serves them up with style and polish, and retains enough of its strategic core to make it an easy recommendation for those hungry for another tour of duty.

What we have is solid, and refinements could propel it back to glory, but really it's high time we started over from scratch...It's hard not to think that the series has taken a noticeable step backwards at a time when EA's busy taking giant steps with "FIFA."

The Unfinished Swan is gentle and beguiling, but also thematically patchy and insecure in its own merits, choosing to constantly introduce less interesting new gameplay systems rather than fully explore any single motif.

Dissidia certainly isn't without its faults. The rate of descent once airborne is too slow, and the combat fundamentals occasionally feel jerky compared to more traditional and refined fighters. But these minor criticisms aside, it's a very accomplished fighter that's worth your time - whether you're a fighter nut or Final Fantasy fan.

Pokémon's Switch debut deftly toes the line between returning fans and all-new ones, with a few small wobbles along the way. [Eurogamer Recommended]