One of those games which stands inches away from greatness.

It's crazy how much effort has gone into the foundations of this tiny piece of Technicolor idiocy.

A powerfully grim, fleet-footed cyberpunk action odyssey that is caught in the spell of its own nihilism.

Choose to ignore these (and other) oversights, persevere with the drudgery of the maintenance aspect (the bit where, in a more conventional RPG/god game, you'd actually get to do stuff, like solve puzzles or kill things), and there's a lengthy itinerary of tasks to discover and perform - something that still appeals to my completist urges.

Call of Duty devotees will certainly get their play value out of this lucky-dip selection, but it's still slightly disappointing that there's not a more consistent vision for Black Ops 2's long-term future on display. Revolution? Not quite.

A stylish but slow-paced mystery anthology that's just a little too sluggish for its own good.

Sniper Elite: Resistance may not innovate much on the series' standard blueprint, but it's still a challenging, rewarding, and deeply satisfying adventure.

A small, perfectly formed adventure. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Night School Studios follows on its excellent work in Oxenfree with this touching look at the absurdity of life and video games. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Ultimately as pointless as it is lovable.

Weather its bugs and lacklustre stealth, and Ghost of a Tale is a quietly ravishing potted epic with a serious subtext. [Recommended]

Sakura Wars: So Long My Love might be one of the most unlikely western releases of recent years, but the very fact that an English language version of such a niche title exists at all is cause for some cheer.

That Quake 4 is merely a glossy, standard, by-the-numbers trudge through past glories is an irresponsible way to treat such a revered franchise; to then cock up the conversion to the 360 subsequently and then charge extra for the privilege is bordering on scandalous.

Given its high price tag and scant innovation Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced is unlikely to win over any new converts by playing it so safe and so young.

Weighing in at a hefty 20-25 hours in length, Dead Head Fred outstays its welcome and never really elevates above being a fun yet ultimately frustrating platform-cum-action adventure game.

You'll love pretty much every minute, and then you'll move on, and the 'downloadable game' suspicion will suddenly make sense: Dirt Showdown's wonderful, but it's probably also a flash in the pan. As long as you know that going in, then you shouldn't be disappointed.

Kung Fu Panda won't be winning any awards, and it won't be gracing any end-of-year lists, but that's not to say it doesn't deserve carefully measured praise.

Slight repetition can't diminish the incredible atmoshpere of Farm 51's post-apocalyptic survival game. [Eurogamer Recommended]

As simple and fun as Fruit Ninja evidently is, it feels like a Wario Ware game isolated for a single release.

We wish it spent a little more time on puzzles, and little less on weak platforming - but we can't help but love it when a plan comes together.

In many respects, then, Thieves in Time is a fitting successor to the PS2 titles: Sly Cooper games were always solid genre pieces first and foremost, where likable characters and decent mechanics masked a journeyman feel to some of the content, and the same is true here. Unfortunately, the rest of the world has moved on considerably in the intervening years, and so what starts off as a welcome regression quickly loses its verve.

A simple videogame built from a slew of diverse but relentlessly derivative building blocks.

A near masterpiece, managing to not only stay utterly faithful to the subject matter, but in many respects creating a benchmark mech shoot 'em up that practically bends the PS2 out of shape for technical merit.

It's turned my head, even if it's not quite the 'trip' that it might have been.

For those who persist with The Dishwasher, however, there's a deep and interesting set of mechanics here, which ought to appeal to fans of Viewtiful Joe, God Hand and perhaps even those a little disappointed by MadWorld.

It might be cheap, and it might have more content than Liberty City Stories, and it has gaming audio to die for, but, on balance, Rockstar has milked the flaccid teat of its cash cow to the limit.

The game itself is fast and accessible, tailored toward the younger gamer, but with enough depth and interest to appeal to experienced gamers too.

If you can stand a bit of trial-and-error though, and feel like taking your brain on a bracing walk once in a while, echoshift is a very well presented, well thought out and enjoyable piece of mental exercise.

By the time you're getting each and every character in the game to hail the glorious Sammun Mak for the 30th time of asking, you just want it to end. After such a fantastic introduction, we really didn't see this one coming. Did someone steal Telltale's brain?

But while dumbing down the RPG premise for the casual console gamer might work for some people, it ultimately fell down for us by making the main action portion of the game really quite tiresome.

Quite possibly, the best game I've played this year. While it's not for everyone, those who are willing to look past what they could consider childish graphics, and an obsession with housework that's nearly as strong as your mum's, will find a title with as much heart as there is fun wrapped up into a four-inch-tall bundle.

For the most part, you're left plodding and prodding around a series of mildly engaging scenarios, wishing that a spark of wry creative genius could just kick it up a notch.

A fascinating new narrative adventure from the original Life is Strange team, this first slice boasts fresh twists that help move the formula forward, even if its story sometimes feels a remix of genre tropes.

There's a lot that Still Life does well, but in the same way adventure games were doing things well ten years ago. There is therefore no excuse for it to not manage other basic, fundamental elements when rehashing these decade-old ideas.

Once the combat stops being a one-button-win it builds into a genuinely captivating series of varied events and manages to present the futile bloodlust in an unsympathetic light, yet making the process of limb removal, beheading or carving someone's torso straight down the middle a thrilling experience.

As fan service it crowd surfs into the living room with ample generosity and verve. But, irrespective of one's tastes, next to the breathtaking attention to detail of The Beatles project, as a celebration of a group's creative output the package feels a little insubstantial.

Music and movement combine in a game that mints joy from wonderful organic weirdness. [Recommended]

A relatively solid but entirely uninspired expansion - one for the dedicated fans only, albeit one with a very clever new control system. It's by comparison with the PC expansion that this game starts to look seriously bad.

It takes all that was good about the original, improves every element, successfully adds new features and delivers a well-rounded game that will demand more from you than perhaps any other title you'll play this year.

There' a reason the minds at Respawn changed the world once with Call Of Duty's multiplayer. Titfanfall may not have made that same sort of impact, but for those on the inside, those who spend their evenings stomping around in giant robots, there is simply no online shooter that can touch it.

Boltgun's boltgun earns a place in the pantheon of great video game weapons, but the rest of the game's arsenal doesn't quite live up to it.

And yet I sort of loved it. Does it move the No More Heroes formula in any meaningful way? Not really, and the trims and tucks and small additions don't exactly add up to ten years' progress. Does it spark and pop - and more than occasionally misfire - with all the vim and swagger of those original games? That it does, and fulsomely. This is a return to more full-blooded, frantic and outrageously over-the-top action, a game that's obnoxious, inventive and wildly inconsistent - chalk this one up as one of Suda's better works, though, and arguably the best of the No More Heroes series to date. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Super Princess Peach is not a truly remarkable title on the scale of Mario & Luigi, not only as it's not very funny, but its innovations in interface and design actually make it slightly less fun than it might be if you played it 'straight'.

An action-packed, if anticlimactic, close to Clementine's journey.

The translators and proofreaders have done an excellent job conveying both meaning and emotion through text. The music is cute, and the art is simple and beautiful. This game is so worth its eShop price.

There is undoubtedly improvement here over the unremarkable Thrones of Britannia. Troy may not be as impassioned and hot-blooded as the characters it represents, but its distinctive factions, thematic systems and nuanced interpretation of myth nonetheless succeed in firing the imagination. [Eurogamer Recommended]

The cheap bordered 50Hz conversion is a touch disappointing but when the rest of the game is so damn great and taking into account the fact that you'll get change out of fifteen notes for this little beauty, it seems harsh to keelhaul XI over cut corners like this.

The fact that Surfacer + is also out for iPhone for pennies makes the DSiWare price even more laughable.

One day, Gaijin Games might make it possible for mortals to play its games, but until then Fate is one you're probably best off spectating rather than getting smashed up by.

A neat little curio that channels a cult piece of hardware, and some of the fighting greats.

A smart sci-fi that isn't without problems, though they're balanced out by an incredible amount of style. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Assault Heroes 2 is therefore basically more of the same, with some decent new bits but precious few fresh ideas.

The two multiplayer modes - a straight race between eight players online, and Rubber Ducky, in which two teams try to nose their rubber duck past a threshold before their opponents - provide a good balance of competition and playfulness.

In short, if you're a big fan of trading card games Eye of Judgment is worth the money. If you're not but you're planning to get a PlayStation Eye anyway, you might as well get a great game into the bargain.

As far as reasonable-budget party-based RPGs go, it's detailed enough to fill the months until we see whether Dragon Age is going to live up to BioWare's legacy.

There's ambition here that you wouldn't expect from a series on its eighth iteration. While stretching those boundaries has meant that the game loses some of its structural shape, the moment-by-moment experience is as enchanting and engaging as any previous entry.

The setting lends itself perfectly to the premise, yet ultimately the overly forgiving combat system makes the game too damned easy.

With the full complement of players, NBA Jam is great fun in short bursts, but it's impossible not to feel that EA has swamped a simple game with extraneous modes desperately to try and justify a retail release.

Setting my disappointment over its distance from the original Prince of Persia design aside, The Sands of Time on the Game Boy Advance is a rather accomplished and quite extensive platform-puzzler, with some fabulous level design and genuinely considered presentation.

While it doesn't dazzle, this game does offer something for everyone. For salty MOBA fans, here's the genre you love in a new, bantamweight shape. For anyone new to the genre, here's an easy chance to see what the fuss is about.

A survival strategy game that might be too uncompromising.

A squirming body horror labyrinth whose mix of ability-gating and backtracking slightly cramps its matchless creature design. [Eurogamer Recommended]

In short, this is the game SEGA should have made 15 years ago. It's just a shame that to be this good took ages.

A sublime blend of Metroidvania and Lovecraft with beautiful hand-drawn art, tarnished a little by the element of repetition. [Recommended]

Another triumph of fast-paced puzzle gameplay from Q - and is a solid enough update of the freeware original to make it interesting even to those who played the PC version to death.

Beautiful difficulty options open out a game of beautiful difficulty. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Puzzle games often sound complicated when you try to explain them to people in text, but Spin Six quickly becomes one of the ones that gets under your skin.

During hectic moments, the friction of the screen tends to work against you, while the tilt controls are simply too sensitive to be usable.

It's hardly lacking in content either, despite the impulse price, with 60 levels as well as Wi-Fi multiplayer, a track editor for the creatively minded and a soothing massage thrown in free of charge when you're done.

Since I finished Caravan SandWitch a few days back, more than anything I've been eager to go back to it. This gently playful world may actually be at its best when you're doing not much of anything. Take the van for a coast over the dunes. Pick through a robot graveyard that always looked interesting. Open out the last areas of the map that you've already cleared by unjamming radar signals and already picked free of most in-game doodads. There's a sense of adventure here that runs so deep it must emerge from the land itself.

Maybe if the developers had taken a risk and gone for more polish in the combo system and great level design instead of loads of game modes this could have been something really interesting.

But the swell of Alan Silvestri's score with the firing up of time circuits and the rev of the DeLorean's engine caught me unawares and genuinely made me feel like I was seven again: seven and filled with dreams that I too could listen to Huey Lewis and the News tapes on my Walkman and tit around on a skateboard. An authentic tribute.

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.

The portability, extra modes and various refinements of the DS version make for a much more satisfying game than the Flash effort we're continually referencing, but the DS is already home to a good few equally satisfying puzzlers (including "Mr. Driller" and "Polarium") and we'd seriously suggest looking to them before haggling for a copy of Zoo Keeper.

It's difficult to overly criticise Calling All Cars! because it's cheap, looks and feels good (native 1080p at mostly 60fps does make a difference) and in multiplayer mode you definitely get a decent return from the impulse purchase price tag. It's just hard to avoid the sensation that some select gameplay tweaks, a couple of extra maps and a wider range of weapons could've made Calling All Cars! a minor classic as opposed to a promising but ultimately disposable game best sampled in small doses.

It's hard not to find at least some love for a game which thinks (for example) it's a good idea to put a crocodile in a Croatian jersey, hide it in a level and provide a CROcodile secret bonus.

This is still an explosive, exhilarating and sometimes rather exhausting game in which the heroes have sharp hands and bottomless appetites for innocent bystanders and the villains expire in floods of gore and take whole city blocks with them as they go. By this point, Prototype doesn't feel like a sandbox series in its own right so much as the mad, babbling id of the entire open-world genre - with all the inconsistencies and extravagances that implies.

While the game is not perfect (the saucer is still too slow), Pandemic has made a game that's a lot more fun than the original. Crypto's return to plague sixties Earth is filled with amusing NPCs, psychic powers, anal probing, adult humour, and the chance to play on the other side for once.

Though it does have a distressingly small number of modes, the core adventure mode can be as fun in quick bursts as "Zoo Keeper" or "Meteos," and the multiplayer features are fantastic, even if they'll sadly rarely be used.

The overriding feeling is that Head On belongs on more powerful consoles. Without the added bells and whistles, its core racing mechanics and their shortcomings are bare, obvious, and will struggle in a genre that is stacked to the rafters on PSP.

It certainly does little to advance the theory that videogames are responsible enough to tell stories within sensitive contexts - it's compelling and enjoyable to play on a visceral level, but it's a shame it lacks the creative bravery to match the courage of the heroes it so reveres.

Patapon 3 is, in many ways, a typical third instalment: bigger, prettier, more difficult, and much more complicated. But that often works against it rather than in its favour, diluting that brilliant and unique rhythm-action strategy gameplay.

One of the better examples of a DS companion to an established game series - not much threat to Mario Kart in pure playability stakes, but home to surprising depth and fun all the same, providing you can look past the fact it's designed for people to play when they're not the one talking on Jeremy Kyle.

A refreshing return to the past, and for that reason it's slightly too generic to recommend strongly. It's only ever just pretty enough, and there's seldom anything really breathtaking.

We'd happily slap a glowing score on the online bit, but the single-player offering is burdened by so many problems that you'd be generous to claim it's slightly above average.

Game Republic's effort lacks polish and elegance, but, thanks to charm and the in-built strength of its setup, it is an experience worth partnering with.

This is a game about hitting people. It's pretty damn good.

Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is a successful homage to the venerable series, which tells an enticing story despite its repetitive nature.

Its best ideas may be borrowed, and it tends to repeat itself fairly regularly, but Beenox's latest is still a generous and witty button-basher.

With multiple endings and 20 potential allies to recruit across the adventure, as well as a tough bonus dungeon once it’s complete, there’s the promise of longevity here. But few will venture back to this curio once the end credits have rolled.

The fine-tuned excellence of Army of Two's co-op gunplay will easily sustain you through one run through this gutsy, broadly enjoyable game. But the desire to revisit it is weak, and for game that's designed with social online play in mind that's a big problem. Any level of the current co-op king, "Halo 3," has more spectacle and incident packed into it than the entirety of Army of Two.

While I can understand the financial reasoning behind milking the Capcom back catalogue for two volumes, as a fan I'd much rather have had one all killer, no filler compilation with Street Fighter II, Ghost 'n Goblins, Commando, 1941 and Strider all in one place.

A flawed masterpiece. A game brimming with variety and a freshness lacking from most of the factory farmed franchise exercises that pass through our offices with crushing regularity.

A slight but smart adventure it's hard not to be charmed by. [Recommended]

Lurking behind a dated exterior is a limited but sophisticated RPG with a unique setting and some memorable new ideas.

Ubisoft's late-stage toys-to-life entry is pretty, derivative and slightly lacking in charm.

If you're not thoroughly sick of the sight of Tower Defence games, then Guns 'n' Glory will come as a pleasant surprise, and its presence on the Android, in particular, is very welcome indeed.

As brilliantly creepy and original as Papa Sangre undoubtedly was, it left you wondering where Somethin' Else could go next. The answer? Into space.