With obvious debts to such indie hits as Braid, Limbo and The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom, The Bridge ultimately feels like a truncated compilation of iconic motifs rather than a fully-fledged experience in its own right.

Cold Winter felt at times like a dark TimeSplitters, almost GoldenEye-esque in feel and certainly deserves much credit for delivering an accomplished alternative that hits the mark enough to warrant a recommendation to those that hunger for a decent PS2 shooter.

In some ways, Directive 8020 feels like a game of missed opportunities, and a bunch of almost-theres. But sometimes Supermassive's ambition pays off. It's a touch too long, it's a little too one-note, and I wish it could have pushed a little harder to find its own identity as it charted so much well-trodden ground. But its existential chills are effective, it's got an earnest spirit, and a phenomenal cast that genuinely made me care. If Supermassive keeps pushing its horror series, I suspect great things are in store.

It might be cheap and considerately tooled for both the iPad or iPhone, but it's no Piyo Blocks. But hey, it has birds, and we all know that's all that matters.

Fantasy Life fails to capture either the lazy, pleasing routine of village life seen in Animal Crossing or the sense of urgency from the strongest Japanese RPGs. In its eagerness to offer variety, Fantasy Life somewhere lost its focus.

It carries the sensibilities of its inspirations, and it feels and looks just as it should. There's some irritation there, but like the best folk tales, Never Alone is all about sharing the game with someone else.

If you like the sound of Second Sight, make sure you play it on a console. It is possible, we suppose, that you might get on with the PC version, but in truth we just can't see it.

Combat is the brightest highlight, though it's still dulled by clumsy controls. Beyond that, the environments are so monotonous as to kill any passion for the thing.

Taken on it own, Scribblenauts Unlimited is dull, simplistic, and devoid of challenge. What begins as an unbridled experiment in omnipotence swiftly devolves into a lackadaisical chore. It's still rife with warmth, humour and creativity, and the Wii U's TV support transforms the solitary snickering of previous Scribblenauts into a party game that's especially well suited to the young or inebriated.

Cloudpunk offers a beautiful city to explore, but unfortunately there's not much to discover there once you delve deeper.

You might not readily associate the humble rat with an ability to get their groove on, but needs must when you're being held captive in a lab and you've got electrodes attached to your genitals.

An effortlessly engaging, if rather slender, dose of wanton destruction that should satisfy the appetites of both retro fans and mainstream gamers without alienating either group.

With some of the most basic visuals seen since the days of the ZX81 and mind-numbingly uninspired audio it's not going to woo gamers looking for the quick thrill that other eye-candy laden DS titles will.

The constant changes in scenery and obstacles also help to lift the tedium of endlessly chasing sheep around brighly coloured mazes, and while the game is best handled in small doses it is addictive enough to keep you coming back for more.

Experienced platform fans will recognise its tricks before they even hit, and they may feel mildly short-changed for it, even if I have a strong suspicion they'll be as happy playing it as I have been.

It’s just a shame that for all the initial graphical beauty, complexity and diversity of The Clone Wars, it really boils down to a simple, flawed, over-stretched game design.

For those expecting massive advancements or a radical departure from the original, this will come as a disappointment. A more honest, realistic assessment would be to treat this as a mission pack, and for those who do just want more of the same, you'll come away a satisfied customer.

An expressive, characterful entry point for metroidvanias.

HAL Laboratory delivers a brilliant chemistry set of a 2D platformer. [Recommended]

X-Men Origins: Wolverine may be unapologetically violent, but it's also unapologetically repetitive, and it's the one apology that needs to be made.

The new elements fail to meet expectations, but the bash-and-grind basics haven't changed at all.

Comment on the solid but surprise-free multiplayer mode recognising that most buyers will never touch it.

It's interesting. By the end of the adventure, Oxenfree 2 has tied up a lot of mysteries. It had for me, anyway, and with a web-like game such as this there's always reason to go back in, make different choices, and see what else is waiting in there to be solved. But there's this other feeling to everything too, just as there was in the first game.

Developer Harebrained Schemes returns with an evocative and pulpy tactical adventure, where enjoyable turn-based combat just about offsets some woeful real-time stealth.

There is going to be an inevitable split between tabletop players absolutely delighted with the best-ever visual recreation of their game of choice (though possibly also apoplectic about some of the liberties taken with Warhammer rules) and general strategy gamers nonplussed as to why they'd possibly want to play this messy, sometimes broken-feeling thing over the hugely superior (but less aesthetically inventive) "Medieval II: Total War."

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.

More than anything, it demands your attention and teaches you about coding in the most natural way possible.

Xenosaga 2, is a big commitment for any gamer. If you want to get the most out of the game you're looking at weeks of concentrated staccato playing/watching/playing/watching as you work your way through the huge narrative arc.

The original Pokémon Diamond and Pearl were strange, uneven games. The remakes file them down to something still enjoyable, but textureless.

The addition of more traditional 'gamey' elements is a complete failure, and Dreamfall lacks the crossover appeal found in something like Fahrenheit, with its self-contained story.

It may well be widely-regarded as being up there with the best Vietnam-based FPSs (and we're thinking Vietcong on PC specifically, which shades this), but stood next to the likes of Call Of Duty its bothersome AI leaves the game hamstrung in one of the most crucial areas.

This is the best execution of Animal Crossing so far, but it is difficult to view it as anything other than a lazy remake of what's gone before.

It’s doesn’t have the adrenaline fuelled action of the original, nor any neat new ideas to make it feel like a progression.

By tying efficient progress to this random system, rather than old-fashioned player skill, Cubello ultimately fumbles the delicate balancing act, which can be the difference between a very good puzzler and a great one, and so it proves.

With the same sort of instant appeal and practically infinite replayability of Tetris, it joins the pantheon of puzzle gods and goes down as another GBA must-buy - so long as the lack of multiplayer doesn't irk you.

That's not to say it's not without its own unique pleasures, but while I'm curious to see what happens next, it so far lacks the edge-of-the-seat impatience that The Walking Dead conjured up at the end of each episode.

As the game clock ticked towards 20 hours and beyond, I could never quite shake the feeling that I'd still rather be failing in Dark Souls than succeeding in Lords of the Fallen.

Still, on the whole Savage Moon is a well-executed and polished example of what tower defence has to offer, and for GBP 6.29 offers a great play-for-pound ratio.

A devastating story unfolds across text messages in this unforgettable piece of interactive fiction. [Eurogamer Recommended]

It's a great game in so many respects, and we're overflowing with admiration that Revolution stuck to its purity of vision about what an adventure game can and should be about in the mid noughties. But when you're sat in front of the monitor filled with rage because of some utterly obscure puzzle, you'll have to question whether consistently busting a player's balls in so many ways is the right approach these days.

If you're interested in a serious relationship with gaming rather than purely out for a good time, please do take a look at Penumbra. It does some truly clever stuff, has an effectively creepy atmosphere and there's a few signposts in it that action and adventure games alike would do well to follow.

The latest Lego game is a typically crammed tribute to Marvel comic lore that buffs the well-worn formula up to a shine.

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.

Ska Studios' sequel to Salt and Sanctuary offers a wonderful suite of combat customisation, but some shallow storytelling holds it back.

Some people have nightmares about taking out their zombie wife with a sniper rifle. Me? I'm spinning through 3D space at high speed fretting about getting shapes to fit through narrow gaps. Horses for courses.

A half-interesting game is buried by a mess of its own making - and represents an industry conundrum that will only continue to grow.

It's a solid, enjoyable shooter, but one that ultimately fails to leverage its strange control decisions into a truly unique experience. It should be different yet, for all its bold ideas about movement, it ends up feeling strangely generic over the long haul.

While this remains a great multiplayer, social game for some people, and it's certainly a good way to work up a sweat, at heart it's still an eight year old game with remarkably little alteration from the original.

It has jaw-dropping graphics, gripping gameplay and if it weren’t for the stodgy AI and lack of damage skins on vehicles, the game would be untouchable.

It delivers the essential basics pretty much perfectly, and it's hard to complain much about that.

Taking a "glass half full" approach, you could say that this rather unwieldy spread of mini-games and challenges offers something for everyone, regardless of your style of play. Alternatively, you could bemoan the way that the game's strongest elements are the ones reduced to a couple of trials, and that these are the best ones with the most replay value.

If you've somehow yet to play an undead-themed action-RPG or you have an appropriately on-brand mindless hunger for the subgenre, Dead Island 2 might be worth your while. It's certainly got the zombie disassembly part down pat. If you are neither of those things, all the sturdy design and flying organs in the world can't hide the shortage of lingering excitement here. Dead Island 2 isn't a bad game, but it does feel superfluous, which is a sad thing to conclude about a project that's been in development for almost a decade. Still, at least they spared us the zombie booby merchandise this time.

I liked playing Banished. It was complex, but never fiddly, difficult, but rarely cruel, though it would benefit from a little more transparency. But as soon as I had a handle on it, as soon as I'd started to see through some of the fog of its complexity, I wanted to grasp for something bigger, something greater. Banished is satisfying, but never spectacular. That's not quite enough for me.

Feels like a hastily put together stop gap before the series goes PS3.

Minute of Islands is a beautiful thing, but the gameplay can't keep up and there's no real narrative to be found.

Emotional cruelty, suicide, haunted euphoniums - there's a surprisingly dark heart beating away inside this cheery little Halloween special. There's a genuine sense of mischief, too, conveyed by the bug-eyed howls of your prey and the looping, lilting tones of the jazz-club soundtrack.

More than any of that, saving the Mudokons from their cruel punishment provides the reason for these games to exist in the first place, and the reason for anyone to spend all this time and effort resurrecting a 1990s game and bringing it blinking into 2021. Slaves travelling in cattle cars, people left to die by the side of the road, toxic big business rolling the environment up and smoking it, the various opiates of the masses and their uses and abuses - the enduring point of Oddworld is that its most horrific elements are not remotely fictional, and that it uses fantasy to refocus our attention on the bizarre horrors of our own world. Back in the day, Oddworld seemed to want more from games, and from its players and it still does. That's worth giving it a little leeway on the rough edges and mis-steps, I reckon.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 is, ultimately, just fine, but it feels like a last-gen game visually and in design. You can see it in every door you have to press a button to open, in every recycled enemy, in every spotlight you wait to pass, in every move-block-to-the-right-pad puzzle. Some of my colleagues said it reminded them of one of those late 2000s superhero MMOs, and I get that. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 launches 10 years after Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, but it feels like it could easily have come out just a year later, when the Xbox 360 and PS3 were still going strong. I suppose this is exactly what some had hoped for from the game, but I was hoping for a bit more.

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.

If Virtua Tennis is Nadal - bright, consistent, unafraid to work up a sweat - and Top Spin has the measured elegance of a Federer, Grand Slam Tennis is every bit the Andy Murray of tennis games: flashes of brilliance, prone to a few too many errors, but shows definite champion potential.

Santa Ragione delivers a subversive, sometimes shocking, often funny first-person narrative horror that, while perhaps a little insubstantial, remains an engagingly unconventional exploration of some timely themes.

If you haven't played the PC, PS2 or Xbox 360 versions, do. They're brilliant. This isn't.

It's sure to find a decent following among the Souls hardcore as there's a lot here that's familiar for them to enjoy, but really these players have two fights on their hands - that against the enemies of The Surge, and that against the feeling The Surge isn't all it could have been. And that bloody, incessant song, of course.

It's very playable, with quite a nice engine and a strong leading lady, but the storyline is a touch frail, the game is severely limited by its lack of multiplayer and the long gaps between save points make certain sections almost too challenging.

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?

The chucklesome cut-scenes and warbling background music briefly raise a smile, but beyond that this is only a mildly entertaining throwaway.

Don't bother with PES 2021 if you can option file PES 2020, but if you're coming in fresh, PES 2021 is a decent shout at a decent price.

For everyone else, it's a tough and not entirely rewarding slog that you may tire of before you see the fruits of your labour. If you're not prepared to wallow in the minutiae of Dragon Ball Z, there are far more competent fighters out there.

It's deeply frustrating. There are some great ideas in here, the presentation is top-notch and the options are plentiful, but none of these good intentions add up to a game of any real depth or longevity.

I'd even go so far as to say that SpellForce 3 is the best Baldur's Gate meets Age of Mythology ever. [Recommended]

If you were looking for a sequel that would shake up the series and bring about a gameplay revolution, you're going to be disappointed, but if you enjoy that classic Far Cry collect-em-up grind and simply want a brand new sandbox to explore and explode, you're going to be far from bored with all that Yara has to offer.

A fun and frenetic reality TV sim, The Crush House delivers thoughtful commentary on virtual voyeurism.

The dojo is amazing. All fighting games from now on need to step up.

For all its big ideas, Disney Epic Mickey never quite weaves its disparate strands into a convincing whole. Its conceptual ambition is let down by merely adequate mechanics, and Mickey himself remains a rather abstract figure at the centre of it all.

But Rugby Challenge is the nucleus of a truly great rugby sim. It's certainly the best rugby game currently available and one can only imagine the heights it could scale if a publisher with enough cash were to throw its weight behind it.

It still feels clumsy, and while it's possible to overcome this in time and reach a decent standard, it robs the game of some of its accessibility - something critical to its multiplayer appeal - and your ultimate proficiency in moving, jumping and firing at the same time is only likely to announce itself long after you've exhausted what depths there are to excavate.

As a fan you will want to experience what The Force Unleashed has to offer. It's just a shame that while there are occasional moments of brilliance when everything falls into place, they're not quite enough to back up the game's delusions of grandeur.

Respectable platforming and classic Sonic elements are undermined by inconsistent new ideas.

Playtonic's tribute to Banjo is a gentle, irreverent platformer let down by spotty handling and a slight shortage of genius.

While its fighting is fun, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot doesn't do enough to carry the subpar side content.

The bottom line is that Guardian of Light is plainly ill-suited to touch-screen controls, so if you like what you see, you're far better off playing it on the platforms it was actually designed for.

If you posses superhuman racing skills, FAST - Racing League is the game for you. The rest of us can mull over what might have been.

As it stands, it hasn't re-ignited much other than a vague feeling that we should pull the PC version out of the cupboard and play it again.

A really great game, but emphatically not one for everybody. Thank goodness for trial versions.

Vietcong and its expansion pack ultimately succeed in providing an approximation of the horrors of jungle warfare. The shit-scared feeling of imminent death is translated as well as anyone has managed to date, although perhaps for many FPS fans this might not equate to a fun gaming experience.

Later in its shelf life, Groove will be an excellent little budget purchase to have in your collection for those amusing drunken party moments, but right now at £29.99 we'd strongly advise potential EyeToy converts to check out Play before they go splashing the cash on "Groove."

The original Pokémon Diamond and Pearl were strange, uneven games. The remakes file them down to something still enjoyable, but textureless.

Played on a big screen with the ability to take a much wider view of the battlefield, it would be much less stifled and tough to grasp, and the individually awkward or squirmy action bits would be more acceptable. But it isn't and they aren't, and getting past the game's flaws is ultimately more trouble than it's worth on a system already packed with action and strategy games that are consistently better than what lies beyond the frustration herein.

Soulstorm is a stopgap game. It really feels like the last breath of the series. And that's a real shame.

For every moment where the game deviates from predictable platform tropes, there are dozens more when it's really nothing more than a very nicely assembled and presented riff on what other games were pioneering. Banjo-Tooie, then. Not one of the all-time greats, but when you take off the rose-tinted glasses the result is still enough to make it a standout on Live Arcade.

It is, in other words, a really beautifully made video game. It knows what it is - the kind of game with launchers, the kind of game where the protagonist has lines like, "Never thought I'd be blowing up my own house!" And it delivers on its simple pleasures with beauty and variety. There's online co-op for two players, which I haven't been able to test, and I gather the consoles may stutter a bit, although I've had no problems on PC. But otherwise Evil West is wonderfully brutal and charming and luminously old fashioned. It's Bulletstorm. It's Painkiller. It's werewolves up the wazoo. And I had a brilliant time. [Eurogamer Recommended]

It's really, really good gaming, assuming you don't let the game push you around like a playful big brother with little a superiority complex. God Hand just wants to have fun. And so do we.

For a game so rich in character and brimming with originality, there's simply not enough strength or depth here to compete with the likes of Disgaea or Makai Kingdom.

It's an adventure for kids, but it's also a museum, a diorama, and a weird kind of historical document - and that's a combination that only video games could have given us.

First Light is an adequate diversion for fans but unlikely to dazzle anybody else.

I love it - the challenge, the atmosphere, the blood.

For drinking fun with people who are in their twenties and know who Parker Posey is, pick Scene It. For family fun with people who are either too young or too old to drive and think Truffaut is a special kind of Ferrero Rocher, pick Buzz! Hollywood.

While it occasionally feels lumbering, and is starting to show its age now – especially when set alongside the flexibility of PES and FIFA on home consoles – the thrill of netting a vital goal is as great as ever because you know you've earned it.