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]

Overall, though? Aliens: Fireteam Elite is exactly what it says on the tin. Stuffed with guns, gadgets, and plentiful alien goo, it's a frenetic cooperative firefight against some of sci-fi's most iconic monsters in an all-new tale that takes us beyond the original trilogy. No, it's not the most sophisticated shooter, and no, its truncated runtime is unlikely to occupy you for more than a couple of nights, but it's an unashamedly good romp that'll hopefully satisfy your Ripley power fantasies, too.

Psychonauts 2 is, once again, a universe of damaged teachers and teaching environments, a space for thinking through dark thoughts with varying degrees of earnestness and absurdity. Its worlds are works of matchless invention, its characters a joy to exist alongside. I might have missed it first time round, but I'm glad that games like this are still being made. [Recommended]

In truth, I loved Road 96 from the start and I loved it at the end, my ending, which probably isn't yours. I loved it at first for its bounty of possibilities, and by the end I loved it for its intricate web, its sometimes goofy animations and cartoonish characters, its Road Runner depiction of the South West, its occasional procedural muddling, and its unwillingness to really represent the 1990s as anything more than a veneer slapped on present political concerns. Like John, this is a game with a good heart, along with a few missing fingers. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Quotation forthcoming.

Quotation forthcoming.

There's quality within this intriguing time loop, though by the end you're left wondering whether the core idea is a good one after all.

Omno offers a dreamy blend of platforming and puzzling with a feel for player freedom. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Beautiful, rhythmic, inventive and funny, Titan Souls developer Acid Nerve has delivered one of the best Zelda-likes in some time. [Eurogamer Essential]

The Ascent's arcology setting is splendid, if heavily derivative - shame that all you can do here is gun and grind.

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

Come for the virtual tourism and stay for a deliriously satisfying battle system. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Capcom shakes up the formula slightly for this enjoyable historical romp rooted in real-life events. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Some fiddliness with controls and interface can't hold back Asobo's phenomenal creation from shining in its new context. [Eurogamer Essential]

The Apple Arcade classic comes to PC and is as glorious as ever. [Eurogamer Essential]

You can see with Skyward Sword that something has to change. See it in the way it tentatively messes with the formula, but ultimately retains one of the most rigid central paths of any Zelda. In the way it introduces stuff like the stamina gauge, which will make much more sense in the game that follows it. It's clear now that Skyward Sword is straining against its own rules and rituals. That makes it fascinating to play, and it means that this strangest and most compromised of Zeldas is also amongst the most human. [Eurogamer Recommended]

This platformer is perfectly perfunctory in every way.

An entertaining and surprisingly effective new story mode heads up an otherwise modest refresh for Codemasters' official series. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Years pass as tales are written in this dazzling game of tactics and narrative, choices and memories. [Eurogamer Essential]

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

If you're looking for something that improves or builds upon the astonishing work of Moon Studios or Team Cherry, you're unlikely to find it here. That said? Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights is a surprising and compelling adventure that's been crafted with care and oodles of charm. Yes, it requires patience. Yes, it requires a natural curiosity, and a willingness to overlook its occasionally clumsy control scheme. But I spent many a night wandering around Land's End, staying up way later than I'd anticipated, keen to unravel more of the story and expand Lily's impressive skillset. If you enjoy Metroidvanias and have been looking for a new challenge that's not too punishing, I suspect you might, too.

The Dark Alliance revival lacks finesse, and local co-op, but give it time and it's not without its own charms.

Running between shots can be chaotic fun, but Mario Golf truly lives in its ever-soothing standard mode. [Eurogamer Recommended]

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

Some standard Nintendo limitations get in the way, but this is still an invaluable education in some of the fundamentals of game creation. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Backbone's sumptuous pixel art and promising narrative threads are undermined by flat gameplay and a non sequitur of a final act.

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

With Guilty Gear Strive, Arc System Works has made its famously complex fighting game series easier to get into, but no less rewarding.

This is it though, the character and the absurdity and the charm that Insomniac is all about, that the team kick-started with Ratchet and Clank in 2002 and continue to master with such faultless confidence in Rift Apart. It's just pure craft, pure fun, pure video games - all the brilliant, bizarre ideas this studio has just thrown at the wall and all of them sticking. The only thing it lacks - apart from maybe a tiny bit of restraint - is pretence. There's no self-seriousness, no po-faced melodrama, no insecurity about the form. A game that's happy to be a game, in a familiar, cuddly shape. [Eurogamer Recommended]

This gorgeous microcosmic mech game just about survives its more frustrating moments. [Eurogamer Recommended]

This gorgeous microcosmic mech game just about survives its more frustrating moments. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Velan Studios transposes the sport of dodgeball into what's a fun, friendly shooter that bears no arms, though it currently lacks legs.

One of the best fighting games of all-time gets a welcome new run out, even if it's not quite as complete as it could have been. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Thanks to its adorable characters and a story that makes no excuses for how absurd it is, World's End Club is a lot of fun. [Eurogamer Recommended]

This is good nostalgic fun, in other words: a platformer where you can collect coins and buy better loot and work out the various nooks of the hub world before jetting off on a series of pretty adventures that all build pleasantly to a final boss. Asha is a decent platformer, handled with love and attention to the details, and it's a part of one of console gaming's most interesting lineages. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A 2D run and gunner that's as in your face as an 80s Troma classic, Huntdown matches its excess with brilliant detail. [Eurogamer Recommended]

For all the weirdness and fun it promises, Biomutant ends up a deeply conventional open-world action game.

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

Sumo Newcastle's debut is an engrossing but substanceless heist game - and an interestingly grim take on Robin Hood.

Wrath of the Druids is a meaty expansion which succeeds in taking Valhalla to new shores, even if the path sometimes feels familiar.

Quotation unavailable.

Sackable offences? Of course not. And for all these flaws, Resident Evil Village was a thrilling adventure that kept me hooked from beginning to end, despite its jarring twists and turns. But the delightful level design isn't enough to mitigate a strange, unsatisfying, plothole-ridden story, and that bizarre final act ultimately sullies what is an otherwise terrifyingly good horror romp.

Enjoyably traditional, if a little tatty in places, this is a shooting game that still stands apart from all others.

Returnal gets halfway to doing it. It is full of real, bona fide video game magic, but with each death it becomes less special, more mundane, and this is why it feels so difficult to pick up the controller again, why Returnal feels like it doesn't want to be played. But the magic it does have is transcendent. And so I do still want to play it - whether Returnal likes it or not. [Eurogamer Recommended]

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

This isn't just my assertion, Nier: Automata was a clear effort to implement feedback from the first game and enhance Nier's strengths and eradicate its weaknesses, according to its developers. I consider Nier: Automata to be essential, as such I think if you're a mildly curious Automata fan, you'll come away from Nier disappointed. You have played the better Nier game already. This reiusse is meant for lore nerds, for hardcore fans, for completionists, oldschool Nier evangelists, basically everyone who's already decided to buy the game before reading this.

You could label Tasomachi a "wholesome" game - a label I'm wary of myself. If it's wholesome, I would argue this has less to do with its baby-faced character models or delicate furnishings, and more, again, with its sense of its own unimportance. It understands that there are bigger things in life than games, however consoling games can be. It doesn't want to be more than an interlude. It's a sumptuous realm, evoking memories of various continent-straddling adventures, but one devoid of grandiosity and happy for you to spend as much time within it as you need. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Trials of Fire is a complex but seductive deck-building strategy game about sculpting the perfect RPG team.

While it's unlikely to make fans of those of you who've sampled the shooters that came before it and left unsatisfied, as a die-hard Guardian and card-carrying fangirl of the genre, Outriders tickles me in all the right places. Offering gunplay that feels solid and satisfying and an array of additional powers and abilities to keep combat fresh and exciting, I can only admit that Outriders has surprised me in all the right ways. Maybe it'll surprise you, too.

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.

And yet for all that, I kind of adore Balan Wonderworld, to a degree that's surprised me. Maybe it's just come along at the right time, when I needed a colourful comfort blanket of a thing, a nostalgia strip as strange and insubstantial as watching a YouTube compilation of 90s TV adverts. Maybe it's because my expectations were low - Sonic Adventure has always been the game where the scales fell away from my eyes when it comes to Sega's mascot, and to Sonic Team, and I can't say I've ever enjoyed too much of the series since...Or maybe it's just because this is how games used to be, and sometimes it's comforting to slip into a 90s netherworld, and back into the old ways. When games were often clunky, unexplained, awkward and often downright frustrating. Balan Wonderworld is all those things, an almost too exacting facsimile of a type of second tier 90s platformer that never quite achieved greatness, even if it's fascinating all the same.

This cosmic point-and-click looks and feels like no other game out there. [Eurogamer Recommended]

If you can ignore the story, It Takes Two has some of the best co-op gameplay in years. [Eurogamer Recommended]

With smart additions that move the series forward, this is the most accessible, deepest and simply very best Monster Hunter to date. [Eurogamer Essential]

A neat aesthetic can't disguise poor combat and a lack of anything to do.

Fast, slick but with a few too many flaws, Pacer is nevertheless a fine futuristic racer.

What comes as a result is a sense of distraction, above all. Almost a sense that Maquette suffered from too much budget, from misplaced attention to themes or scale. The first half - three hours or so - is a brilliant success, a gorgeous, ingenious, delicately poised construction of spaghetti-brain recursion and latent atmosphere. The time you spend there, submerged deep in focus, is wonderful. The rest is interference.

Square Enix's line of retro JRPGs continues with an all-new world and tale for Bravely Default, though some of the old problems persist.

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

An unusual setup, interesting characters and tongue-in-cheek writing make Astrologaster one of the most fun visual novels around. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A brilliant central mechanic and a game of real craft and character. [Eurogamer Recommended]

It's the heady energy at the heart of every Super Mario 3D World level, pushed out across an entire map for what's a hugely entertaining, and very different brand of Mario action. There might be more polished Mario adventures around, and more coherent ones. But when it gets to the core of what makes these games so special - the inventiveness, the imagination and the eccentricity of it all - then this new pairing might well be peerless. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Tarsier returns with another slice of horror that's just about glorious enough to make up for the frustrations. [Eurogamer Recommended]

There's a whole lot of good here that easily balances out the bad if you're already a fan of Persona 5, and I'm pretty sure that if P-Studio made approximately 5 more sequels we would eventually arrive at the perfect version of Persona 5. There's just always so much of everything, from plot strands to enemies to fight and food to eat, that I had a great time while simultaneously feeling pretty exhausted by it all. Though that's just videogames for you.

Destruction AllStars does a lot right. It looks the part. It's polished and, from what I can tell, largely bug free - a testament to Lucid that the studio was able to produce a game this slick amid a pandemic and a work-from-home order. It's vibrant, feels good in the hand, and I like most of the character designs. But it's throwaway and barebones at launch. It's a game of potential right now. It desperately needs more to it, more depth, and more strategy. The driving is so good I'm craving an actual racing mode, or maybe a power-up filled multiplayer mode, something like a Mario Kart crossed with Burnout. That would be cool, I think.

Fun at times but also scruffy and repetitive, Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood lacks a bit of bite.

This is a special game. I am horrible at it, and it, in turn, is horrible to me, and yet I keep pushing on, returning to Gods Will Fall again and again. [Eurogamer Recommended]

An eerie, hypnotic sleuther - and a cracking first effort from a miniature team. [Eurogamer Recommended]

The Medium is the studio's most successful, accessible offering yet, and a sign that Bloober continues to improve, mature, and innovate. I cannot wait for its next terrifying adventure. [Eurogamer Recommended]

In retrospect, I think Nuts is a game specifically tailored for the plodders, but also the catastrophists. It's for people who shuffle through life methodically, but have minds forever spiralling outwards with plans of possible chaos and misfortune. People who watch squirrels and are maybe a little jealous of their obvious agency, of the glittering clarity of the world in which squirrels seem to operate. Nuts, at times, is a real trip. [Eurogamer Recommended]

IO's final World of Assassination game is closer to a seasonal content update than a sequel, but it's a thrilling endeavour all the same. [Eurogamer Recommended]

But let's not get carried away. Let's remember that one secret to WOW's success has always been its ability to modernise while staying true to itself, and never pretending to be anything other than the consummate old-school MMO. You can't have a dramatic reversal of fortune when you've actually had 16 years of consistent and smooth progress. You can't call it a comeback when you've always been the king. [Eurogamer Recommended]

When I started playing I was fascinated by the landscape beneath. I wanted to hear more about the abandoned, crumbling temples and foundries, the different forms of government and social relations you're told about when you visit each city. I craved an extended mission or two to dig into the origins of the Prophecy. I wondered about the possibility of an antagonist. But towards the end, I felt only indifference, which is a more rarefied, civilised kind of cruelty than the urge to pillage. It feels like this game drifts in the shadow of another game in which the Airborne Kingdom is exactly what it looks like: a ponderous, uncaring monster that eats the world in order to set itself free.

Ustwo follows up Assemble with Care with more quiet restorative magic. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A dazzlingly different debut with a haunting sense of place and adventure. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Honestly, it's a dilemma. Technical issues are often passing, but what lingers is the lack of readiness, in the wider sense. The lack of requisite care. The story is a marvel, as is the sheer, red mist hostility of the world that houses it. The promised depth of systems are there, but mishandled. The maturity - and recall CD Projekt describing Cyberpunk, on announcement, as "a mature RPG for a mature audience" - is often not. Maturity in the immature sense, maybe: the teenage idea of it, that 'maturity' equals Rated M and can be found in nakedness, coarseness, blood and guts, when in actuality it's closer to something like the forced perspective gained from time. My lingering impression of Cyberpunk 2077 is of a game that's shouting over itself, relentlessly at odds with its own creative voice. Amidst it all, the nuance that does exist in Cyberpunk 2077, the intense, intoxicating humanity at its heart, is so nearly engulfed by all the noise. But I think I can still hear it, just about. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Phogs! is playful and wholesome and stuffed with adorable creatures in a world where everything's larger than life and just a teeny bit odd. There's barely a story, but it doesn't matter as you slip around this peculiar place with its peculiar people and a peculiar, if perfectly happy, two-headed doggy that adores being petted by friendly townsfolk. Bright, bold, and wonderfully accessible, Phogs! is phantastic stuff. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Awkward, riddled with plot holes and unintentionally offensive, this is Dontnod's worst offering to date. [Eurogamer Avoid]

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.

A charismatic and enjoyable gangster sim that gets a big bogged down in admin. [Eurogamer Recommended]

New tricks will make the headlines, but Sports Interactive's best move is to breathe new life into the brilliance that's already there. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Godfall offers obnoxiously stylish next-gen spectacle, but its appeal only runs skin deep.

Don't overlook this joyous explosion of colour and charm - I very nearly did, and I'm kicking myself for it. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Treyarch delivers an impressive package considering the circumstances, but Black Ops Cold War feels like a step back from last year.

Treyarch delivers an impressive package considering the circumstances, but Black Ops Cold War feels like a step back from last year.

Zelda gets the Dynasty Warriors treatment once more, folding in inspiration from Breath of the Wild for the best musou spin-off yet. [Eurogamer Recommended]

In a world of compromised visions, The Falconeer is dazzlingly original. An aerial combat game unlike any other. [Eurogamer Recommended]

There's friction between the original and this lavish remake, but this is a scintillating launch title that shows off the PS5's strengths. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Tetris Effect gets the multiplayer of its dreams with four delightful modes. [Eurogamer Recommended]

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.

Bugsnax is colourful, clever, and surprising - and you deserve to discover the deepest aspects of it for yourself. [Eurogamer Recommended]

It is a Viking saga which does at times struggle a little in reaching its destiny, and in its efforts to evolve the series has made some sacrifices to tell a stronger overall story. But it wins through, in the end quite easily, as it continues the Assassin's Creed saga for a new generation. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Given the circumstances that Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales releases into, it's heartening to have a tale that's so eager to see the best in everyone, and that strives for diversity in a world divided. In that way, Spider-Man: Miles Morales' message of hope feels like the right sentiment for this very moment. It's escapism with a social conscience, a timely, tremendous thing right now. Insomniac's second crack at Spider-Man retains the breathless energy of the original, but ends up a lot like Miles Morales himself - still fresh on its feet, a little awkward in places, but steadily growing into itself. It's a game that's full of character, and a tremendously likeable one it is too. [Eurogamer Recommended]

While promising a glimpse of the future, Astro's Playroom is a gloriously old-fashioned thing at heart, a characterful, character-driven platformer that has been built to showcase a particular piece of hardware. So often that's where magic in video games happens, and that's most certainly the case here. On its own, this is a beautifully crafted, exquisitely paced and absolutely gorgeous 3D platformer. Combined with the hardware it's bundled on, it's something very special indeed - and one of the best launch titles I can remember in an age.

A fast-paced arcade game with the soul of a puzzler. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Yakuza: like A Dragon is a good game - sometimes it's okay, sometimes it's great, sometimes it made me groan. It runs the full gamut of emotions, from boredom to disbelief. The will to reinvent itself is there, and that means not everything works - whether you'll enjoy it or not depends on what aspects you care about the most.

Legion's near-future London is almost too close for comfort, though the game it hosts is a characterless slog.

A new studio in charge sees Dirt retain some of its old swagger in a fun, frequently beautiful but occasionally hollow arcade racer.