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

A new spin on the series sees Next Level Games serve up character and charm in abundance. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Shatter is an engrossing, smart, beautifully conceived and executed arcade game, but it doesn't quite have the score-racking purity of purpose that makes a Geometry Wars, Pac-Man CE or Out Run Online Arcade so endlessly compelling. Once you've beaten it, which won't take long, you'll move on - but it's a blissful spell while it lasts, an absolute steal at £4.79.

It's gorgeous, as close to a playable cartoon as anything since Zelda: The Wind Waker. That's a big name to drop, but if Luigi's return doesn't quite put him in that class, it puts him in the running among Nintendo's finest.

DJ Hero 2 is the freshest thing in rhythm gaming right now, a lifeline for people bored of guitars and drums and genre veterans craving the purer, simpler rhythm-action kick of a pre-Guitar Hero world.

A huge improvement over the original, and a captivating journey from beginning to end.

A sumptuous, generous and absolutely gorgeous RPG that isn't quite the measure of Dragon Quest's illustrious past.

Although very different from the Japanese veteran's usual ferocious output, Mushihimesama soon grows into the kind of exacting, gleefully sadistic experience you expect from this lot.

I can't say what their future holds as I'm not much of an economist (nor am I really a magpie). But I can say I've had many, many hours of fun in a game that still has much more to show me and which all of us, right now, can play for nothing at all. We're being spoiled.

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]

EA should take a page out of FIFA's book here: focus on the game. Every iteration - pre-alpha onwards - sit down and play a full game, 15-minute quarters. If it feels 'right', then you're on the right path.

There's a slickness to the combat, an intelligence to the map design, and a sense of atmosphere worth exploring, all wrapped up in a fast, fun, progressive experience that drip-feeds you goodies as you go.

As effortlessly charming as the beautiful art style is, Bumpy Road veers perilously closely to being style over substance.

Quality of life tweaks and vast depth can't overcome Football Manager 2019's uncharacteristically clumsy, all-consuming training rework.

It's a straightforward sequel with a few more bells and whistles than before, and it lowers the bar of entry somewhat compared to the GameCube original.

I can't see anyone who enjoyed Oblivion enough to get through the main quest <I>not</I> buying this. There's lashings of new fighting and exploring, and it's more gorgeous than ever before.

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]

In essence, you have to play it less and less, and it will feel better every time. It's all about going out of your way not to go out of your way.

Like most things in life, personality goes a long way, and Hard Lines has it in spades. And probably buckets as well.

Quarrel is a victory for good ideas and also for clever implementation. I suspect that the game's still waiting for multiplayer in order to really show us what it can do but, until that arrives, this is a smart addition to iOS in its own right.

Two designs collide gloriously in a Zelda variation that rivals the greatness of the core games themselves. [Eurogamer Essential]

Radiant Historia might lack the breadth and polish of Dragon Quest IX or the contemporary chutzpah of The World Ends With You, but in its own way, it's every bit as memorable and fully deserves its place alongside them at the top table of DS role-players.

WayForward frequently sends you from one corner of the map to the other on simple fetch quests and back again, and with enemies respawning every time you pass from one area to the next, finding new secrets is much more of a chore than it should be.

I just didn't feel the same magic, the same excitement that flowed from "Sorrow."

A bold, stand-out, knockout of a card game that drips with imagination and menace. [Eurogamer Essential]

At its best, Conviction is played as a high-stakes puzzle game, taut and thrilling when everything is going your way. But when cover is broken, the floodlights go up to reveal a mediocre shooter. Perhaps the greatest irony of all is that Splinter Cell: Conviction appears brightest in the dark.

Well, this turns out to be brilliant fun, tactical and knockabout, exactly as you'd expect if you combined Mario and XCOM. The roster of characters is colourful and quirky, encouraging experimentation, and alongside equipping items and sparks, each character has a handful of skill trees to plug points into as they level. (Characters also auto-level off the battlefield.) Throw in bosses, inventive victory conditions, deep cuts from Mario universe and clever battlefield design and you've got something pretty special. [Eurogamer Recommended]

The Talos Principle is a game of challenges and conundrums and philosophical wonderings, filled with logic puzzles and cerebral mysteries.