Unlike a lot of arcade racing games we've played over the years, Most Wanted is one of the few games that's destined to provide a lasting challenge, despite the inherent repetition at its core.

Playing Bangai-O Spirits is a pleasure. If I could, I'd play it for every waking moment. [JPN Import]

Cassette Beasts is classic Pokémon expertly remixed for those who feel they have aged out of the series' target audience. [Eurogamer Recommended]

There's an end-of-pier charm to it all, the showmanship of the arcade matched with Nintendo's time-proven ability to take something - here the humble pilates ring - and imbue it with a sense of play and wonder. Ring Fit Adventure is that and then some, boasting all the inventiveness of last year's curio Labo and matching it with a video game that compels you to come back for more. This might not have the show-stopping pull of a Mario or Zelda, but I can guarantee that it's the purest Nintendo experience you'll play this year. [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.

Final Fantasy XIII's is a superb system overall, easily making up what depth it has lost in speed, tactical cunning and moment-to-moment engagement. Some have bemoaned the apparent retreat from XII's daring reinvention - I did myself, at first - but in its way XIII is just as big a step for the party RPG, albeit a simpler and perhaps more palatable one.

When Chaotic Box produces a unified binary for iPad users, this will be an essential app, but right now it feels like an excellent game held back by some minor design quirks.

It's so rich with options that it can seem overwhelming, and although there's clear fodder there's also consistency and thoughtfulness in a lot of areas.

There's a genuine sense of achievement and enjoyment when a seemingly impossible level suddenly clicks (or crushes) into place, and the confident way the game uses its central conceit as more than just a gimmick is undeniably reassuring and appealing.

Guardian Heroes is one of the most comprehensive and generous ports on Xbox Live Arcade, a game that has been lovingly updated to suit the contemporary hardware.

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

The second game from Disco Elysium studio ZA/UM, this text-heavy, dice-driven RPG is an exquisitely constructed take on consumerism, empire, nostalgia and beyond.

If you're prepared to ignore its shortcomings and get to know it, there's an approachable beat-'em-up in here, even if it yields to your whim far too easily.

Although it's ostensibly simple, Naked War is a game with enormous and entertaining hidden depth...It's fun and addictive, and you'll willingly give it more than eight-odd hours.

A pleasantly weird update, then. It offers warm familiarity, with a safe selection of modes and a reassuringly lovely pile of new skins, alongside tiny, precision bursts of innovation like the shuffle block. It's another incremental improvement - but, if you ask me, this has always been a game that Sony's handheld needs if it's to feel complete. Lumines will be wedged in the Vita's card slot for months to come.

"The Sands of Time" set such a high standard in virtually every area that anything less was always going to be disappointing, and discovering that many of the bits that were nigh on flawless are less taxing, less focused, or are just the same with a scar across the face, is deeply upsetting.

An improvement in nearly every way on one of Nintendo's finest games in years, Splatoon 2 is only let down by a lack of big new ideas. [Recommended]

The final battle, in which you are transported to a cathedral in a fiery nether realm, can be accessed relatively early on. It is, however, an extraordinarily demanding fight in which you are set upon by waves of towering knights who battle alongside the Ivory king himself.

A microsurgical blending of genres results in a lovely balance of precision and chaos. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Bold, raw and effortlessly stylish, Sorry We're Closed uses the building blocks of survival horror to tell a compelling and hard-hitting love story to brilliant effect.

Being able to move more quickly when you're not firing is a smart twist with intuitive strategic consequences, but there are much smarter decisions at the heart of Everyday Shooter's logic.

It's by doing this - looking at the world through feline eyes - that Stray creates a journey filled with such a sense of exploration, on top of the chance to indulge in as much cat-truction as you like. While doing so, though, it also crafts a touching story about the human desires of those who, at a glance, lack humanity - be it to reunite with a loved one, protect a community or reach the outside world. The result is a wonderful mix: a game about the longing for freedom, clever climbing mechanics, and every cat’s eternal desire to knock items off shelves. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Being so excellent that you obliterate the single-player in a weekend is not enough to stop it being my favourite Xbox 360 game of recent times.

Perhaps not the greatest Yakuza game, but Kazuma Kiryu's farewell certainly makes for the most human. [Recommended]

But the main question I keep asking myself about Undisputed is how could it better replicate the UFC experience onto the pad and screen? Apart from the ability to attempt illegal moves like a downward elbow strike or rabbit punch whilst the referee's vision is obscured, I can't really think of any.

It doesn't seem to be slowing down, either, meaning the game you can buy today wonít be the same game you can buy in six months time. So that twenty hours can easily turn into forty, sixty, a hundred. If you let it.

Like most EA Sports releases, Madden 09 is a good re-entry point for anyone who's skipped a few years, but less than essential for anyone who picked up last year's edition. The changes may be numerous, but few feel essential and you're always aware that many of them will be back next year, in a further refined form.