An excellent 'story so far' game that delivers pretty much the whole Tekken experience thus far for an astonishingly inconsequential seven quid. More than that though, it's a hard-hitting fly-kick to the face of the software industry - a standard bearer that redefines the value and content level of downloadable games.

Starship Patrol presents a package of rare calibre on DSiWare, a game that, through its tight breadth and expansive depths, would make for a worthy defining title on a service still trying to find its identity.

With its demented twist on tower defence, ZombieSmash is not only a quite brilliant timesink, but a sure-fire way of getting a train carriage all to yourself.

A great card battling game, and only a few niggly details hold it back from being even better: the lousy locked decks, the half-baked multiplayer tournaments, the quick and dirty iPad port. Nevertheless, it offers something fresh and creates battles that feel like two massed armies clashing across their ranks.

Pleasant but undemanding, gorgeous but lacking in depth - fans will be forgiven for expecting something a little more chewy, a little more experimental, from a developer who made his name by turning adventure games upside down. Here's hoping Act 2 builds some gameplay muscle to go with the supermodel looks.

For those burnt out on WOW's content, WildStar is easy to endorse. Immediately familiar to anyone who's visited Azeroth and with enough new twists on the tried-and-tested theme park formula, Carbine's game is so overflowing with stuff to do that it's certainly justified in asking for a subscription - even if less people seem prepared to sign up to one.

A fascinating experiment in narrative techniques, even if there's some tonal whiplash along the way. [Eurogamer Recommended]

The creators of Flatout channel a little of the classic Destruction Derby as this brilliantly destructive racer emerges from Early Access. [Recommended]

Children band together against the darkness of a collapsing France in this bleak and beautiful if somewhat rickety medieval fantasy.

Much like Resistance 2, Retribution is more than the sum of its parts. The single-player campaign may be linear and stagey, but it's also effortlessly fun and incredibly polished. The multiplayer doesn't contain many surprises, but it does a better job of matching the online modes of "proper" consoles better than most rivals in its genre. Annoyances are minor and fleeting in nature, and the game punches above its weight with a substantial and coherent feel that too many handheld offerings lack.

In spite of the fact that all you're doing is pressing a button three times, over and over again, it never gets boring. It would probably be too controversial to call it the best golf game, or the best PS3 game. But on both counts it's a remarkably close call. [JPN Import]

An extraordinarily detailed economy and range of interlinking systems make Victoria 3 a grand strategy to rival some of Paradox's best. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Feels like an uninspired, by-the-numbers sci-fi B-movie of a game with high production values. It's 'fun', for the nine, ten hours it lasts, but only in the same brainless sense that allows us to enjoy dumb popcorn action movies.

Closure may stop short of delivering the sort of swashbuckling adventure one might hope for from a journey through this shadowy netherworld, but it remains thoroughly enjoyable puzzle game that twists your brain in all sorts of maddening directions while keeping the answers just out of reach.

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

Mega Man 10 doesn't quite perhaps have the sparkling feel of reinvention that its predecessor enjoyed, but if you were one of the many who considered MM9 a welcome return to form, then this is another must-buy. Everyone else is perfectly entitled to look confused.

It's a sign that next generation gaming may offer a wonderful audio visual experience, but it needs to be a tad more ambitious in the game design stakes.

Battleheart's also far deeper than you might give it credit for, and horribly addictive. It truly is the Pringles of gaming.

While exaggerated and impossible, it's all executed properly. Every wobble, every turn, all motion-captured. The ragdoll on the bails is barking mad, even allowing you to augment its lunacy by extending the skeleton-destroying impacts, but that just makes the boring bit - falling off your skateboard - more fun.

Saints Row 4 may lack refinement - nothing thwarts a superhero quite so frequently as an overhanging roof or your homies standing in a doorway - but it compensates with sheer exuberance. It's a heartfelt love letter to the superhero genre and to a medium that makes such madness possible.

Riders of Doom should be more than capable of ransacking your spare time over the Christmas period, and the generous complement of new Skill Games means it would even work well as a multiplayer distraction when everyone in your family is drunk, ratty and hyper-competitive on Boxing Day afternoon.

Mechanics and content can make or break a modern fighting game, and Injustice delivers on those fronts.

The new levels feel rich and generous, and will absolutely reinvigorate the game for anyone who played it to death at indie gaming events.

Where other RPGs are still content with a dragon or some apocalyptic end of the world boom, here the stakes are personal, as well as both asking and inviting far more interesting questions than how much fire you can fling from your fingertips. It's a far more welcoming game than the original Torment, though a slower burner as far as the main plot goes, and one that never quite has its predecessor's dark confidence. It is, however, as close as we've had in the last 15 or so years, and certainly doesn't invoke the name in vain. [Recommended]

Wordament is a fresh take on a classic formula that works brilliantly. It's my prediction for this year's next big thing.

The convincing banter between the two doctors, the tale of John's carer and her relationship with her children, the stories of friends and families and how they intersect along the passage of life... To the Moon takes the details of human life in its stride, and delivers them with a breezy effortlessness.

Without a doubt, EA isn't treating the expansion of The Sims 3 lightly - World Adventures might be a bit of a thematic stumble, but it makes for a significantly bigger and more varied game, far more so than any prior Sims 1 or 2 expansion has achieved. It's impossible not to recommend it to avid Sims players, but anti-Sims snobs will inevitably find it to be an annoying side-order of collectormania and repetitive puzzles.

Ninja Theory crafts a highly competent action game and a nuanced, powerful exploration of mental health. [Essential]