Daredevilry is exactly what this astonishing shooter delivers.

Does all the boring, difficult parts of RPG game design very well, and marries them to exceptionally slick combat and a towering stack of stuff to do. This well-oiled machine keeps you motoring through all the sludgy fantasy cliché and through a sluggish first act. Then - just as the world opens out and the story picks up traction - that motor really starts to sing. That's when a solid, workmanlike game becomes one that's virtually impossible to put down.

At its best SBD's blend of twitch-platforming and stealth puzzles produces little rat-runs with a nigh-on perfect balance of action and tension. Such quality isn't quite sustained across the whole, but this is still within touching distance of greatness, and certainly much classier than Tactical Espionage Arsehole suggests.

Unless you're in a hurry or you plan to buy both games eventually anyway, you're better off waiting for Rock Band 2.

Bleak realism meets absurdist fairytale in a stylish, surreal, and astonishingly surefooted - if mechanically unadventurous - exploration of faith, free will, and demonic temptation.

Valkyrie Profile Lenneth is exactly that - wholly distinct from the rest of the crowd, a niche within a niche, marvellously thought out and mostly brilliantly executed. If there were other comparably innovative and inventive Japanese RPGs to set this against, then its flaws might cause it to be judged more severely. But it stands alone, a rare original expression of Japanese role-playing individuality.

For a while, Papa Sangre is a wonderful novelty. Unfortunately, the further you get, the more trial-and-error annoyance starts to put a crimp on your enjoyment.

Where Arzest failed, HAL has triumphed: Kirby might be a little late to the party, but he's arrived laden with treats.

With a comprehensive array of multiplayer modes adding plenty of dogfighting action to the fray, this is well worth checking out, if inessential for the committed veterans.

Despite some familiar trappings and a shortage of genuine wonders, Age of Wonders 3 delivers a more tightly focused experience than Firaxis' behemoth Civilization series, to which it initially appears to owe so much. In doing so, it proves that even after a decade away the Age of Wonders series can still stand proud beside its modern-day contemporaries.

An amazing game, easily one of the best I've played in any medium. Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 is its best video game translation yet, a perfectly pitched blend of hard strategy and endless tinkering with unlocks that just keep on coming.

As pretty and playable as it is, in no sense is inFamous: Second Son a post-Grand Theft Auto 5 open-world game. It's just a tidier, shorter and shinier one. It's easy to enjoy and has a winning personality, but it's reluctant to deviate from a stale streetmap of game city. It's no rebel, then. In fact, it's a conformist.

Everybody's Tennis is aptly named, appealing the everyman despite speaking in the vernacular of the RPG nerd.

How substantial it will be to you depends on how susceptible you are to its picturesque, vaguely pagan charm.

Jenny Jiao Hsia's dazzling, semi-autobiographical tale of teenage life finds wit and warmth in its WarioWare weirdness, even as it deals with difficult themes.

If you're a gamer that embraces the open-ended trial-and-error gameplay, and don't mind that it's neither the best example of stealth nor action gameplay, then this will serve you well.

With a few more levels, more varied objectives and less psychic guards it would be indispensable.

Madden 15 a step forward, then, yet still a year behind schedule. There's a good game here, but there's still work to do to bring it up to the level of many of its sports game peers.

Dicey Dungeons constantly reinvents a simple idea to delightful puzzling effect. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A truly excellent combat system and neat character-centric episodes complement a compelling tale, but weak side activities and some turgid grinding hold it back.

With the added bonus of Captain Your Country, and a host of welcome tweaks and additions, it's a Russian linesman away from being given 9/10, and only the inevitable absence of club teams and other FIFA-level content get in the way.

The opportunity to record your own live music over the top of your sequenced compositions, to export Midi files with your loops and to save out songs as .wavs are features that go beyond where console-based music packages have ventured before.

From the outset, they've dulled the bold strokes of the Alan Wake concept in a desperation to ensure that everyone got the complete experience. Well, I got it. And I'm left pining for what could have been.

Set over an impressive 80 levels (including five tutorial run-throughs), Sarbakan's game is an instantly engaging bite-sized affair with plenty of replay value. Screenshots don't really do it justice.

Lies of P has strong enough foundations in its edgy tone and tweaked weapons to provide an enjoyable experience for those in need of a FromSoft fix.

David's control scheme has clearly been built around the touchscreen, but while the game's a delight on iOS (on iPhone, at least - the buggy iPad version is awaiting a fix at the time of writing), it works surprisingly well on PC and Mac, too.

We're left with a game whose main improvements are all disappointments. And yet I'd still I'd put money on me pouring hundreds of hours into it. That's Football Manager. I'm sure that once a few patches have been released and a few things have been tweaked I'll discover that magic again. I just expect it might be a little bit harder to find than last year.

That's Trackmania's secret. It's deeply satisfying, while at the same time being more frustrating than you could possibly imagine. It's a contradiction until you've played it.