With Forza Motorsport 5, Turn 10's created a driving experience both accessible and beautiful - but it's been stripped back to make Xbox One's launch, and augmented with a host of ugly extras that only serve Microsoft's bid to make a few dollars more.

Those with an addiction to high scores will love the many hours they spend smashing themselves repeatedly against the levels' pitiless design. And those who aren't up for the challenge? Dustforce will just take them to the cleaners.

Absolution is a slick, responsive and mechanically confident game - and on occasions it's one of the most satisfying stealth games in a year that already includes Dishonored - but a range of compromises to Hitman tradition mean it's still going to rub some people up the wrong way.

A fun, solid RTS. But that's all. It fatally lacks a sense of creative vision other than just being a bit better than "Rise of Nations," with its step-forwards more half-steps.

I would say that EA has landed a knockout blow to the competition, but that would probably result in actual violence against my person, so I won't. Anyway, it's good. You should get it.

Food and family converge in this beautiful slice-of-life tale.

Whether you play this via DLC or as part of the forthcoming Gold Edition of Resident Evil 5, it's an essential episode.

What remains is a relentlessly enjoyable action-RPG, which offers a unique insight into Japanese culture despite its exaggerations. The Western version of Yakuza 3 might have suffered a few heartbreaking cuts, but it's still intriguing at every turn and shouldn't be missed.

Rare said that the game was basically completed on past systems anyway, then touched up, and that's incredibly obvious.

The old-style defending, rushing players by holding X and square, now feels rather simplistic, and close control is a bit unresponsive next to what we're now used to.

An exquisitely thought-out tactical shooter that's instantly a PSVR great. [Recommended]

As a lovingly crafted evolution to one of oldest and most respected fighting series in gaming, KOF 13 is - hands down - Playmore's greatest accomplishment in years.

When I reached the end of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, I didn't feel like I'd had a rewarding experience. I was relieved it was over. With some side-meandering, it took around 30 hours, and I didn't enjoy a lot of them. I'll admit crunching a Souls-like in less than four days is an unnatural and gruelling experience: I imagine if I'd played Fallen Order over several months, I would have been less frustrated, but probably still bored. It's such a shame, as Fallen Order has an incredible gameplay experience at its core, with fantastic environments and well-directed action sequences. Yet it's unable to sustain this thanks to some fundamental design problems.

A lovely-looking, unique and tightly designed rhythm-action game built of equal parts FreQuency and Rock Band. The track selection's good, it's far from a lazy port, and its similarity to Harmonix games past makes playing it an unexpectedly nostalgic pleasure.

It's totally no fun. It's interesting, but there isn't a fun bone in its mopey body. But I've paid to go into modern art galleries. I've paid for really oddball, minimalist art films. I've gone to gigs where music is divorced from any physical reaction and raised to some cerebral, abstract place - and plenty of gigs where most sane human beings would consider there was nothing actually musical going on. I haven't, but could pay for experimental theatre tickets. Lots of poetry. Whatever.

The unlikeliest of developers has created a game that manages to encapsulate huge chunks of the series' traditions, even as it pushes it onwards in a slick new direction. Metroid has spliced its genes once again, and the results are typically fascinating.

Adorable, not only for kids as the presentation may immediately suggest, and very silly, it's another big success for PopCap. If only it would get properly challenging it would be a giant classic. As it is, it's a thing of loveliness you should buy this instant.

A clever, huge and charming strategy game. While the puritanical focus on retro minimalism means it might not be as rich in visual variety as its contemporaries, the breadth of the strategy coolly grants it safe harbour from the grey reaper of rinse'n'repeat boredom.

For all its effortless charm, the game ultimately offers a window into an immersive world, fires up the imagination and then tells its young players to simply mimic the actions of others. That's enough to amuse kids, but it won't inspire them for long.

Like a playable poster for an iconic rally event, funselektor's top-down racer is a blast. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is not a platform game. The game it has become instead demands thoughtful, exciting challenges that inspire the player to pitch in and help get the most out of each level, but it fails to provide them, and even though it's worth persevering with for the occasional hurdles race, egg-and-spoon and a game-world in aptly Rare form, ultimately it's a brilliant shell with a mostly hollow centre.

Ultimately, there's no single aspect of the game that really demands your interest.

Although it gets a lot right with a well-structured fighting system – which has a solid mix of subsystems to master – it doesn't have the same level of hardcore appeal as the current champion.

Light on action but humorous and made with love, Knights and Bikes holds something for adults and kids alike. [Eurogamer Recommended]

An enjoyable and detailed racer successfully invokes the spirit of the 90s arcade, even if it doesn't quite have a spark of its own.

The most impressive feature of NHL 07 is the Skill Stick control, but it's not enough to save a game that is light on content and slack in other areas.

The biggest flaw Temple Run 2 betrays is its conservatism. The amount of work that has gone into the game is evident, and it's hard to fault an accessible, thrilling game that offers itself to you for free - but it's so similar to its predecessor that it ultimately feels a bit unnecessary.

Ubisoft have given us a gripping, gorgeous, WW2 submarine sim, it's just a bit of a shame its fundamentally so similar to the last gripping, gorgeous, WW2 submarine sim they gave us. Finger-crossed Silent Hunter 5: Meerkats of the Med will be braver.