A venerable template comes alive in this beautifully compact adventure. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Fast, slick but with a few too many flaws, Pacer is nevertheless a fine futuristic racer.

Ubisoft builds upon the framework of Steep with this enjoyably eccentric open world extreme sports adventure. [Eurogamer Recommended]

If it hadn't have been for that thoroughly unjust Rewind right at the end of my playthrough, The Quarry - with its stunning visuals, wonderful voice work, fabulous score, and intriguing plot line - would have been one of my favourite games of the year thus far, and one of the best horror romps for some time. As it stands, though, it's hard to feel anything but disappointment for a game that took all my time and effort and just discarded them without warning. It's one thing to kill off a character; it's another to kill off a player's enthusiasm.

The football is as sublime as ever, but PES's lack of progress elsewhere pulls it back.

But for those who can shrug off the contradictions and the limitations, ignore the tearing cityscape and lingering qualms about value for money, this will shove you so deeply into the experience of being in someone else's body, and taking it on a terrifying, breakneck joyride, that nothing else will matter.

It's better than Ice Station Santa, yet not quite as good as Moai Better Blues. It remains small in both size and scope, while those who have stuck with the series since Season 1 will find that much of the actual gameplay is basic meat-and-potatoes fetch-questing. And yet...it's indecently cheap and, for all its minor flaws, the ongoing saga of Sam & Max is still the funniest game around.

It's expertly paced, with bite-sized levels that walk a tightrope between pull-your-hair-out maddening and knowingly easy – and while it can be overwhelming and cause you to doubt yourself, it's always worth it for that moment of relief where it all slots into place.

While fun can be had here, it's from the mini-games and the experience rather than solid table designs - and that's a cardinal sin in pinball.

Few games of late have required such a concerted dedication to pure blasting, and few have ever provided such a visual feast, either.

Thanks to Criterion's otherworldly technical ability to pull off graphical effects that wouldn't look out of place on next gen machines and some truly inspired set-pieces, BLACK is the most progressive and exciting shooter to emerge on the console platforms for years.

Overall, it's a very entertaining low-tech drive and demolish racer, but with one caveat for veterans of the series - they'll have seen much of the game already in FlatOut 2.

Shades of Picross and Phoenix Wright blend together in this unlikely but utterly lovable genre mash-up. [Eurogamer Recommended]

FIFA 23, like so many FIFAs before it, sums up the best and worst of football culture - a joyous game in the vice-like grip of profiteers.

A consistently entertaining series steps up a gear to provide a true great of the genre. [Eurogamer Essential]

It's deceptively tricky, hiding a razor-sharp puzzle game beneath its cutesy exterior, but it's the sort of intuitive and methodical difficulty that won't scare your mum.

It's complicated, often unhelpful, and engrossing. It's the shy boy your mum told you to make friends with. It's a troubled and stubborn creature, with a funny run.

Playful challenges and a warm sense of place and character converge in this cheerful modern classic. [Eurogamer Essential]

With its strict linearity preventing you from trying out songs in the order of your choosing, it's a little too easy to get snagged on one in particular. Without even basic hints on offer, you can end up faffing around to no effect for ages.

Elegant, understated and yet with the capacity for wild showboating, OlliOlli is a twitch classic, a startling console debut from a young British indie that manages to bring together the purity and focus of seminal arcade games with the latest asynchronous multiplayer designs.

With a lengthy central quest and plenty of side missions, there's enough Golden Sun here to illuminate many a long winter evening.

Ingenious and characterful, this immersive sim is an absolute delight - particularly when things go wrong.

The trouble is that Shadowgrounds was a game bursting with unrealised potential, and this sequel still leaves too much of that potential untouched.

A game whose good intentions simply don't translate into wide-eyed entertainment. With uninspiring and basic deathmatch multiplayer options failing to rescue the package, it looks like it's going to be another long hot summer for FPS devotees.

Unquestionably a triumph, marking a great improvement over the last game... It relies on gameplay rather than on cutscenes and ephemera, and the variety and suspense of individual battles combined with the simple but effective campaign system mean that it will stay on a good many hard disks for a long time to come.

"Burnout 3" may have surpassed our expectations in a number of areas, but it's worth remembering that OutRun2 falls short in terms of longevity, not play mechanics. When it comes to speed and immediacy it's easily comparable, the handling is something else entirely, and in technical terms there's only one truly beautiful journey between the two games, and it's taken in a Ferrari.

Rare are the games that have you muttering "Well, I didn't know that could happen!" after more than 30 hours, and the fact I could have written another 2000 words describing weird and wonderful moments you're best discovering for yourself is all the recommendation you should need.

Another good map pack.