A beautiful game - and stands as a landmark 3D shoot 'em up; a refined, well designed and intelligent title and marks a real progression in the genre.

Portal remains an absolutely fantastic game, a wonderfully constructed vignette of puzzles and gallows humour that everybody should play.

A happy medium between the mind-blowing excess of its parent game and its somewhat compact Episode One offspring. While initially lacking in gameplay novelty or many truly 'new' elements that fans always hanker for, it more than makes up for this with its consistently engaging narrative tricks, refined set-pieces and a staggering climax.

The definitive way to experience one of the games of the year.

Powerful rather than perfect, then, Persona 4's a status ailment rather than a killing blow - it's not going to bowl you over with one strike, but it will quietly gnaw away at you until you succumb.

A stern yet scintillating 2D adventure that makes a point of not holding your hand. [Recommended]

Artful animation and visuals combine with tightly designed exploration, though beware persistent technical issues.

A tough one to score then, but still unquestionably excellent.

Wholesome, harmonious and completely unwilling to settle, this is one of the most generous games in years.

Jetpack Joyride is further evidence of Halfbrick's unseemly knack for producing games designed to test both the battery life of handheld gaming platforms and the sanity of players. Needless to say, both run out eventually.

A game that has very few humans, but a surplus of humanity.

A game that never rests on its laurels and offers ample replay value, Mark of the Ninja is a much-needed shot in the arm for Live Arcade's lacklustre summer offering.

It's as well-designed as Zelda, as involving as Final Fantasy, and as beautiful as anything you've ever seen; it belongs with the best of the Zelda series at the very apex of its genre.

Super Meat Boy starts out as just another indie game that revels in driving you crazy, but you end up crazy in love.

Between the clever mission design, comedy storyline and imaginative drug-dealing angle, it represents many hours of play, all of which live up to its legacy.

Considered in isolation, Dead Space 2's ambience, brute frights and player toolset are good rather great. But in combination, these three elements prove as irresistible as the pull on Isaac exerted by a malfunctioning airlock. For once, you'll want to let go.

It is, as we tried to tell the blonde at the bar, universally appealing - because it's easy on the eye, taxes the brain just enough, and keeps you entertained no matter who you are. Blooming brilliant.

It's a classic game and an essential part of any collection, especially in this flawless, gorgeous reissue.

With 90 brow-furrowing levels to pile through - and a built-in level editor for creative sorts - iBlast Moki 2 offers the kind of value that will have Satoru Iwata crying into his sales figures. The iPhone's not exactly short of great physics puzzle games, but it'd be remiss of anyone not to pick this one up.

Yet another exceptional puzzle app to add to your growing pile. Absorbing, challenging and unlike anything else out there, buy it and soothe away the stresses of public transport.

The omission of online play aside, Geometry Wars 2 is everything you hoped it would be. It deftly builds on a simple framework without overloading it, and even finds room to make the core experience more varied and accessible to everyone.

For all the hours it eats up, outside of its multiplayer it gives disappointingly little back, and it will continue to give very little back until Firaxis bites the bullet and admits that there are aspects of Civilization which deserve not just to be improved, but fixed.

You could wish for 3D Land to be a little more challenging in places, then, but you couldn't wish for it to be any denser, any more imaginative, or any more daring. Most importantly, you couldn't wish for it to be any more playful.

Immersive, engaging and with the kind of gameplay depth that so many shooters lack, Metroid Prime 3 might not represent a huge progression as far as the series goes, but that doesn't stop it from being one of the best games I've played all year - and certainly one of best yet on the Wii.

Monster Hunter opens up for the most accessible, most detailed and most magnificent entry yet. [Essential]

Poker goes into the blender and emerges in fine form.

All of which makes Dota 2 an absurd video game to try to recommend. Being the largest and most immediately open MOBA, with Valve showcasing its talent for rewarding and fostering a community, it demands and offers more than literally any game I can think of. It's almost more comparable to basketball than most commercial games. Something utterly opaque bearing no endgame, but that could happily fill every waking second of your life.

It's not the levelling, it's the taking part that counts. That's what makes Guild Wars 2 great. Almost every aspect of its design serves the individual player and whole community equally, and there's a breezy willingness to put the content ahead of the grind throughout. It's a little lightweight, perhaps; its fantasy world is more picturesque than truly enveloping, and its social and gameplay hooks offer instant gratification over ties that bind. But it's still the most coherent, seamless, social and fun MMO in a long time - and the only one that can call itself truly modern.