This remake is a labour of love, and it catches the single most important thing about Cave Story. Objectively, it's a 2D game heavily inspired by Metroid. In its details, and in your hands and head, it's another world entirely.

Had Starfire focussed on just a couple of elements rather than trying to be all things to all players, had it made the quests more varied, the progression more enticing, this could have been the start of something really special. As it stands, it's the epitome of a game trying to be a jack-of-all-trades, sadly mastering little.

A delightful, playful, occasionally exhilarating platformer. But while this is a game whose visuals point to a bright, alternative future, its systems too often rely on the dusty past. Half of a classic, then.

Where Brotherhood enhanced the thrill of being Ezio Auditore, Revelations distracts from it. Ezio may look old, but it's the series itself that really shows its age.

It's an awkward reinvention that manages to be at once faithful and a little wide of the mark. But such is the strength of Combat Evolved, this is still an Anniversary that's worth celebrating.

It is the most formally inventive Zelda in a long time (admittedly, that's not saying a great deal). But it's the game's carefree attitude, quick tempo and warm heart that do the most to make it feel new...Skyward Sword will surely be the greatest adventure money can buy.

In weaving together the extraordinary craftsmanship evident in the music, storytelling, adventure and world design of Skyrim, Bethesda has created a very special game indeed - one that's likely to remain in the affections of gamers for many years to come.

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.

Like the best burgers, the best arcade games are simple, allowing us to enjoy the important flavours. BurgerTime World Tour is like a child sticking everything they can find between two halves of a bun, and then gorging on the resulting mess until they puke. Bon appetit.

Feels like a complete package from the start; the three gameplay areas - solo, co-op and multiplayer - all feeling like parts of a cohesive whole, driven by a clear and honed declaration of intent.

Regardless, that Cave continues to flourish in a shifting industry and to evolve a sub-genre they helped define, is testament to the studio's strategic nous - in-game and out. DoDonPachi Resurrection shows just how much poorer we would be without them.

A serviceable shooter, but it lacks the spectacle of Call of Duty, the tactical options of Deus Ex or Crysis, and the urgency of FEAR. In their place it has, well, not much.

It's a beautiful piece of design and one that puts PomPom right up there with Canabalt creator Adam Saltsman at the very forefront of the genre... whatever genre this actually is, of course.

Sonic Generations still doesn't do much to dissuade us that the hedgehog's best days are distant memories, but at least it is a worthy tribute to them, capturing the subtler elements of the original Hedgehog's enduring appeal although still falling foul of some of his weaknesses.

Disney Universe is far from a bad game. Its general competency is evidence of a capable team that has cherry-picked designs (both systemic and aesthetic) from other titles and paired them with a clutch of inspiring licenses. But the disparate parts only click together in a rather mundane way, failing to capitalise fully on the licenses or match up to the quality of its video game inspirations.

But Rugby Challenge is the nucleus of a truly great rugby sim. It's certainly the best rugby game currently available and one can only imagine the heights it could scale if a publisher with enough cash were to throw its weight behind it.

More of a smash and grab than a smooth raid, then, but you can't deny that it's come away with the goods.

There's nuance and depth here that goes beyond most people's preconceptions of what motion gaming is about, and yet the game never loses sight of the fact that anybody should be able to get up, have a try and have fun doing so. The sad part is that more studios aren't using the technology to this standard.

A visually stunning, dreadfully fussy and cruelly unsatisfying hardcore game - one that does very little indeed to reward the near-infinite levels of patience required to get anywhere close to the value of your time or money.

But there were times within Disgaea 4, more than ever before, when the grind seemed more prominent than the obsession. Disgaea always does unexpected things with numbers, and 4 feels like its most polished and feature-packed entry yet - and it also feels like the point of diminishing returns.

Festival of Blood's slight but fun, in other words - a decent shaggy dog story for you to plough through on Halloween evening before the doorbell starts ringing and your friends drop round dressed as the seven ages of David Bowie, or whatever your theme is this year.

Alongside the recent port of Guardian Heroes, this is the perfect example of how to revisit your back catalogue. With 18 years' worth of dust carefully brushed aside, Daytona USA has been lovingly restored and thoughtfully explored - providing a fitting tribute to one of arcade racing's enduring icons.

Battlefield didn't need to be more like Call of Duty to succeed, it just had to double down on what it was already good at.

It is a majestic tribute to cinema, a movie game in the literal sense, and your enjoyment will be in precise step with your appreciation of that objective - and whether or not you believe it to be Drake's great deception, or Drake's great delight.

In short, it's unquestionably the best dance game available on Kinect, and a successful, evolutionary step forward that will certainly please those who loved the original.

At the most fundamental level there's nothing tragically wrong with the game, it just displays a lack of imagination that chafes against the legacy of a series that has never been short of ideas. For a game with that sort of pedigree, average simply isn't good enough.

If you live in actual London, however, your cartridge doesn't come with London Life. Japan, North America, and Australia get this rather huge bonus; the U.K. and the rest of Europe don't. It's the kind of tedious, infuriating localisation strategy that Nintendo still holds over from the 8-bit era, when it was possible to keep people on distant shores from knowing they were getting the short end of the stick.

It's not perfect, perhaps, and the whole thing feels pretty slight, but The Secret of the Unicorn's clever and deeply charming - a Tintin game for everybody, and not just the super-fans.