Exploring the beautifully rendered American east coast during the 16th century is a delight. The woodland nature areas provide a atmosphere and a sense of freedom that's been lacking in the series previous installments. Variation in quests, innovative and well developed systems are the game's strongest parts.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is the perfect culmination of the previous games in the series. A fantastic gallery of characters, real consequences to your actions, thrilling dialogue, and a deep and engaging world makes this a candidate for Game of the Year.

A hugely rewarding game for gamers who don't mind a challenge. Be prepared for many, many hours of exploration, in a game world that's truly memorable. The game is best played with a controller, but that should not be a problem for a PC gamer in 2012.

Being able to finally take the Super Smash Bros. games on the road is a welcome addition to the fighting game/party game hybrid series, and generally everything works well. Unfortunately, playing online is uneven at best, and the small screen can make things difficult to see, but the overall experience is still damned fun from start to finish.

Jusant is a small, playful and extremely atmospheric adventure. Here, the developers at Dontnod use their flair for colorful universes and unique gameplay to create a game that is engaging from start to finish.

Earthion is a brilliant return to one of the greatest video game genres of all time.

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana is at times a somewhat enjoyable game that feels stuck in the past. The dominating storytelling however, is brought down by a stiff and unnatural translation

While the first Nioh game was a more unique and brave twist on the Souls formula, Nioh 2 is a more polished and precise version of that same formula.

This is an expansion that offers a number of small but noticeable adjustments that make life as a hunter, if not easier to survive, then at least easier to deal with. We get new monsters, new areas, and a lot of new equipment to play with. A solid expansion with new content.

Yakuza 0 offers a great story and loads of side activities, but dated mechanics keeps it from being considered a true stroke of genius.

Death's Door is a wonderful action RPG, and a great option for fans of challenging games who are looking for something a little more accessible.

Despite sharing a whole lot of similarities with its predecessor, Destiny 2 excels where it counts. The shooting and loot hunting is as addictive as ever, and even though the characters and story feel like they're still lacking several layers of dept, the grind has never felt so good.

Unless you are a big Mario Kart-fan, this game might not be worthbuying. By all means, it's fun the way only Mario Kart can be, itlooks more stunning than ever before and if you need new tracks it caneasily offer hours of entertainment. But Nintendo must have made this game on autopilot.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is a love letter to the fans, and it delivers four great games in one brilliant package. The games are not only more beautiful than ever, but also far more accessible to play in whichever way you want.

If you’ve yet to jump into Pikmin 3, then the Deluxe version is a great way to experience the charming game.

Hitman 3 is a good conclusion to the World of Assassination trilogy. IO Interactive has fine tuned the Hitman formula through three games, and this third game offers some of the best moments in the series.

A thoughtful and refreshingly original survival experience, where managing clones of your alternate selves becomes both a mechanical puzzle and an emotional journey.

A difficult, but at the same time very rewarding rogue-like platformer. It won’t be the best choice of entertainment for the impatient or people who get easily frustrated, but if you like a challenge then you should definitely check out Rogue Legacy.

Lords of Shadow is an impressive next step for the Castlevania-series. It's drop dead gorgeous, and the awesome combat system will challenge you to no end.

The franchise continues with its yearly release and though the innovations are few and far between Football Manager 2014 is still as enjoyable as it has ever been. The undisputed king of manager games sits comfortably on its throne.

WipEout Omega Collection is a great collection of games for those already familiar with the series, but also for the players who’ve yet to experience futuristic racing.

Brave New World makes Civilization even more addictive that it already was. Every new feature is interesting in its own way and enriches the game experience. The fact that it focuses mostly on the last half of the game makes this expansion a must.

The new Ratchet & Clank is great fun for all ages, with a crazy arsenal of weapons, great characters, extremely solid mechanics and an amazing visual style that ties everything nicely together. The story feels slightly rushed however, and the absence of multiple planets from the original game feels like a huge blow to the fans of the series. Still, this is a must-have for PlayStation 4 owners.

Kirby remains as pure and charming as ever, and his newest game is an absolute joy.

Total War: Three Kingdoms is a big step in the right direction for the series. The diplomacy is the best its ever been, with the campaign events and possibilities demanding replayability. The battles are awesome as always, even though I miss a bit more unit diversity. Sadly, the stylistically beautiful visual style makes the campaign map a bit too "ethereal" to feel real and grounded even on the Records mode, and the user interface suffers from a lack of clarity, ending up being too busy and cluttered for its own good.

Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales is another massive achievement for CD Projekt Red. Based on the card game Gwent, the developer has managed to combine an astonishing open world, a great soundtrack and unique role playing and strategy elements into one great package - albeit one very different from what we are used to.

Welcome to Kyrat, a sprawling and beautiful country by the Himalayas. As Ajay Ghale, you are let loose in the vast wilderness with a variety of places to venture and missions to accomplish. It builds on the successful formula of its predecessor and takes it to another level.

Mimimi Games works wonders to make supernatural abilities a balanced, visually striking, and unexpectedly cool part of this real-time tactics game. Sadly, Shadow Gambit loses its way as you’re forced to revisit the same handful of islands again and again in service of a story that lacks cohesion.

Shovel Knight Dig features some of the best pixel art in the business and is a fun romp throughout, but lacks the depth of its peers and ends way, way too soon.

Tunic is a really cozy game that only gets better the longer you play. It captures much of what made games like A Link to the Past so immersive in its time, but merges it with its own design elements (and a bit of Dark Souls).

When you turn off your brain and let your intuition take over, you become one with Dante in a wild and seductive game you just want to play over when it finally ends.

Pyre is a beautifully written and designed adventure game with addictive and intuitive combat. The campaign overstays its welcome somewhat during the second half, but that is not enough to tarnish the overall impression, which is of a unique game, filled to the brim with some of the most memorable characters seen in quite some time.

Manifold Garden offers an unusual gaming experience, with a good set of puzzle challenges surrounding its incredible impossible architectural universe.

Papers, Please manages to make the apparently boring profession of border guard incredibly engaging and thrilling. Music, graphics and writing all contribute to an oppressive atmosphere that pulls the player in and holds them captured.

Marvel SNAP does a terrific job of introducing players to its unique design. Here you gradually get more and more cards to play with, and it never gets boring to see which heroes and villains are waiting around the next corner.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is an MMO founded upon a conservative, yet improving mentality. It delievers a great amount of good content within the Star Wars universe, and is by far one of the best games this genre has seen the last ten years.

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is a triumph, for Mario and Nintendo as well as for Ubisoft. The game bursts with creativity and charm. It’s beautiful, funny, challenging and original. But most of all, it’s a bold risk, and an immensely successful one at that.

With a clear understanding of what makes Crash Bandicoot great and unique, Toys for Bob has captured the spirit of the best games in the series and made a truly worthy sequel.

Great combat and engaging mechanics compesate for the fact that the charms and great story of its predecessor are somewhat watered out in favor of more traditional genre tropes.

This fantastic game just got even better, and there are enough changes and new touches to make it worthwhile for newcomers and veterans alike.

Fallout: New Vegas marries the best of Bethesda's open world tradition with Obsidian's excellent storytelling, writing and quest design. This is a huge and addictive role-playing game with an enormous amount of content and options for the player.

With the Nemesis system, Monolith Productions has created a living, breathing power struggle in an otherwise disappointingly empty world. It alone makes the game worth playing.

SpaceChem is an intelligent and addictive puzzler with a high difficulty level but some of the most enjoyable and satisfying puzzles I've ever experienced. This is a modern classic in the puzzle genre.

Shin Megami Tensei V offers well-known and traditional gameplay that has been modernized and refreshed exactly in the ways it needs to.

Octopath Traveler 0 is without a doubt the best game in the series, and it almost sounds strange when we consider that this is a reworked and expanded version of a mobile game. Despite that, the combat system has never been better, and the stories in this game are fantastic, and even through little pixel people they are more believable and poignant than most of the genre has offered in a long, long time. There's just one thing that really annoys me. Almost all of the music is recycled from previous games. It's amazing, and better than pretty much any other music that's come out since the first Octopath Traveler game, but still, we heard it in the first Octopath Traveler game.

Planet Coaster is more or less everything we could hope for in a roller coaster simulator. Sure, it would be great if we received a few tutorials here and there, but the fun factor is extreme, made that way by the excellent soundtrack, the city-building like strategy aspects and the gorgeous, merry (go-round) visuals.

Wasteland 3 rounds up all the good old aspects from classic PC role playing games and wraps it neatly up in a modern and updated package.

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes HD offers a battle system that focuses on patience, patterns and experience. Elements of other genres, like role playing and puzzle games, are ultimately mixed into a whole that result in a quite unique experience. The game's aesthetics are colorful and pleasant, and the engaging online battles offers hours upon hours of competitive fun.

Beyond Good & Evil HD is a visually lovely update to what many consider an ignored classic. There is much to be admired about how the heroine Jade is presented and how the game mixes a plethora of genres with some success, but the nonexistent difficulty curve and simplistic mechanics make it hard to recommend for fans of action-rpgs.

Tiny Wings is a charming, compelling and addictive sidescroller about a bird who needs help to fly due to his small wings. By pressing the screen at the right time and thus giving the bird speed, the game gives you a distinct feel of flow very rarely seen in mobile games.

Gears 5 has the worst single player campaign in the series so far. However, the multiplayer is still excellent.

I'm absolutely sure that with a few extra doses of content, this could be a dream game for racing fans. As it stands, I'm sadly just missing a bit more gameplay here to hold it all together.

Monster Hunter Tri is a fabulously engrossing game with enough meat on it's bones to last a lifetime. It's fun, exhilarating and provides one of the best cooperative experiences money can buy.

With a solid campaign, and the brilliant multiplayer which will keep you going for days on end, the Gears of War franchise is in safe hands.

Halo 5: Guardians might deliver a shaky story, but with fantastic gameplay and new abilities you've never felt more like a super soldier.

Football manager never fails to deliver, and this year's edition, though not revolutionary, has some neat changes that improve upon an already fantastic game. Ready yourself for another holiday season in front of the computer, because this game will pick you up and never let you go.

The Director's Cut of Trine 2 is not a flawed version of a good game by any means. It's just the simple fact that Trine 2 wasn't all that good to begin with. Sure, the game looks fantastic, and it's general platforming sections handle great with the trio of protagonists, but the game's remaining two thirds are majorly flawed. The combat is bland, and the riddles are disastrously bad.

A ridiculously fun action platformer with Mexico as a colorful backdrop. This indie adventure in 2D may be simple, but it successfully combines an engaging combat system with some very entertaining platform challenges.

Like its predecessor, No More Heroes 2 is a mixture of brilliant originality and dull mediocrity. It has funny writing, bizarre characters and wonderful retro mini games, but also loads of tedious and repetitive combat that goes on for way to long.

This strategy game is a real gem. It's easy to learn and play, very smart and – thanks to a really evil computer opponent – very challenging. I just wish it had a bit more content, especially in the multiplayer department, but don't let that stop you from giving it a go.

You can't help but notice that this game has a nice combination of sound and picture. Kunitsu-Gami is evocative and different, and well worth checking out for anyone missing new twists on the tower defense front.

This episode turns the story to focus on other survivors being as big a threat as the undead. You have to decide who you can trust, and make some very difficult choices along the way. The story is a lot darker and more brutal than before, which is both thrilling and horrifying.

Quotation forthcoming.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted is a hybrid that combines Criterion's long-living Burnout-franchise, i.e. fun gameplay, fast paced action and exceptional driving, with the mechanics and elements that made the original Most Wanted so great in the first place, making for one of the best racing-games this side of 2010.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided builds and improves on its predecessor in every way. More freedom of choice, better versatility in the environments and a more balanced experience. And breach adds a fun, arcade-like and action-packed experience to the game.

Technically speaking, Killzone 3 is one of the best shooters regardless console with partly success on implementing both Move and 3D. On the other hand it lacks an X-factor, a good level-design, and struggles to stand out in the genre gameplay-wise.

Although its story and world with its dark and gloomy industrial setting is interesting, its puzzle-solving and platforming elements are to easy. The game might be great for casual gamers and those who are new to the genre, but those who expected Schaefers old lunacy and absurdities, will probably be disappointed.

F1 2011 offers an very solid racing model, spectacular weather effects and is overall a highly authentic Formula One-game. A certain lack of polish in some areas prevents it from becoming a true classic, though don't let that stop you.

It's a thought-provoking and complex coda to the game that impressed us so much in 2016. But it also has something important of its own to say. And I've never heard anything like it in a computer game before.

Frostpunk is a depressing, beautiful and deeply engaging survival city-builder that forces the player to make difficult choices. The dystopian reality is wonderfully made, and you'll feel cold just staring at the in-game thermometer.

Nex Machina is an addicting stick shooter with a great core concept that keeps the player interested for a long time.

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is a technical marvel, and offers a lot of great treasure-hunting moments throughout. The characters and their dialogues are also a huge part of what makes the game work – this makes the plot quite enjoyable, despite it (and almost every other aspect of the game) being incredibly formulaic. If this is not the end, but instead a new beginning for Uncharted, I really wish Naughty Dog would make something that's way less shooter-y and way more unique going forward.

Quotation forthcoming.

Quotation forthcoming.

Dragon Quest III: HD-2D Remake is enjoyable to explore, but the endless random battles get tiring after a while.

Contre Jour ends up being -- despite some small flaws -- a good physics based iOS game. A well thought out game mechanic revolving around manipulating the terrain lies as a solid foundation, and every level completed feels like a small triumph.

Thanks to its sprawling world and plethora of engaging ways to play, Hogwarts Legacy manages to set itself apart as the best Harry Potter related game of all time.

Feels like a love letter for the series that mixes and matches the best parts from previous games, while building upon the foundation laid out by Resident Evil 7.

With Bulletstorm we're talking about a shooter that makes fun of its own genre, and games as a whole. At the same time, it's extremely funny to play. That combo is just priceless.

FTL offers almost everything one can ask of a rogue-like indie game. It's deep, it's varied, it's intense and quite frankly great fun. It's a must for everyone who wants a challenge and highly rewarding gameplay.

Fallout: New Vegas marries the best of Bethesda's open world tradition with Obsidian's excellent storytelling, writing and quest design. This is a huge and addictive role-playing game with an enormous amount of content and options for the player.

The biggest shake-up for Diablo IV since launch looks to be its best so far. Vessel of Hatred offers up a compelling story, a fun new class, and an exciting world to explore, all while sticking to the dark and gritty themes that worked so well for the main game.

Xenoblade Chronicles X is a huge game, but underneath the impressive surface is a game that could benefit from being much smaller. A potentially interesting plot is ruined by uninteresting characters, slow pacing and a bothersome gameplay structure. This should have been the game Wii U owners needed to breathe new life into their console, but it is not the game they deserve.

Saint's Row: The Third sets out with a great ambition of giving the player freedom and an arsenal of fun elements to play with. Unfortunately, though, the game still falls a bit short with a somewhat childish sense of humour and quirky game mechanics.

Gran Turismo 5 is in many ways a fantastic racing game, but it suffers from relatively severe deficiencies. The damage model is unforgivably weak, 800 of the 1000 cars are of low quality and the sound is too cheap. The handling is impeccable, however.

The improvements that have been made are very good, and it is absolutely fantastic to be able to play this classic with such beautiful graphics as what Broken Sword Reforged offers. The new character animations are night and day compared to the original, and really show how much better these are than the 3D models used in newer games.

A charming and brilliantly restored JRPG gem, with one of the genre’s most inventive combat systems and a visual style that shines even brighter in its second life.

The setting and the scope of it all is simply massive and as a pure action-adventure it does a great job. On the technical side of things it's a lot less impressive, with poor graphics and everything that comes with, but nonetheless Darksiders II is a great game.

Bringing Grim Fandango back to the land of the dead is a welcoming move. LucasArts' classic 3D adventure is still very entertaining due to the atmospheric music, the charming characters, the intense story and the unique expression. The remastered version improves the 3D models with updated graphics, but sadly this is not true for the cinematic cutscenes and all backgrounds in the game. They are identical to the original version presented in 4:3 aspect ratio and seems rather blurry compared to the 3D models.

In many ways, Thimbleweed Park is exactly as advertised: A retro adventure game, playing heavily on nostalgia, but made with modern game design principles and technology.

With a surprisingly engaging story, and a plethora of side quests and interesting characters to explore, Fallout 4 is the best open world game since Red Dead Redemption. It’s the kind of game you wait years for, only to have it exceed your expectations.

New 'n' Tasty picks up everything that was characteristic about the original PlayStation One game and improves it for a modern day audience without sacrificing its core mechanics. This results in a game that feels modern in both style and form, but still has its roots planted firmly in the past.

With an increased focus on realistic movement, FIFA 14 takes a step away from the fast paced, easy accessible gameplay that has defined the series for years. It's a harder game to get into, but way more fun when you actually do. Some slight issues with the AI is annoying, but FIFA 14 is still a guarantee for hours of football fun.

New Super Mario Bros U is a Mario game – through and through. In some ways, this is the best game in the "New"-series thus far, with well designed levels, a lengthy campaign, and a plethora of hidden secrets around every twist and turn. The game offers plenty. It's also pretty much the same game we played in 2009, with some small changes, and can at times seem superfluous.

This cozy little gem has more to offer than the sum of its parts, which are a repetitive combat system, physics challenges that are easily bruteforced and ill balanced characters. You can thank the amazing atmosphere and a great co-op campaign for that.

Sam Fisher is officially back. Blacklist may suffer from a cliched story and some finicky controls, but this is still stealth at it's absolute finest.

Control is a mysterious, exciting and intense action game that lets you hurl office equipment at twisted enemies while gliding through the air like the harbinger of death.

Overall FIFA 16 feels more like a complete package compared to earlier installments in the series. New nifty changes to the gameplay and a few fresh concepts like women’s football makes it the best FIFA game so far.