As a sequel to one of the most impressive games of its era, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was weighed down by expectations. But Insomniac Games has turned these expectations on their head, spinning a Spider-story that brims with confidence, style, and most importantly – an essential human touch.

While overtly silly and over-the-top at times, Detective Pikachu Returns effectively balances its light with its extreme darks, wielding its cuteness as a tool to tell an impactful and fairly relevant tale about corruption, felt throughout various cases.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage is a great stealth fantasy game, with a fantastic setting you want to just simmer in, and a pace that gently but consistently pulls you through interesting missions you find yourself eager to tackle. Its focused scope gives you the breathing room to invest more interest and care in the makeup and history of the world, along with the plights of its characters, and leaves you feeling content with the time you spent in it. This is how all Assassin’s Creed games should be.

Mineko’s Night Market is a carefully considered, cosy life sim, with an intriguing, low-stakes narrative and plenty of familiar activities to keep you busy. It might not sound groundbreaking on paper, but it delivers on everything it promises, offering a felicitous, feline-filled escape from your troubles.

The Crew Motorfest is a strong, kitchen-sink arcade racer that executes evocative racing and car culture experiences without actually requiring the level of pressure, know-how, or commitment to fully enjoy them. The feeling of being able to quickly and easily jump in and enjoy the sights, sounds, and different flavours of vehicular action is a boon all on its own.

Mortal Kombat 1 has proven itself to be continually compelling throughout its early access and launch period, a remarkably refined and confident instalment of a series that had already secured its strong identity long ago. The story campaign is an entertaining rollercoaster ride, its foundational fighting mechanics remain strong, and the game’s focus on wide-ranging approachability and accessibility in service of broadening the fighting game community must be applauded.

In a time when absolutely massive blockbuster RPGs are sucking up all the oxygen in the room, Wandering Sword stands out as an amazing independent RPG that crushes every goal it sets out to achieve. Small issues aside, its easy to become besotted with its all-encompassing world; a huge recurring cast of fantastic characters blossom amongst a beautifully woven tale of loss, growth, strength, history and consequence. Wrap that up in moreish combat and wonderfully interlocking RPG systems, and it feels like a modern classic.

While it leans heavily on spy genre tropes, and appears to be determined to separate itself from the wilder, futuristic ideas of its base game counterpart by focussing on more familiar, socially relevant political themes, Phantom Liberty is a compelling, cinematic story that expands the world of Cyberpunk 2077.

Lies of P is a sublime Souls-like experience that has studied every lesson taught by the genre, and then iterated on them all. It’s an earnest, existential, but optimistic take on an old classic fairy tale, in a nightmarish world that’s a dream to play in.

While the whole affair is over in a blink, the moreish adventure of this DLC, the first part of a larger story titled The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero, pushes you along with confidence. Short, sharp, and energetic, this is a DLC chapter with high stakes, and equally high reward.

Between its major beats, and the classical adventure of the protagonist, brought to life in such beautiful noir shades, Gunbrella is an adventure with a real sense of vigour. Its narrative remains gripping, even in its weaker beats, and paints an evocative picture of a dark world that isn’t so different from our own.

While it’s content to build on the past, rather than completely innovate the cosy sim genre, Fae Farm establishes firm foundations, and presents a neat twist on familiar gameplay.

It's the static and mechanical elements of Starfield that shine the brightest – the art, the environments, the combat systems. They make up the strong foundations of a playset with a very intriguing scenario. But you need to mentally meet Starfield partway to complete its vision of a vast, living universe. You need to stretch out the expanse and envision the journey. You need to look past the menus and form the fantasy. You need to help breathe life into its paper dolls. You need to add your own dash of wonder, and imagine your own unknowns. Truly, Starfield is a role-playing game, through and through.

It’s everything something like this should be: A painstaking historical record of inspired creation that is engrossing in its sheer detail, and arranged in such a way that it tells a fascinating, approachable story that inspires you to know more, and do more.

Getting into the groove and feeling the rhythm with your whole body is brain-tickling. It’s an absolute joy. With my arms burning, Break Free complete, I felt like I’d accomplished something. While the other game modes in Samba de Amigo: Party Central are slightly less compelling, in that many are routine and eventually devolve to repetition, on the strength of StreamiGo!, this spin-off is a strong entry in the rhythm game genre.

Armored Core 6 is an unsympathetic and cold-blooded game. It's a cup of bitter, black coffee – and thankfully, that suits my palate perfectly. It's full of moments that make you feel very powerful – in both effortless and hard-fought ways – and moments that make you very, very small. In the face of it all, you're pushed to overcome the impossible. And you'll come out on the other end wearing an exhausted, wry smile.

That an expensive-looking crowd-pleaser tries several new things feels like a small, welcome miracle, but maybe that’s overthinking it. What you want out of a blockbuster is a chance to go with the flow, let yourself get pushed to the edge of your seat for a few hours, and walk out with your blood pressure up a notch and a smile on your face. Immortals of Aveum does all that very well.

En Garde! is a perfect little capsule of engaging action, a well-refined aesthetic, and appealing characters. Like an expert duelist, it doesn’t waste a single strike.

Baldur's Gate 3 is a glorious, shape-shifting RPG epic boasting compelling plots, and a gorgeous world.

The first time you’re given the chance to surf down a sand-covered mountain in Atlas Fallen, it’s invigorating. You immediately want to do it again, and you can. Anywhere there is sand, you can surf, and slide, and leap great distances while admiring the stunning horizon. A moment like that doesn’t exist for the game’s combat. And when lacklustre combat makes up the bulk of Atlas Fallen’s loop, it makes it that much harder to work up the motivation to continue exploring everything else the world has to offer.

Stray Gods might not have told me how to get over a quarter-life crisis – unless I can turn into a God sometime soon – but it was an enchanting, emotionally affecting journey nonetheless. Diving into the lore, grappling with complicated decisions and then finally seeing the mysteries of modernised mythology unravel before me was a welcome distraction from my usual pattern of pondering my existence. What’s more, the surprising use of contemporary music genres led me to reconsider my reluctance towards musicals entirely. Perhaps there’s more about my mindset to reconsider, given how my time here is much shorter than that of the Idols.

Venba’s portrayal of the complex diasporic family dynamic is spot-on. It’s a perfect portrait of the challenges and wistfulness that come with trying to live a life while being torn between two completely different cultures. I’d like to think that Venba is ultimately a hopeful narrative in the end, an emotional, cathartic celebration of it all. But whatever the interpretation, Venba is an essential depiction of the immigrant experience.

Hello Kitty Island Adventure presents strong reasons to return daily, with story hooks, moreish quests, and fun bite-sized puzzles to romp through. It struggles to retain the excitement of its opening pace in later-stage gameplay, where quests become more reliant on higher, more difficult-to-obtain friendship levels – but beyond this foible, it maintains a warm and wholesome charm that should keep fans of cosy adventure games enthralled.

Disney Illusion Island is a sleek platformer aided by loveable characters, and a pristine animated world.

It’s a great escape to the ‘wild west’ countryside, but one without significant bells and whistles.

Pikmin 4 exhibits the most demanding and multifaceted use of the series mechanics yet, with several situations and game modes that push your ability to strategically think and plan ahead under pressure. Pikmin 4 deftly accomplishes several things: staying true to the challenge and identity of the Pikmin series while expanding its ideas, making its concepts and obstacles more approachable, and simply being a beautiful and charming realisation of the Pikmin world.

There’s a kind of scrappy, desperate feeling to a firefight in Jagged Alliance 3. Hits to the arms reduce accuracy, and damage to the legs impedes movement. Cover can be destroyed. Losing line-of-sight allows your merc to re-enter Sneak Mode and return to surprise the enemy. Saving a couple of AP to drop into a prone position at the end of a turn can be the difference between seeing the next turn or bleeding out. Yet, despite all this tactical granularity, the successful play is often a matter of running around the cover the enemy is hiding behind and shooting them in the back. Assuming you don’t miss, of course.

Viewfinder is a short and sharp exploration of a strong concept that builds an unimposing space to play with those ideas, and fosters a mild, continual hum of gratification as you go on that journey. A pleasant exercise in gently massaging your brain synapses, it’s like a brisk refreshment that leaves you feeling slightly more satisfied when you’re done.