With gorgeous visuals, inventive puzzles, and a fresh creative take on the platformer genre, Max: The Curse of Brotherhood is a welcome addition to the Xbox arsenal.

With Lumines: Electronic Symphony, the series grows and expands in ways that render prior games as more spin-offs than true sequels. It reinvents itself for a new medium and showcases Sony's new handheld, just as its predecessor managed in 2005. Mark our words: you will remember why you loved this game so much.

Buy it, finish it, love it, because if this takes off we’re going to see a renaissance of new-old games. And if that happens, a whole new batch of gamers will grow up learning why rock-solid gameplay, not tera-flipping flop-bib shaders, make games truly exceptional.

Graphics, gameplay, atmosphere, all-important multiplayer... Rainbow Six Vegas gets pretty much everything right. It even shines on the little details, like wind whistling through a freshly shattered window or jackpot coins spilling out over a freshly bagged terrorist.

Hunters is strictly for the hardcore, bloodthirsty gamers who live for fragfests. Moving Metroid from a slow-paced adventure to a nail-biting wrecking ball of explosions was a risky trick, but damn did it ever work.

While some elements of its design feel antiquated, stunning changes made to Metroid Prime's visual design, performance, and controls are enough to breathe new life into one of the greatest video games of all-time. Whether this is your first journey to Talon IV or a return trip, Metroid Prime Remastered is well worth your time and attention.

To be sure, NCAA Football 10 is less about major on-field adjustments, and more about expanding the game’s universe. An ambitious list of new options headlines this year’s effort, and most are welcome additions that’ll make you think twice before trading it in the day Madden hits stores.

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit brings back that sense of wonder we all felt when we cracked open our first video game and realised there was another world behind the screen. Only now that other world is in our living rooms.

An enormous amount of top-drawer content for $29.99, and newcomers may rightly mistake it for a full blown sequel. Highly recommended.

With spectacular comic book presentation, some of the most chaotic action in any game ever and sufficient technical depth to keep even ultra hardcore fight fans happy, this is the impossible - a worthy successor to Marvel vs Capcom 2.

While some classic arcade games (like old episodes of the "Thundercats" cartoon) are more fit for reminiscence than actual play, Time Pilot proves that what was mind-blowingly awesome back in the day can still detonate brains just as well now.

The perfect platformer. It's proof that the 2D side-scrolling formula still holds up after all these years. The characters are fun and quirky, the story is weird and loose, and the game as a whole is a pleasure to play. If you were waiting for this year's "must-have" app from DSiware, look no further.

The World Ends With You is an amazing marriage of style and gameplay. The dual screen combat further stretches what the DS can achieve in gaming that is far from a lame gimmick.

Whether it's through the broad strokes of the brilliantly judged puzzling and flawless control or via the delicate flecks which make up the finer detail – try playing around with the background scenery to see just how much Enril can mess about with – the sheer joy of playing LostWinds is undeniable.

While we’ve got a small list of complaints – you get no instant replays, pitches are tough to pick up in Home Run pinball, and the commentary gets repetitive really quickly – they don’t really impact the overall awesomeness that is The BIGS 2. In fact, it’s our favorite baseball game of the season, even if it’s really just an action game dressed up in pinstripes.

PS4’s biggest sports exclusive delivers a moonshot home run, thanks to perfectly balanced fundamentals, astonishingly lifelike presentation, and little details that few rivals – past or present – have come close to getting right.

Marvel Snap is a wonderfully intuitive card game that is simple to play, easy to learn, and satisfying to master. Games may take just six minutes to play, but there's a depth of strategy and breadth of variance here that is truly awesome.

This 15-30 hours of gameplay is a must-play for anyone, even if you didn't finish the main game.

As a complete package, Dance Central 3 is the best dance game yet. Whether you want to boogie with a bunch of friends or perfect your routines in single-player, Harmonix has hooked you up with plenty of gratifying options. This may not be the end-all-be-all of motion-controlled movin' and groovin', but it once again gives the Kinect a glorious, life-of-the-party purpose.

Unravel’s appeal goes far beyond pretty levels. Beautiful, poignant and with an iron grip on your heart, Yarny manages to effortlessly deliver a wonderful platformer and a bittersweet message.

The improved Master League mode is a godsend, adding substance to the package and complementing the excellent gameplay. With the advanced collision system, Konami has done in a year what EA has been trying to perfect since FIFA 12. The added physicality and increased number of animations has done wonders for the gameplay. The introduction of an excellent edit mode (see ‘edit it up’ for more details) to the PS4 version even makes the usual lack of licenses a relative non-issue.

343 Industries' Halo 4 establishes itself not as "the next" Halo game, or "another sequel," but instead opts to be a new beginning for the franchise--one with more commitment to its characters. It's refreshing to see the series admit its shortcomings and catch up with its contemporaries without sacrificing what makes it unique, and that's just what Halo 4 does, creating a name for itself without relying on its popularity, and getting us excited to start, continue, and one day finish the fight all over again.

A fantastic game. It approaches puzzle solving in a very open-ended manner that increases the game's replay value dramatically and the overall novelty from the first title continues to entertain in this sequel with the new adjectives system.

Renegade Squadron scores for being a great game that offers hours of satisfying multiplayer, while simultaneously using its license to its fullest potential and improving over its predecessor.

Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty is the culmination of CD Projekt Red's efforts to right the wrongs of a challenging launch, with this premium expansion combining with Update 2.0 for a total revitalization of Night City. This is Cyberpunk 2077 at its best, and with the price of entry this low you've got no excuse not to dive back in.

It's deserving of your time and your money despite its length. But more importantly, it's deserving of the name 'Sonic The Hedgehog 4'. That was always going to be this game's biggest challenge, but it's succeeded with aplomb.

A dark and twisted piece of playable horror fiction that delivers a memorable story.

NHL 11 continues to dominate the sports landscape. It's a no-brainer must-have for any modern sports gamer, whether you can successfully discuss the nuances of the Left Wing Lock or can barely name a couple of players on your favorite team. There's enough here for everyone to have a blast.