One the one hand what’s already here is enjoyable and compelling, for the comparatively short amount of time it’ll take you to play through it, but the promise of more makes me feel like Shadowrun Returns is only going to grow in value as time goes on. If the players really latch onto the capabilities of the editor, it’s going to be an incredible rich offering, and one that could theoretically never stop giving.

These additional modes are a lot of fun, providing as they do bite-size portions of Pikmin action that you can enjoy with a friend, and definitely give you a reason to keep coming back to the game. But honestly, the campaign has so many nooks and crannies to explore and hidden fruit and data files to find that once you’ve reached the end of the story you’ll want to jump back in straight away.

It’s the videogame equivalent of a firework show: you’ll marvel at the pyrotechnics, but while your eyes and ears are in for a treat, there’s little here to engage your brain.

There are worse ways to spend a weekend than playing through your own trashy western novel. [Issue#136, p.119]

A safe bet for those who missed it the first time around. [Issue#136, p.116]

It's certainly fun while it lasts. [Issue#136, p.113]

A few hours ambling around this vapid environment is far too long. [Issue#136, p.113]

Heavy on parlour tricks but lacking any real substance. [Issue#136, p.112]

It is hilariously awkward to control. [Issue#136, p.111]

It's a game that just keeps giving, even as it tears your life from you. [Issue#136, p.110]

The stealth mechanics are so pure. [Issue#136, p.110]

This is the best way to experience Revelations, but it's too indecisive about its approach and not nearly polished enough to work its way into the must-play category for entrenched Resi fans. [Issue#136, p.109]

It's a meaty, gratifying dose of excess that refuses to pander to subtlety. [Issue#136, p.108]

A distinctly Japanese curio that will find a moderate audience, but certainly not the console-defining experience the PS Vita is still desperately searching for. [Issue#136, p.104]

Represents the best version of Animal Crossing to date. [Issue#136, p.102]

What’s most aggravating about Remember Me is that there’s a weapons-grade masterpiece buried somewhere inside it, and for all of its many flaws, it’s still difficult not to root for it.

Be prepared to get occasionally frustrated by a rather limited solo experience. [Issue#136, p.98]

Very ambitious, but we’d urge them to concentrate on the game; with poor matchmaking, few maps, overly simple game modes and a limited free game, players might not stick around. And that would be a shame.

It’s the relationships that really make The Last Of Us. It’s a technical marvel, a true triple-A with best-in-show production values, but it’s the beautiful combination of performance and story that elevates it clearly above the competition.

So is it enough for Grid 2 to just be a great racing game? For many of you, yes. But it’d be remiss of us to not to point out that the game doesn’t really push either Codemasters or the racing genre in any particularly new direction, and from such a talented developer that’s a shame. There’s plenty of content to get through and on a mechanical level it is the perfect blend of arcade and simulation, but we need a little more to make it a must-have racer.

An unpretentious, sharp-edged thrill of a skill-based shooter. And we haven't said that in quite some time. [Issue#135, p.123]

It's a slow starter, then, but you'll struggle to find a game this year that offers quite so much as Terraria. [Issue#135, p.122]

It's the epitome of an average game and one of the most disappointing 3DS releases of recent times. [Issue#135, p.121]

It’s easy enough to ignore the terrible story and get on with what Defiance does best: letting you bask in the glory of marauding through a vast open world with an army of players sitting (silently) by your side.

Online play, pleasingly, holds up its end of the bargain. [Issue#135, p.118]

The surprisingly lengthy co-op mode does not experience this fatigue, and coupled with the replayability of the other multiplayer options means there's a lot of fun to be had. [Issue#135, p.117]

At once unforgivably terrible and accidentally brilliant, Deadly Premonition remains a gaming anomaly. And no amount of directorial cutting is going to change that. [Issue#135, p.115]

While an enjoyable story awaits the dedicated, many will struggle to move past the uninspired design, repetitive puzzles and simplified combat that makes up the bulk of the game's content. [Issue#135, p.113]

At its core, this is the same game we've played before. [Issue#135, p.112]

Riptide is full of the juddering frame-rate, buggy environments and unwieldy frame-rate, buggy environments and unwieldy collision detection that plagued its predecessor; it makes it feel and handle like a very long piece of DLC. [Issue#135, p.110]

It's as if the developer simply ceased to care, or ran out of time, or both. Who knows? What we do know is that Terminal Velocity has crafted something truly loathsome and undeserving of its heritage. [Issue#135, p.108]

As an entry into a series that has failed to realise its potential, this is safe and dare we say it, also a bit boring. [Issue#135, p.106]

There's a good fighting game here, one that'll support drunken post-pub scraps as well as tournament play, but Injustice: Gods Among Us doesn't quite match up to its stellar NetherRealm predecessor. [Issue#135, p.104]

4A Games wear its influences on its sleeve, creating a first-person shooter of robust standard. Yet it gives little consideration to progression – in both terms of furthering either the genre or its own formula. Many of the mechanics that have survived the original game return stripped back in a misguided attempt to placate complexity criticisms, rather than exploring methods that retain strategy and heighten the overall immersion.

It’s not the best 2D adventure to be found on PlayStation systems, but it’s a wonderful example of Sony’s dedication to bringing new and independent experiences to the hands of its gamers.

It is a game that has been crafted with care, love and attention and is the perfect antidote to the usual mainstream fare of guns, graphics and gore.

Persevere beyond the obfuscation and awkwardness of the opening act and everything begins to click into place: your finely-tuned vessel becomes a labour of pride, and deliberating how best to distribute tokens rewarded post-conflicts – the in-game currency used to build, staff and upgrade facilities – becomes genuinely involving.

While a few technical hiccups do occasionally spoil the party – there’s a touch of latency in the jumping controls and the odd little bug that makes matters a touch confusing – there’s so little to fault in Bithell’s striking debut. This is a game to admire, to enjoy and evangelise; a thoroughly English slice of indie magic that is every bit as accomplished as anything with a budget and a team. If this truly is the year of the indie, then long may it continue.

As the game shifts from its early crew introductions, it’s obvious that the layers of game mechanics underlying the experience are either incompetent or awkwardly implemented. For instance, stealth is required in a handful of missions, but the act of navigating between cover is frustratingly cumbersome, occasionally exacerbated by your partner claiming the next vital protection point.

Fire Emblem: Awakening is as good as anything Nintendo has produced in the last five years, and as such is very, very special indeed.

Year Walk is also presented in a linear visual fashion that, though it is used effectively, creates a repetitive and – if you’re able to rush past its puzzles – rather short experience. But none of this should take away from what is a monumental and truly frightening game that packs more innovation and ideas into the horror genre than we’ve seen from ‘traditional’ games for some time.

Gears Of War: Judgment comes across as an enjoyable stopgap in a series that seems unsure where it’s supposed to go next. This is more of the same with a few new features thrown in for good measure. But when the same equates to arguably the best cover-based shooter on the market, it’s hard to be too judgemental.

Next Level has found a way to return gamers to the world of Luigi’s Mansion in a way that manages to retain its predecessor’s charm, one that doesn’t take the technical and mechanical aspects for granted. More perfectly than they could have hoped, Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon fully executes Nintendo’s original vision.

Infinite is as lavish as it is cerebral, as difficult as it is accessible. It’ll be many different things to many different people, and it will be discussed, dissected and deified for many years to come...So, when will gaming have its Citizen Kane moment? Forget that. When will anything else have its BioShock Infinite moment?

Psycho aside, it’s hard to be engaged by the narrative, and not only because it’s standard sci-fi fodder. Blatant clues as to the story’s direction mean most players will have pieced together the plot’s deeper mysteries long before they are formerly unveiled. Meanwhile, optional audio logs that dig deeper into the lore can only be played via a static menu screen, necessitating a break from the action to listen to a minute or two of laboured exposition.

With Sony so laser-focused on the multiplayer component since Ascension was announced, we were understandably worried that the single-player side of things may end up a rote retread of old ground. But we’ve never been so happy to be proven wrong, and from its gorgeous visual and evolved combat to its lavish presentation and tight pacing, this is arguably the best God Of War yet.

Initially some of the decisions surrounding SimCity’s mechanics may seem frustrating, especially for diehard fans of the series, but give it time and you’ll realise – in spite of all of this – this is actually the best SimCity game yet.

There’s an awful lot to like about Tomb Raider. It takes the gameplay Uncharted has used to such great effect (which was, of course, nicked from Tomb Raider in the first place), and replaces wise-cracking gentleman-thief Nathan Drake with this new damaged Lara Croft, one of the most involving characters seen in a computer game to date.

For all the development trouble, for all the doubts, for all the talk about what Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance could have been – it’s now a Platinum game and it sparkles with the same confidence and verve it would have done had Kojima been at the helm. It’s an absolute joy to play and is almost certainly the best Metal Gear gen released this gen.

Certainly, many of Colonial Marines’ flaws could have been excusable back in the early days of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but now, when every title is polished to a near excruciating level of quality, it just doesn’t cut it.

Omerta will certainly keep you occupied for long periods of time, but only if you’re punishing your attention span. The world itself is quick to drop you into the 1920’s experience, but never amounts to anything more than a lifeless shell. Factor in some embarrassing voice acting, painful writing and a reluctance for Omerta to ever truly let itself go wild with its concepts, and all you’ll left with is a hollow time consuming experience.

The handful of boss fights in Dead Space 3 are particularly forgettable, while the narrative occasionally lacks the courage of its convictions and the end-game reveal is a little too ludicrous to take seriously. However, where the new concepts work, they add to the solid core and are enhanced by Visceral’s excellent pacing and its impeccable audio and visual design work, not to mention what remains the best HUD design in all of video games.

Once the realisation hits that the game not only requires the bear minimum to progress, but subconsciously encourages it, it begins to take much of the fun away.

Broadly speaking, this is the same game we've played before on PS2, but the addition of fresh personae and social links, and the sheer range of activities available at any one time did much to dissipate our expected fatigue.

A thoroughly compelling strategy game. Quirky too, playing to the video game retro-chic and tongue-in-cheek humour that's popular especially among XBLA and digital games today. Despite the slightly overblown frills, there's plenty of depth to Skulls Of The Shogun that will instantly engage any type of strategy gamer.

Though an overall shallow affair, Marvel Avengers: Battle For Earth displays lot more polish, flair and finesse than your average movie tie-in title, but like those Skrull impostors, it can't escape its true, uglier nature for too long.

At once entertaining, frustrating, beautiful and fleeting, The Cave is way better in concept than execution. And as much as it has going for it, some poor design decisions mean that frustration and boredom will quickly get rid of players that would otherwise have lapped this up.

It's impossible not to want more, though. It's delicious. Coming as it does from two creative teams at the top of their respective fields, we expect nothing less. And it's expectations such as these that harm Ni No Kuni most of all – were it not for the near impeccable track records that cut through gloriously in the game's opening hours, the rest of it would shine far brighter than it does when eclipsed by that initial exciting explosion of potential.

Combat is razor-sharp and stuffed with combo potential, just as you'd expect from a Devil May Cry game.

Monolith has done great work in crafting a control scheme that feels completely without compromise and entirely suited to console, and has designed an accessible, familiar and extremely deep MOBA with the just as much panache as the games it imitates.

The final moments are phenomenally powerful. It would be criminal to spoil any of this stirring and heartwrenching story, but this is a heady combination of artful writing and innate knowledge of the power of videogames to draw players into a character. It achieves things that passive artforms cannot. Jake Rodkin and Sean Vanaman have established themselves as game writers at the height of their powers, and The Walking Dead is unquestionably one of the videogames of the year.

Just as unique and innovative as the original ever was, and now's the time to get involved. There's something special here, you just need to look underneath all the copies of Call Of Duty to find it.

Declassified is a sorry way to end 14 years of coding history at Nihilistic. The kindest thing you can say about it is that it's a reasonably authentic facsimile of the Call Of Duty blueprint, yet it feels like the work of an artist who is painstakingly tracing a masterpiece but lacks the craft to replicate the magical that made the original so attractive in the first place.

Far Cry 3's plot is a bit silly and inconsistent, its AI a bit dumb and predictable, and the world works in a suspiciously similar way to Assassins Creed, but it's great fun. And perhaps even more importantly, these days, when as gamers we're so often left feeling short-changed, it's also overwhelmingly fantastic value for money.

The sheer amount of content on offer is certain to please fans, as well as those who want to smash bricks or solve rudimentary puzzles, and to experience whatever amount of crossover there is between them. Lego LOTR's authenticity is matched only by the amount of content on offer, and is a must for those who love the films or play regularly with younger gamers.

It's a compelling return to form, featuring some of the series' most well crafted, inviting and testing stages, and while much has changed in the six-year interim, you'll be pleased to hear that Agent 47 hasn't.

Mario's Wii U debut will no doubt attract the usual detractors and jaded observers, but there's more to this than rigid routine. It just all depends on what you want from it.

When the game works, it's one of the finest party games on offer, but Nintendo's confusion in what it wants to achieve with the Wii U GamePad results in an erratic compilation short on hits

Fallblox is an intoxicating blend of the familiar and the new, every bit as essential as Pullblox, and a further reminder that Intelligent Systems remains one of the most aptly named developers in the business.

Although it would have been nicer to see Nintendo pick one of two directions rather than offer something that perches on the fence between platforming thrills and RPG depth, Sticker Star is nonetheless a beautiful and eventually engrossing adventure, once it hits its stride.

Nostalgia can be an intoxicating thing, but in the case of this iPad outing it's simply not powerful enough to overcome the boredom borne of run-of-the-mill design. Eternia? More like eternally dull.

Media Molecule's sense of pure creation sits perfectly with the karting genre and we'd even go as far to say that players will find it easier to be both player and creator here than they would in the previous games. Just don't expect to find Mario looking over his shoulder anytime soon.

While Ubisoft's commitment to the struggling Vita format is to be applauded – the console is in dire need of exclusives of this calibre – Assassin's Creed III: Liberation lacks the lavish quality of its big-screen relatives. Hardcore fans will not doubt be more forgiving and will quite rightly warm to the game's feisty heroine, but she deserves a better vehicle than this to showcase her talents.

It's not a horror experience. There are attempts to slap on some kind of Silent Hill-esque story to everything, but it's utterly worthless. Silent Hill: Book Of Memories is a shallow dungeon-crawler, with even the likes of Dungeon Hunter: Alliance providing more fun. It is, in short, a failure; not the sort of thing we want from Silent Hill, nor the sort of thing we want for the Vita.

The question many will ask, ultimately, is how Halo 4 stacks up against its predecessors, and in truth it's hard to answer at this time. It'll take multiple runs through the campaign, hours and hours more multiplayer, and swaths of Spartan Ops mission to truly understand how good Halo 4 is. There's one answer we can say with certainty, though: this is absolutely a Halo game. And that's all that most fans would ever need to hear.

You could argue that the crashes don't match the drama of the chase, the camera angles often failing to relay the complete destruction of your vehicle. The handling might feel a little too forced towards the arcade side of things and perhaps some players will feel that they've played this game already thanks to the many hours they put into Burnout Paradise. But there's no denying that Criterion is the master of its craft, and Most Wanted is its biggest and best effort yet.

It's indicative of Ubisoft's approach, so wary of the player discovering their own enjoyment, or missing key information, that it so fervently handholds through what should be its most spectacular moments. At times this reduces entire chapters to tediously long treks between cut-scenes, a lot of which feel like less than worthwhile narrative additions. It's an odd occurrence of a game giving and taking away in equal measure.

What hurts most about Liberation Maiden, however, is that just when it feels like it's getting interesting, with a stage that's basically one epic, shifting boss battle, it unexpectedly screeches to a halt, reminding you that you've bought what was originally one quarter of a bigger game.

There's a reason you'll finish it in a day: because you won't be able to tear yourself away.

While Retro City Rampage does make several missteps, it manages to get so many things right. The end result is a fitting tribute to the halcyon days of gaming and an entertaining game in its own right.

Fable: The Journey only has Kinect, and once again it's too unresponsive, too fiddly and too annoying to carve a genuinely enjoyable experience out of Albion. Whether Fable: The Journey was a labour of love or a contractual obligation matters little; when all's said and done the only thing that matters is that this feels like another nail in the coffin for this generation's version of Kinect – and perhaps even its last.

And the reason it's so easy to ignore the faults – so easy to shrug off falling off a ladder again – is because there's joy in taking on an entire platoon of troops as a goatee-sporting nerd. There's joy in taking on situations and knowing they aren't scripted half to death. There's joy in scamming your way through a puzzle by pretty much breaking the game.

Swing as it might between different genres and gameplay styles, Wrath Of The Dead Rabbit never dips below brilliant. An inventive and entertaining big-budget debut for Arkedo, and one that confirms its ability to deliver both on the indie scene and the main stage.

For its soaring highs and captivating hits alone though, Dishonored comes as an easy recommendation. With the Thief franchise stuck in a lab somewhere having numbers spliced into its title and Deus Ex still on the naughty step after those boss battles, Arkane has come good with arguably this generation's finest stealth title and a game so lovingly crafted that it begs to be played.

It's a worthy and far more appropriate reboot of the franchise, easily the most addictive game this year, and one of our favourite Firaxis games ever.

On the whole, Worms Revolution proves that there's life in the old worm yet, its enhancements giving the franchise a fresh set of… uh… legs? The revolution will not be televised, unless you've got Worms.

It's a good-looking DS game as well, slick new presentation and more emphasis on cut-scenes and 3D visuals making this an obvious transitional title on the series' inevitable march towards the 3DS.

Whether you've somehow never played a Pokémon game, you've only recently dived in or you've been around since the start, the vast world of Unova welcomes you equally.

There are moments in Resident Evil 6 that peak as high as the very best games in Resident Evil history, but there are so many more that settle for mediocrity or much, much worse. With a nip and tuck this could have been something very special indeed. Instead, it's a great little Leon campaign with a hell of a lot of content that you should consider a worthwhile but extremely flawed bonus.

Rock Band and Guitar Hero already have the party attitude, but Rocksmith needs to try harder to master this untapped school music teacher approach.

It'd take the most hardcore of fighting fans to put together an argument that this wasn't a decent fighter at its core and they'd struggle even harder to claim that it wasn't at least entertaining. On a base level, though, it's business as usual. It's a beat-'em-up loaded with increasingly damp and dirty scantily clad ladies whose breasts defy physics and one that has an Achievement for watching every questionably shot, moist, groaning defeat pose.

With an entire ark full of animals on offer and a chapter-based story mode to dive into as well, there's a constantly evolving roster to play around with. It might be bonkers in its concept, but in execution Tokyo Jungle is solid, addictive and best of all, different.

How does PES 2013 compare to FIFA 13? It's still very much an apples to oranges comparison, even with PES 2013 finally matching its long-term rival. FIFA excels in control, presentation and licenses while PES 2013 has depth, unpredictability and speed.

It's very slick, enormous fun, continually dynamic, and more than any other MMO it brings the genre closer to the ideal of a fantasy world filled with hundreds of players in which just about anyone can lose themselves. That sentiment, as much as anything else, makes it well worth playing.

We also take some issue with Borderlands 2's sense of humour. While it's welcome, it draws so frequently on up-to-the-minute memes that it becomes hard to remain immersed in an experience supposedly taking place in the distant future, on a remote planet, and among people who have no reason to understand the significance of an arrow in the knee. Most of it's just not that funny.

Like illustrious forebears in the score attack/total frustration genre, Joe Danger: The Movie will annoy as much as it delights. Don't be fooled by the cutesy graphics and sound; Hello Games wants you dead and the levels it built are happy to oblige.

The closest the fighting genre has come to recapturing the spirit of ye olde classic Capcom vs SNK 2, in that this feels aimed directly at the hearts of fans rather than at their wallets. It's the closest any series has come to a 'best of' album, and is a fitting tribute to the legacy of the series thus far.

Home is a must play. Its brevity matches its ambition - it's a game everyone should play, if only to see what's possible with a creative vision and stringent commitment to atmosphere. It's not the scariest, the smartest or the most ambitious game you'll ever experience, but it's also one you're very unlikely to regret. [Issue#125, p.105]