Some of its more unique spin on things do shine through, such as City management, but others like the added adventure/discovery element just get lost amongst the need to survive.

Chronicles might be a little tame in places and lack enough variety to keep you interested for long, but it has a charm I feel the other Assassin’s Creed games now lack.

The Next Big Thing, then, is not exactly what it says on the tin - but we still got plenty of laughs out of it. If you're on the prowl for a point-and-click adventure, this will easily tide you over until the next Telltale title comes knocking. Never before has a game produced a character who was so... disconcerting.

It's not quite deep enough, and the difficulty curve ramps up to an insane degree pretty quickly.

For those after a fresh twist on a near-expired genre, MicroBot offers enough action to get your heart pumping.

I like this title quite a lot. I've sunk in a pretty hefty number of hours, and I can see myself sinking in more.

With better skill progression, a better take on combat hit percentages (like, removing them and relying on other methods to determine hits), a bit more originality, and a bit less linearity, Mutant Year Zero would have been an easy recommendation to just about anyone. Still, it’s a game that I really enjoyed and hope to see future content for. If you like tactical battles, RPG mechanics, and weird universes, you should definitely check this one out.

Yes the second episode isn't anywhere near as much as a challenge as the first, featuring puzzles that you'll solve by just walking around and clicking on things, but all the choices you'll be deciding and seeing how they turn out still make The Walking Dead a delight to play – and those choices are well-implemented, causing massive changes to the group and how they react to Lee.

No Man’s Sky has very clear problems. Its mechanics are insubstantial, with the crafting and inventory management systems being a particular exercise in tedium. Yet its scale and beauty is unmatched by any other game I’ve ever seen. It does things no other game ever has. It’s tempting to call No Man’s Sky “decent, but not great,” but that undersells both the game’s successes and its failures. No Man’s Sky is incredible, awe-inspiring, and profoundly disappointing.

A great Viking game, but as far from a true Assassin’s Creed game as there could ever be.

With some more creative level design and a fully fleshed-out campaign, Star Hammer could have really been something special.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope's retina scorching vistas and fast-paced swordplay, you'll be well served.

Two Point Museum inhabits the same space as the other entries in the series, confidently maintaining approachable levels of depth. Although its campaign comprises fewer stages, they're more involved. Managing staff, finances, and exhibits comes with a good amount of familiarity. Still, I always looked forward to creating the next cultural hellscape that only vaguely resembled an actual museum and still functioned. While expeditions get old much too soon, the six exhibit themes on show alongside the oddball humor of item descriptions and radio shows do the heavy lifting, succeeding to offer enough reasons to see the campaign through and dabble in the sandbox mode. Two Point Museum continues to capture that olden Bullfrog charm expertly, but the series is starting to feel like it's not far away from belonging in a museum.

Nevertheless A Nest of Vipers ups the ante considerably and makes for a fine build-up to the finale.

It’s the best damn football game ever made, but only by a gnat’s whisker, and if anything that whisker is merely the updated seasonal player data which separates it from Pro "Evolution Soccer 5."

With a long campaign, randomly generated side missions and many cards to collect, Prime World Defenders offers fans of the Tower Defence genre a lasting and varied challenge, with new elements being added throughout.

Nobodies is one of those little games that won’t blow your mind, but is an enjoyable romp nevertheless. There’s some neat puzzles thanks to its twist on adventure game logic alongside some devious black comedy. If you can forgive some tedious puzzles at times and some glitching, this is worth your time. Just don’t be surprised if you get stumped.

Although the action in the final scenes is some of the best the title has to offer, the delivery of the narrative's closing stages is rushed and ultimately seems rather weak.

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands plays it safe, never leaning enough into its fantasy elements or bringing any significant changes to the Borderlands formula, but offering more of the fun looting and shooting the main series is known for. It boasts better writing and humor than Borderlands 3 while throwing in interesting spells and class powers that spice up its otherwise familiar combat system. Repetitive dungeons and a tedious endgame drag it down a bit, but if you’re looking to shoot dragons instead of bandits and sift through an endless stream of guns and items in search of the one that works slightly better with your build, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands has got you covered.

Much care has been taken with character, monster and environment design, so even if it is all a bit boring and repetitive, and insists on making obvious statements, it sure is pretty to look at.

In terms of bringing old-school Call of Duty up to modern standards, Call of Duty: WWII does fairly admirably, but at the same time every end of it feels like something is missing. The campaign is a tour and spectacle of the terror and intensity of the conflict as the Allies fought their way into to the Eagle’s Nest, but the forgoing of nearly all outside perspectives in favor of an all-American campaign feels narrow in comparison to previous COD outings that have tackled this subject matter. Likewise, multiplayer is as tight as ever and War mode is a solid addition that we hope to see built upon in all further Call of Duty content, but the hub feels tacked on. Zombie Mode is still Zombie Mode and fans will find a lot to discover and challenge in the new scenario, but the stark tones might put off the more lighthearted fans of the mode in its previous incarnations. COD: WWII is far from the worst of the series and players will find a wealth of well-crafted moments and design here, but a few too many oddities and omissions keep it from being the best that Call of Duty has ever offered.

Watch_Dogs 2 is definitely a good game, especially compared to the first one which was a dull game. It’s got a lot of personality, especially in terms of the cast of characters, and humour is always welcome in open world titles. The missions may generally boil down to “go somewhere, sneak past/shoot guards, hack something, get out” but they cover fun subjects and are never less than entertaining. Nevertheless the online side is aggravating as all hell, the controls aren’t quite receptive enough particularly when driving or shooting, and being able to kill loads of people doesn’t really jive with the DedSec ethos.

A decent choice for any PS3 owners looking to get off the sofa this Christmas.

The plot is bland and often corny, but the gameplay is mostly solid and enjoyable.

The plot is bland and often corny, but the gameplay is mostly solid and enjoyable.

All in all, Conquistadors is a pretty solid game – the New World is full of wonder and danger, and there’s just enough RPG in the mix to make you feel like a real explorer, dealing with realistic problems.

It's an old school platformer, in a macabre horror world populated with tricks, traps and freakish foes. The difficulty of the game veers between perfectly pitched and pretty damn frustrating, marring the experience somewhat for those of us lacking the heightened reflexes of a supernatural monstrosity. Despite that, it's a finely crafted package worth experiencing for fans of the genre and those craving a challenge.

South of Midnight’s strong story and presentation make the most of its overlooked mythology and oft-forgotten setting, but don’t embark on this journey looking for top-tier action-adventure game design.