And while it doesn't have the universal appeal of its more mainstream counterparts, the potential of its online feature means it could well become a huge sleeper success.

A bright, shining gem of a game.

If anything, this fictionalised version of his life is less dramatic than the reality, but it’s a lively and surprising comedy that portrays a weird slice of Shakespeare’s London with modern wit.

With X-COM, Firaxis took a punishing, impenetrable strategy game and made it slick, cool and thrilling; a dynamic sci-fi beast with muscular jaws. Phoenix Point has double the number of teeth but a less effective bite. The devil may be in the detail, but the drama is in the edit. Phoenix Point feels like it’s a draft short of greatness.

But it’s all just so damn charming. The animations are superb, and zooming right down into the city to watch your robot citizens go about their business never seems to grow old. The move tool means that the perfect city is always within your grasp, inviting endless adjustments in the quest for maximum efficiency. It’s easy to lose hours in reverie, tending to your steambots’ needs. Who else is going to keep them supplied with roboburgers?

With rewards for completing each stage within a set number of moves, there are incentives for perfecting your approach too. But the game’s tutorials linger well into the game’s 40-hour runtime, and combined with a bland storyline, basic environments and a persistently low challenge, it’s a game that will only appeal to the series’ most committed followers.

You leave this stylish, compact and clever game feeling relieved to be free, but then an hour later as you sit at your computer answering endless work emails or grinding in some identikit live-service fantasy game, you have to ask yourself – am I really?

There's more mileage in a Tamagotchi, and one of them would never ask you to shame yourself by acting out "play dead" on the living room floor.

Despite a messy start, this spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead becomes more challenging and characterful the longer you spend with it.

While the music and gameplay have evolved with the times, in terms of narrative, Scott Pilgrim EX plays it way too safe. Though written by series creator Bryan Lee O’Malley, there’s none of the edge that secured Scott Pilgrim its original cult following. Our cast have, for the most part, worked out their differences. There’s no David v Goliath here, no antagonist that forces Scott and his pals to grow amid the messiness of bad relationships. Scott’s other friends appear in fun cameos and cat-meos, but the story is a silly, shallow adventure that feels like a side quest, the kind of game Scott would stay up all night playing before missing his shift at work.

Strangely, for all the noise Savage Planet makes, its strongest moments are its quietest. There’s an element of silent theatre to the way your character communicates his goofy personality through his hands, while the world design is spotted with pleasing flourishes, such as trees bearing foliage that transforms into butterflies. In the end, it’s little touches like this, rather than the more in-your-face moments, that lend Savage Planet the dash of flavour it spends so much energy searching for.

Cris Tales isn’t without some endemic role-playing game frustrations – grinding, uneven difficulty, overly simple puzzles – and it’s not a landmark revitalisation. But it exudes so much authentic passion and character that it’s easy to forgive a few relics from the past.

Phantom Doctrine may find an enthusiastic audience with strategy-game masochists. It is complex and open-ended; there are multiple ways to finish missions, and they’re are not always about taking out targets. But it’s also punishing and opaque, poorly explained and hampered by a flummoxing plot. For most of us, it’s a confused and very niche experience.

Despite the enjoyable premise and high production values, Peach’s long-awaited star turn feels disappointingly patronising, one-dimensional and forgettable – the polar opposite of the Super Mario Bros film’s capable heroine. As the Nintendo Switch enters its twilight years, this was the perfect moment to give the Mushroom Kingdom monarch the celebration she so thoroughly deserved. Yet where Kirby received a Mario-worthy, Iliad-esque epic in Forgotten Land, this is more akin to a flimsy pop-up book.

This horror game creates great atmosphere with its acting and visual design, but is regularly brought to its knees by uninspiring gameplay.

The Ascent is an atmospheric power fantasy, a cinematic cyberpunk escape where you can disengage your brain and indulge in copious virtual violence. If you’re a Game Pass subscriber, it’s worth a try – at £25, it’s harder to recommend.

As a fitness regime, Just Dance ranks a fair way above the execrable Zumba game, and it cannily offers its own Latin-style workout.

A zombie scenario which is entirely plausible and believable and that, in itself, takes Dying Light to a higher plane, reaching toward the role-playing depth of State of Decay and the sheer nastiness of DayZ. Factor in the giant sandbox of a huge city, and the end result is a scarily immersive experience.

Despite its tongue-in-cheek nature, Tokyo Jungle is a superb game. It feels quite unlike anything else (the best description of it would be a stealth-action-survival-RPG), it's laugh-out-loud funny and incredibly moreish.

Sadly, games that aspire to be cinematic will inevitably draw comparisons with film, and Virginia is a narrative game without a memorable narrative. But its goals were admirable and hopefully other developers will experiment further with this format.

The game presents a formidable challenge, and most players should begin at the easiest difficulty level, where the laser bullets fall like a shower rather than hail, and you have a modest stock of lives that replenish between each of the game’s seven lingering stages. It is, at times, repetitious, and Cygni’s novel systems will no doubt prove divisive among the genre’s dedicated and often conservative followers. But for those who approach with an open mind and dextrous fingers, it remains a thrilling vision.

BPM is a brash, earwormy delight, aimed at the heads of Doom fans and lapsed Guitar Heroes alike.

Rivals is crammed with Stan Lee superheroes, but its message – about the total and utter Funko-Pop-ification of games – is as bleak as a Charles Burns graphic novel.

It’s also a shame that we see none of the main game’s focus on player creativity. Between each level you’re returned to your training camp where you can buy new items and practise with fresh weapons, and it would have been a nice touch to be able to build your own little castle there. But as a retro-tinged hack-and-slash jaunt with plenty of Mojang character and humour, Minecraft Dungeons is a hugely diverting treat that’ll provide hours of fun for locked-down families.

There's a certain sense of familiarity to it all, but there are enough new notes to keep the faithful glued.

This is a distinctive, appealing example of the JRPG genre that also nails the essence of the One Piece universe. Fans from both worlds will adore it, and I found it to be a perfect appetiser as I await The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom later this year.

It’s hard to make the case that its knife fights and shootouts are anything more than functional, and its missions feel slightly too straightforward to befit a franchise once known for its sublime changes of pace. But even with those caveats in mind, it’s still absolutely worth playing for the richness of its setting, and the infectious enthusiasm it has for its grim subject matter.

There's no doubt that [it] is far and away the best PlayStation 4 launch title. It feels fresh and innovative throughout – after playing it, we checked out Call of Duty: Ghosts on the PS4, which felt one-dimensional and strangely old-fashioned – looks stunning and through its beautifully fettled multiplayer side, offers infinite replay value. It towers above previous versions of Killzone in terms of quality and taking a much more interesting approach.

If you have young children and want to share with them the thrill of driving across a wild, fantastical landscape, crashing into stuff and getting constant positive feedback, this would be a smart investment. It is a game with a lot of heart, made by developers who clearly understand how to make kids smile while they play.

It’s a landscape worth visiting, nonetheless. Okomotive’s games are the antithesis of open world blockbusters – see that mountain? You can’t go there – and their geography is all the more sublime for being non-traversable. Rather than routine video game empowerment, Changing Tides offers mindful deprivation in a ravaged world where even the concept of a haven must move with the flow.

The new DLC contains a couple of mechanical flaws, its story feels undercooked at times and, because this is a Bethesda game, it is by no means bug-free. But if you already own a copy of Skyrim, buying Dawnguard isn't so much a good decision to make as it is a no-brainer.

Stalker 2 is a strange, brave and sometimes broken paean to resistance in the face of overwhelming odds. It is utterly uncompromising in its vision, often to a fault, and envelopes you in its dark spell of science, violence and chaos. Certainly, if you loved Dragon’s Dogma 2, which similarly edged towards self-parody with its offbeat systems, eccentric characters and overall jankiness, you will cope fine with this game’s technical and narrative inconsistencies. Indeed, like the stalkers that inhabit its damaged world, you may shrug, improvise, and carry on. If you thought developers weren’t making vast, outlandish, utterly singular open-world games any more, you were wrong: they are. And some of them have been through hell to do it.

When everything is in place, this might turn out to be the best first-person shooter around. It’s frustrating that we’ll have to wait until at least March 2019 for that to happen.

It's not their best film-themed moment, but Lego Pirates of the Caribbean is still a hugely enjoyable, family-pleasing diversion.

Not everyone is looking for a game like Outriders, and if wooden dialogue and sci-fi cliches – it’s all commanders with eye patches and mad scientists – are not your thing, there’s no shame in that. But if you’re the type of player who reached a flow state in Doom Eternal, or speaks wistfully of Diablo, or perhaps remembers the rhythmic gunnery of Bizarre Creations’ The Club, Outriders will speak to you.

Like the sport itself, it is modest, yet dignified.

There’s much to enjoy in this sequel to the trailblazing female-led narrative game, but inconsistent characterisation lets it down.

This kind of bubble-popping was brilliant fun in the Bust-a-Move and Puzzle Bobble games, and King has done a much better job second time round in translating it to modern touchscreens. No squinting required.

With the sweetness and delight associated with Disney absent, this new platform game is a strangely cynical waste of potential.

Arcade Paradise comes across as a little confused, sometimes: if the premise of the game is that you’re running an arcade in your father’s laundromat in secret, for instance, then why is your dad the one paying you bonuses for those daily gaming challenges? It has the feel of a game that changed shape a few times over the course of its development. Nonetheless, it is more than a collection of average arcade game tributes. Intentionally or not, it captures something of the ennui of young adulthood and 90s Gen X disillusionment with menial work – and how video games have always been a colourful escape from the boredom of everyday life.

Dead Island 2 will amuse you for days with its stylish vision of a zombified LA, but it’s also limited in scope, and with skill systems that feel shallow and impersonal it won’t hang around long enough to achieve superstardom. The fact is, Dead Island 2 is one of 2014’s best zombie beat-’em-ups – it’s just a pity we’re in 2023.

Comfort would increasingly slip into boredom as I watched the timers on my machines creep down. More than once I left my PC to make a cup of tea, letting the game run and the timers tick by themselves. I could feel the game’s pacing jarring with my own tempo of play, but, despite that, I’m constantly drawn back to Portia. This kind of relaxing escapism is exactly what’s needed when the real world feels like such an endless mess.

If The Crush House had simply been a smart and funny photography and cinematography game, I would have been satisfied and pleased – but it offers the player far more than that. Underneath the snappy text and playful design, it has a weird heart, too. It’s worth noting that the review build still had moments of glitchiness – however the strength of the idea and execution far outweighs any of the technical struggles. This in itself is remarkable: The Crush House is so much fun that even the slightly broken parts didn’t make me want to turn it off. It’s a fantastic way to spend the last few chill nights of summer – and the seasons coming up, too.

Its only drawback is a somewhat unhelpful camera – a typical failing for platform games – although it seems to be at its worst in the earlier stages. Overall, though, Epic Mickey proves satisfyingly original, fun and absorbing – it's a pleasant, and at times interestingly twisted world in which to immerse yourself.

At its core, Rugby Challenge is what rugby fans have been waiting for; this is a game made by rugby fans for rugby fans. RWC 2011 is a decent, knockaround sports game but genuine rugby fans will find Rugby Challenge a far more worthwhile investment.

What the game loses by not having had a Rare/Nintendo-sized QA department to smooth its rough edges it compensates for with a princely pile of ideas, and a lovely control scheme that only improves with elaboration.

Rage 2 suffers the same fate as many other open-world games. It tries to lure the player in with the size of its world, then needs to conjure an abundance of content to fill it. But, when you mix up every colour, you always end up with brown, and the impact of Rage 2’s scintillating shooter action is dulled as a result.

Its look and feel when you actually play a match is more akin to what you would expect to find on the Xbox 360 or PS3. Which is mightily impressive – the only compromises that PES makes in order to fit onto the 3DS affect the least important aspects of the game.

While the game’s style is like a Homeric epic seen through the panel of a comic book, the soundtrack of melancholic twanging guitar complicates the theme to something new and unexpected, a kind of undead western. It’s slickly compelling stuff, if repetitive after a few hours and, invariably, punitive. Yes, in West of Dead, death is an inconvenience rather than a sentence, but it’s one that is often delivered quickly and without reprieve, which makes selecting a “New Run” a little bit harder with each cruel setback.

Just like a certain big budget Activision sci-fi shooter, Battlefront is simply the opening skirmish in an ever-expanding galactic conflict. Star Wars fans: it is your Destiny.

Like Ash’s “improvised surgery” with a chainsaw, the multiplayer is surprisingly deep. Unlocking new powers and abilities for Survivors and the three varieties of Demon continually opens up fresh horror possibilities, and the player community is already making the most of the nefariousness on offer. It’s fittingly rough around the edges, but Evil Dead: The Game is a surprisingly worthwhile cabin retreat.

Despite its repetition and frustrations, I warmed to this grainy, gore-soaked journey after the tedious early hours. Thanks to a smattering of player choices, the game offers just enough of a hint at player agency to make you feel involved in the narrative, too, giving Trek to Yomi’s surrealist slaughter a sense of purpose. There’s a strong argument that a Japanese-made attempt at this genre would come closer to doing the samurai fantasy justice, but as with the many Japanese takes on virtual America, there’s a schlocky charm to Yomi’s tropey inauthenticity nonetheless.

Close Quarters has a nice balance of new geography, modes and tactics but not enough to really excite.

With gruesome visuals and a shameless B-movie narrative, this Nazi-bashing survival game offers little more than mindless mayhem – but that’s what we enlisted for.

Inspired by the 1967 Windscale fire, Rebellion’s open-world adventure features an interesting mystery, but suffers from middling combat, poor stealth and an underutilised setting.

What's this? A movie tie-in game that's actually good?

There are still moments when you unfairly plummet from first to sixth in three seconds, but that frustration is as much a part of this genre as cartoonish platforming heroes looking for a lucrative side gig. Just go with the flow.

Uncover a grim conspiracy and sweet-talk snooty bears in this genre-hopping indie game.

The Forest Quartet left me feeling hopeful about the future. It’s a story about the resilience of the human spirit, the healing power of music and the profound, unshakeable impact that art can have on the world.

As it stands, while highly enjoyable, it’s strictly for fans. Hopefully they waited for both parts to be available: the decision to split it remains pig-headed and it undoubtedly works best as a coherent whole. Still, if you played and enjoyed part one, this is an admirable conclusion to a loveable series.

None of these sports would be enough to sustain a game alone, but together, and paired with Nintendo’s charming and slick aesthetic and brain-infesting music, they are the makings of a good time.

This is a well-made Avatar game. If you’re fond of the James Cameron films, then you’re in for a real treat, while even Avatar apostates will probably find something to enjoy amid Pandora’s dense undergrowth. But there are better examples of this form, and if you’re not all-in on the Na’vi way of life, you’ll be gritting your teeth through their tedious stories.

Whatever your pleasure, Fifa 21 is off to a strong start. If you’ve played Fifa in the last few years, you’ll have no trouble picking it up and scoring for fun, and if you want to dig deeper, there’s a ton of new stuff to learn and the endless siren call of regular Ultimate Team events to keep you coming back, even in the absence of any massive new features. Football has been hard to enjoy in 2020, but Fifa 21 certainly makes it easier.

Romeo Is a Dead Man is certainly not predictable. It’s capable of getting a baffled smile out of you, and its anti-gaming-establishment attitude will have diehard fans searching for an irony-drenched reason to celebrate it. But where No More Heroes’ simplistic yarn kept the fights flowing and the jokes rolling, Romeo Is a Dead Man’s sprawl feels disappointingly directionless. Instead of coming together as a kitschy universe-spanning epic, this sci-fi story is sadly told with all the mastery of a rambling drunk in Wetherspoons.

Whether your guests’ stay is pleasant or not rarely makes a difference, so the management elements feel like stepping stones to the story Bear and Breakfast actually wants to tell. Hank is a sweet Bear and his friends are memorable enough, but in its storytelling the game seems to introduce and abandon characters for long periods of time. It is a simulation that requires patience in a genre that usually gives players loads to do – it’s a management game that’s obsessed with managing its players, rather than letting them exercise control.

Experiences such as this don’t come along very often: Mr Coo pulls from disparate influences that other games haven’t already done to death, and bobs along on a dream logic that makes sense while you play and then evaporates immediately after. Why did stealing a coin from that one-eyed lady end up giving you a sword to slay a many-eyed crocodile? And how did you end up inside that egg with an unborn chick? It matters not. They are vivid memories now, the kind your brain will randomly turn over, decades down the line when you are trying to get to sleep.

While No Fate doesn’t move the needle for Terminator games as much as I’d like, it succeeds in resetting the clock for the series’ interactive arm. It’s a pointed reminder that Terminator has gaming greatness within it.

In the end a faithful MotoGP sim will probably have limited appeal to those not already interested in the sport, but those who do give it a try should find plenty here to keep them entertained.

With Rise of Iron, Bungie has finally learned what the Destiny fanbase actually wants, and seems on its way to giving it to them. Now it needs to work out how to convince others that they need to be in the Destiny fanbase in the first place. That task, I think, is one that this latest, and last, update might struggle with.

It all adds up to a feeling of becoming enmeshed, slowly but surely, in a little community – one that you become familiar with and part of, even if the moment-to-moment interactions can feel a little shallow. Marvelous also seem to have finally nailed the technical performance for their remakes, too, especially on the Switch, with fast load times and little to no slowdown even with loads of animals on screen. It’s not going to be a game for everyone, but if you can meet A Wonderful Life on its terms, you’ll find a lot to love in its slow-paced, small-town gait.

There's a great live version of Paranoid featuring both Ozzy and Metallica, but the basic track has been used before – suggesting that without innovation in other departments, the series is simply running out of guitar styles to ape.

This is Tobe Hooper’s putrid amoral universe in film perfectly replicated as an interactive terror ride.

The PS Vita controls, while feeling shoehorned in the proceedings, are not deal-breakers overall. Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus is still a fantastic game, and whether you're a newcomer or a long-time fan of the series, this is an essential purchase for PS Vita owners.

Call of Duty: Vanguard is the video game equivalent of an old war film that you’ve seen many times before, but still enjoy watching with a feeling of nostalgic comfort that armed conflict perhaps should not provide. It won’t set the world alight, but gives you the opportunity to blow a lot of it up – which is, after all, what we want from this series.

Those who have enjoyed Dead or Alive games in the past will love Dead or Alive 6 – it looks and feels like it always did, but with state-of-the-art graphics and engine technology. Unfortunately, the fact that it has also preserved the tone of its predecessors will limit its appeal.

Respect is due to Sony for figuring out how to turn Augmented Reality from an interesting tech-demo into something that makes commercial sense, and feels truly original.

Never Alone is quite a short game, but its charm, coupled with the opportunity to explore a culture you might not know much about, makes it utterly captivating.

If you’re old enough, if you love Nintendo enough and if you have enough friends who fall into both categories, Miitomo is an inventive and fun, first mobile app for the company. Everyone else? The wait will continue for Nintendo to make some more ambitious mobile games based on its most-loved brands.

Smashing two dimensions together should be the stuff of ambitious prog-rock albums, but Infinite seems determined to steer towards the middle of the road.

Here, Game Freak draws up an exciting new open-world blueprint for the Pokémon franchise, but appears to have lacked the time and knowhow to deliver it to spec. Compare this with June’s gorgeous Xenoblade Chronicles 3, which runs on the same console, and it’s hard to shake the feeling that you’re beta testing an open-world Pokémon. With more time in the oven, this could have been genuinely exciting. As it stands, this fun-filled adventure asks you to put up with an awful lot more of the rough than the smooth.

Like Katamari Damacy, Wattam is a feast of visual gags and imagination. But Takahashi’s newest project ultimately doesn’t have the necessary depth of gameplay to transform itself into more than a silly yet loveable romp.

MGO’s fundamentals are great, and the experience it can create in the best modes is nothing short of exceptional. But these are high points in what is otherwise a polished but meagre offering, a multiplayer mode that feels lacking in depth and longevity. MGSV’s singleplayer saw Kojima Productions over-deliver and leave with a bang. In such company, the LA studio’s MGO is little more than a whimper.

Traditional it may be but Divinity 2 Dragon Knight Saga is an excellent RPG that is up there with the very best on the Xbox 360.

Nintendogs + Cats isn't massively different from its predecessor, but its subtle enhancements mean it will prove even more irresistible to dog and now cat lovers, and that it towers in an even more colossal manner over other pet sims, no matter what their platform.

There are plenty of co-op shooters on the market, and some intriguing titles on the way (Sons of the Forest, Gotham Knights, Redfall), but Extraction has military gadgets, dank horror and heart-stopping stealth, and those are qualities that, although not original, make for a heck of a game.

Nintendogs + Cats isn't massively different from its predecessor, but its subtle enhancements mean it will prove even more irresistible to dog and now cat lovers, and that it towers in an even more colossal manner over other pet sims, no matter what their platform.

This is a nicely contained couple of hours filled with fully aware daft fun. If you go into the game knowing that, you'll find dark slapstick humour that's worth persisting with.

The presentation in WWE 12 isn't exactly brilliant. Facially, the superstars look pretty close to their real-life counterparts, but their skin has the texture of store mannequins.

A complicated beast, and easy to write off as a money grab for this lucrative new market created by Skylanders. However, see the game in the hands on young players and the different pieces fit together coherently.

Without the drive of something new and promising on the horizon, the daily grind just doesn’t have that one-more-go appeal that is key to the farming-sim experience. There have been big improvements to the game’s presentation and accessibility, and it remains warm, cheerful and inviting, but between the technical issues and the aimless design it’s difficult to recommend highly – even if it’s better than the newer Harvest Moon games.

Even with abilities that are steadily upgraded as you progress, The Amazing Spider-Man never feels quite as precise as you might wish thanks largely to quicktime instructions that come too thick and fast for the timed responses.

Here, Game Freak draws up an exciting new open-world blueprint for the Pokémon franchise, but appears to have lacked the time and knowhow to deliver it to spec. Compare this with June’s gorgeous Xenoblade Chronicles 3, which runs on the same console, and it’s hard to shake the feeling that you’re beta testing an open-world Pokémon. With more time in the oven, this could have been genuinely exciting. As it stands, this fun-filled adventure asks you to put up with an awful lot more of the rough than the smooth.

Nintendogs + Cats isn't massively different from its predecessor, but its subtle enhancements mean it will prove even more irresistible to dog and now cat lovers, and that it towers in an even more colossal manner over other pet sims, no matter what their platform.

It’s a bit fiddly on your phone, but guiding Soviet cosmonaut Ivan through lush jungles and forgotten cities is still a lot of fun.

If you value polish and smoothness in your games above all else, you'd be best advised to steer clear of Dead Island. But if you crave wickedly satisfying zombie-dismemberment, a full, deliciously time-wasting RPG experience and a depiction of a zombie infestation which rings surprisingly true, Dead Island should float your boat.

Days Gone is a derivative but enjoyable action-adventure with a beautiful environment, using AI and physics to create exciting moments of procedural entertainment. But its familiar tale of mankind struggling to re-create society after the end of the world and its romantic through-line are haphazardly structured and under-written, and the characters are too busy calling each other sons of bitches and assholes to say or do anything moving, original or profound. This is a game of fun and fury – it’s thrilling at times, but it signifies nothing.

There is hope and reconciliation here, but A Memoir Blue is primarily a tragic depiction of a person who has convinced themselves – or who has been convinced – that attainment is necessary for love. The story is fragile and a little simple but, like publisher Annapurna Interactive’s 2018 game Florence, it succeeds in creating a mood of compelling melancholy, heightened by Joel Corelitz’s exquisite soundtrack. And while A Memoir Blue feels deeply personal, it achieves that miraculous narrative trick of making the specific universally approachable.

This peaceful circuit is perfect for the kind of person who tries to observe traffic laws when playing Grand Theft Auto.