Black Ops 6 is the best title in the series for years. It’s still a maniacal first-person shootfest that many players will absolutely detest; no critics of games that glorify the military-industrial complex are going to be converted at this stage. The design team, though, knows its audience and serves them accordingly while doing just enough to move things forward and try some intriguing little segues. I would happily play a whole game in which I could customise the flamboyant safe house to make it more comfortable for my cute little family of spec-ops sociopaths; I would play a whole survival horror adventure set in the world that Emergence concocts. Nothing in this series has ever lingered with me as long as the nuclear bomb explosion in Call of Duty 4 – but these violent delights, I feel, have staying power.

Like Sim City and Civilization before it, it is a sandbox that not only facilitates but also actively nurtures experimentation and creativity. That is much more rare than it sounds, and so much more valuable.

Revelations remains as resolutely rock hard to play as ever, with an emphasis on slow forward motion that makes the 3DS's spongy analogue pad feel all the more frustrating.

It will only take a couple of evenings to reach the game’s corker of an ending, and Verity’s arc is supremely satisfying, as she goes from put-upon victim to master manipulator. Here, the public-school system serves mainly as a way to ingrain inequality, normalise bullying and encourage ruthlessness, and the only way to succeed is to beat the bastards at their own game. When the system is so rotten, what choice do you have?

If you've played a GTA game before, you'll know precisely what to expect gameplay-wise from Saints Row The Third, and that in itself is a major recommendation in a GTA-free year.

The cult 3DS game has been refreshed for smartphones and the combination of card game and horse racing is as weird and addictive as ever.

It’s a simple statement that’s both endearing and heartbreaking. It hints at the thousand real-life moments of grief and joy that served as inspiration for this game. That emotional weight shines through, making Rime a thoroughly rewarding experience.

EA has shown a desire to create a more welcoming Madden for beginners, which is admirable and works as newbies can learn advanced techniques by playing the game rather than studying a manual. Just make sure you don’t leave the stabilisers on for too long. Let the real fun begin.

Those with a less all-consuming enthusiasm for all things on four wheels will find it provides more frustration than enjoyment.

An accomplished but rather tedious and macabre game.

As a complete package, Fifa 15 still rules the roost. But where it matters – on the pitch – PES 2015 is far superior.

Like the real sport, it’s about perseverance and repetition: when the combos started to flow again for me after a few hours, it felt so freeing. I still don’t think there’s a better skating game out there than old-school Tony Hawk’s, even after all this time – and there’s certainly no better time capsule of this pivotal moment in the history of the sport.

If this is your first Fifa game on the new gen consoles then you will be blown away by all the little details that together contribute to an overall experience not too dissimilar to watching football on live television. If you owned Fifa 14 on Xbox One or PS3, Fifa 15 is still a significant upgrade, though maybe not the revolutionary product that it was built up to be.

This short collection of small moments manages to cover a wide range of powerfully relatable emotional highs and lows, beautifully capturing what it’s like to fall in love for the first time.

As Exodus’ story draws to a close and the pace picks up, the world becomes narrower and more directed, and a final chapter takes players to the most dangerous Metro location yet. Here Exodus exposes you to the full horror of the apocalypse, as the experience takes on a surreal, otherworldly quality. It’s an excellent conclusion – haunting, frightening, and desperately sad. Yet even in this dead and desolate place, faint embers of hope still linger.

It is populated with characters reminiscent of Jhonen Vasquez’s illustrations, combined with a gothic and botanical bestiary that calls Hollow Knight to mind. The writing, though, is sparse and unsettling, not quite void of humour but nor silly in the way one might expect. The overall effect is darkly, fascinatingly cute: mall-goth meets folk horror, and the perfect set dressing for elegant, sharp gameplay. Cult of the Lamb has already amassed over a million sales in the first week of its crusade, for good reason. There’s little doubt that the flock will only continue to grow.

Dragon Age 2 has its flaws, but none of them are big enough to obscure the vast, absorbing whole of the game. This Hawke the slayer is definitely not rubbish.

Where many games work to put players in a constant state of distraction, rushing around in an often vain attempt to see everything they offer, Hitman 2 has the confidence to let you stand still, to sample the wine and drink in the atmosphere as you plan your next tiny-yet-devastating move. Indeed, no other action game encourages players to think about how to minimise their violence, and for that alone Hitman 2 stands out among the less mindful killing of its peers.

With so much emphasis on art and audio, there was always a risk of style over substance. But the almost hypnotic blend of rhythmic tapping and gliding create a compelling flow state experience – at least that’s when you manage to master it.

Throughout its running-time, Requiem treads a fine line between poignant and absurd, balancing heartbreaking scenes in which Hugo wrestles with burdens no child should ever bear, with action sequences where you must flee from literal tsunamis of rats. But even at its most ridiculous, Requiem is always earnest in its ideas. Ultimately, it’s a game about living with incurable illness, the constant daily struggle, the threat of outside circumstances making it worse, the importance of hope, and the sad truth that, sometimes, there is none to be had.

Above all, Death Stranding is a sermon on the importance of belief. The power of putting one foot in front of another when hope looks lost, in the belief that things will get better. By working together, a series of small intentional steps can make a difference, and in this often fractured, angry and confusing world; that’s as hopeful as it gets.

It would have been wonderful to see this team’s giant imagination expressed through the subversion of, rather than adherence to, well-worn puzzle platform conventions, but perhaps that is just plain greedy. It is, after all, such a treat to find a gorgeous narrative game that owes nothing to the culturally prevalent aesthetics of Disney, Marvel or Studio Ghibli. While the puzzle construction at the heart of Creaks is formulaic, that should not be a disincentive to give this short, singular experience a try. No time with an Amanita Design game is ever wasted.

Is this the Pro Evo to convince Fifa fans to switch? No. Is it an improvement on the last couple of years' PES incarnations? Yes. Will I be loving it and hating it and still playing it until PES 2014 comes out? Absolutely.

Despite its non-verbal nature (brilliant environmental details, sound design and music tell the story in place of words), Little Nightmares 2 is thought-provoking, tackling the potentially corrupting nature of what is beamed into our homes. If you were to nitpick, you could say that there’s little motivation to revisit the game once it’s run its course – but this gothic nightmare is a delight to inhabit.

It’s as though Remedy challenged itself to cram every preposterous paranormal concept it could think of into a single game. But remarkably, it all manages to hang together, providing a meaty, exciting and utterly unforgettable video game experience.

Death of the Outsider successfully sees out one of its most intriguing lead characters and one of its most powerful villains in a worthwhile adventure. Across six or so hours, this standalone indulgence doesn’t add much truly new, instead relying on tweaks of its existing formula . But it delivers strong missions and an excuse to continue skulking around this fabulous and hugely atmospheric world.

It's a mighty fine game – for my money, the best in the Halo franchise – that deserves to accumulate a cult following. Microsoft should be applauded for having the balls (and the money) to exhume it in such a magnificent manner.

Here is an exquisite gem, the brightest in Ueda’s enviable clutch.