The gameplay is occasionally wonky, some of the more elaborate storytelling devices don’t land, and Sam is (deliberately) unlikable. However, Twin Mirror has a powerful story and it puts you in direct control of where it leads. If you play your narrative adventures for the narrative, Twin Mirror has the plotline for you.

Everybody's Golf doesn't do anything particularly new or revolutionary, but it does what it does very well indeed.

Quite a few of the later puzzles rely on reaction times alongside forward planning, and since they’re often bigger than those earlier in the game, it’s far more frustrating to have to restart because of a mistimed jump-and-switch or accidental misfire. For the first few hours, however, Hue’s puzzles are concise, inventive, and surprising. For that, at this price, Hue is an experiment worth experiencing.

Despite its heavy themes, the game exudes fondness for the region it depicts. Wind whips across sandy beaches, chippies host late-night chats between friends, and Kasio gazes at stars through a broken roof while a house party rages below. Gaelic and local slang pepper the dialogue, alongside a helpful glossary. The sense of place, strength of writing, evocative art and elegant interactions make If Found … a moving drama, beautifully capturing the growing pains of early adulthood.

With a real-life rule-change next year due to change the cars radically, Formula One currently feels like it’s at a generational peak, and F1 25 is so brilliantly crafted and full of elements that generate an irresistible mix of nailed-on realism and fantasy that it, too, feels like the culmination of a generation of officially licensed Formula One games. F1 25? Peak F1.

It might look slight, but there are hours of schemes, conversations and grisly deaths tucked away in this game. Broadening your choice of rulers takes some time, and even the same situations play out differently when Tyrion is in charge rather than Sansa, especially when you’re playing in character. It’s great fun to step into the unenviable position of Ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, and a far more enjoyable way to pass the time until the HBO series’ conclusion than combing through the books again for clues.

Pretty much an essential purchase for any self-respecting petrol-head, and a lot more compelling and enticing than those who don't dream about lap times might imagine. If he played it (it's not easy to imagine him sat in front of a games console), Bernie Ecclestone would surely approve.

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.

The archeologist’s earliest adventures show their age in more ways than one, but this revival preserves enough of the games’ treasured elements to keep purists happy.

The crime scenes are so weird that you never know where this game is going to take you, but you’ll always have what you need to figure it out.

This is a perfect weekend game: cheerful, fun, challenging but not too demanding. It successfully recreates the atmosphere and sense of adventure of the 90s 2D action-adventures that inspired it, and occasionally betters them.

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.

F1 24 is really all about how its clever incorporation of real drivers into the career mode throws up an endless number of possibilities – just like the real sport hopefully will for the rest of this season and beyond.

Link’s Awakening is a fantastic remake of a game that was fantastic in 1993. Fans must decide for themselves if those two things combine to make it a fantastic game in 2019 – particularly when the glorious Cadence of Hyrule is also on the Switch to scratch the itch you may have for 2D Zelda – and at a third of the price.

A genuinely likable new lead and intense attention to the mythology of the Star Wars films made this a nostalgic thrill.

The game's tall difficulty belies its accessible aesthetic: make no mistake, this is a far more demanding proposition than its Pikmin cousin. And yet, these are the hallmarks that make Platinum's output some of the most exciting work in contemporary video games: scruffy invention in a playpen that allows for player mastery. In the midst of this riot of ideas and unrefined energy we can perceive some of the Wii U system's idiosyncratic wonder.

Like many of Nintendo’s best-loved franchises, Luigi’s Mansion 3 is imaginative, humorous and highly inventive. It may be nearly two decades old but the series continues to evolve in pleasing ways.

It goes without saying that, yet again, Sports Interactive has released the best football management sim ever. It's just very hard work at times.

A slickly produced, well constructed military shooter filled with thrilling set-pieces and moments of fraught tension. It’s also a good run-and-gun online shooter, which wants to bring something fresh to the way online team-based competition works in this genre but isn’t quite there yet – new maps will inevitably follow.

It’ll be tempting to reach for your phone and start looking for a solution when you get stuck in Tunic, but resist the impulse if you can. Just … be stuck for a while. The resultant wandering and thinking will lead you somewhere unexpected, and before you know it you’ll have found the way forward by yourself. It feels like a luxury to play a game that isn’t constantly prodding you towards the next objective, and that instead allows you the space to daydream.

For button-mashers and hardcore smashers alike.

In its juxtaposition of abstract puzzles with domestic-scale storytelling, Maquette is more familiar, following the tradition of indie games that link high-concept puzzle-solving with romantic introspection. Like the relationship it maps, the game is at its most elegant and pleasing in the early stages, when its challenges are clearly stated and simply solved. Even so, the creative possibilities of this Russian doll world seem to extend beyond this brief, delightful exploration.

Sunless Skies doesn’t paint an entirely convincing picture of interplanetary travel. Your locomotive, for instance, sails between points on a flat surface, giving it the feel of seafaring with a cosmic paint job. But better to compromise there than in style, imagination and atmosphere. Sunless Skies has that in spades.

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.

It might be made of papercraft, but Origami King has a lot of structural integrity, and unexpected depth. If you don’t fold at the tricky battle mechanics, the reward is an elevated, postmodern delight.

Fable's greatest problem is that it sets such high standards in some areas that the gaps elsewhere seem all the more noticeable.

Those new to Borderlands will find some aspects confusing at first – Borderlands 3 is minimal when it comes to tutorials – but if they persist, they will end up luxuriating in the joyous, tongue-in-cheek, comic book-influenced fun it provides. Sure, it fails to turn the franchise into something new and futuristic in gameplay terms. But why would it, when its original conception was already immaculate?

But much of Dead Space 2's impressive scariness derives from more mundane devices, such as vents that unexpectedly blast you with steam, and gloriously chilling music, lighting and sound effects.