Perhaps those overpriced but desirable toys will turn more people’s attention towards this delightful game.

Nioh may at first appear to be a clone of the Dark Souls series, but the game confidently strides away from these comparisons, bringing new aspects such as the fast-paced combat, KI Pulse system and the scarcity of ammunition to the proven formula. The fantasy elements have deep, meaningful connections to the history of Japan, and the world feels securely rooted in a fast-paced, flourishing combat system, which more than makes up for the extremely unpredictable, frustrating nature of the boss battles throughout.

Serious puzzlers will plough through the levels in a matter of hours (although there's some family-pleasing, inter-generational mileage in the two player option) but, for the price, it's hard to grumble. It's also hard to grumble about any game that can leave such a big, goofy smile on your face.

First time out, it scored four out of five, mostly for originality. This time round it scores the same purely for gameplay. That's definitely a (pin-striped ostrich) step forward.

Falls just short of perfection, then, but it is, nevertheless, an amazing game, which will confound those who persist in tarring games with the brush of mindlessness. The future it presents may be worryingly dystopian, but by God, it's fun to explore on the safe environment of your console.

There’s so much happening during the action that you learn to focus on the centre of the screen, relying on reflexes and peripheral vision to take it all in simultaneously as the scene explodes. Saros asks a lot of you – you’ll strafe until your thumbs hurt – but it taps into something primal, pulling you into a flow state where even a screen full of flaming orbs spat by towering hostile aliens no longer seems that big a deal.

There are a lot of players who'll miss the structure, the atmosphere and unique quirks of the original. But Digital Extremes deserves credit for delivering an action-packed shooter that balances its mixture of gunplay and superpowers far better than its predecessor ever did – even if those powers will inevitably conspire to turn the game's protagonist into a monster and wreck his entire life.

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.

The Japanese RPG may have suffered heavy blows at the hands of Western RPGs such as Skyrim and Fable, but The Last Story does much to demonstrate there's still life and innovation in the form. That this game should come from one of the genre's progenitors is testament to a creative spark that still fires even after all these years.

It's a blissful, beautiful thing to play.

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.

As home fitness products go, it's certainly one of the best. It's absorbing, interesting and fun in parts, and if you're the sort of person who gets a kick out of medals, points and progress reports then you'll certainly enjoy the framework it offers. But if you're looking for a fun Kinect game with a getting-fit side-effect, or a comprehensive exercise routine with serious results, Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 is not quite there.

Mewgenics is built to fill every moment you’re willing to give it.

Calling it a simulation doesn't quite feel right, but this captures the look and action of a football match better than anything else I've played.

Resident Evil 3 doesn’t quite hit the heights achieved by last year’s reworking of Resident Evil 2 – it fails to gloss over the shortcomings of its forebear. But it is still a well thought-out and nicely executed modern refresh of a survival horror classic – and welcome slab of (almost) escapism to enliven our current house-bound lives.

One's enjoyment of Dead Space 3 depends on how much one is prepared to surrender to Visceral's new vision for their horror IP. If you're after a rollicking action title that provides countless opportunities to blast away at slavering monsters, Dead Space 3 could well be one of the most exciting titles you play all year. But if you're one of the Dead Space faithful who was seduced by this series' ability to deliver a survival horror experience shot through with moments of white-knuckled terror, be warned: Dead Space 3 has left that terrain and doesn't look set to return to it any time soon.

Infinite Wealth takes a few curious steps backward, but it gets so much right and once again dedicates itself to goofiness with such aplomb that it’s impossible not to get swept up in it – a true vacation from the darkness and drama of yakuza life.

The game's difference-maker is entirely on the pitch – that new movement system. In multiplayer especially, where the absence of an all-knowing AI sees imperfect humans make repeated mistakes, it leads to slightly clumsier, boggier, slower matches. All the same, the change is only incremental, and doesn't ruin the game by any means.

It’s not cheap, and will undoubtedly result in ongoing spending as more content is released, but there is a lot of play value here for fans of the films as well as the younger audience.

While wildly ornate, Autonauts is in equal parts playful, welcoming and charming. It is comparable to the cute farming sim Stardew Valley, yet it is very much its own game. And in the taste it gives you of thinking like a creative coder, it is in its own quiet way empowering and exciting.

The emotional core of the game remains the interdependency between you and the Pikmin, and the sense of responsibility and gratitude that you feel towards them. Walking through my local park after playing it for a day, I felt that if I crouched down under a tree and remained still, I’d see little lines of them ferrying things around among the ants and beetles. The most memorable games are always the ones that inject a little magic into your every day life.

That feeling’s at the heart of everything, in fact. Beneath the smoke and spent cartridges, I Am Your Beast is playground warfare retooled as a sport. In this forest, on this battlefield, you get to perform acts of gruesome excellence. And if you can’t get it right first time, you’re always just a restart away from perfection.

A good puzzle game shares qualities with a good poem: precision, elegance, a growing feeling of resonance that climaxes, finally, in the quiet euphoria of a revelation. Originality, too, of course, as neither poem nor puzzle game can blossom in the shadows of imitation. Finity, a taut and cascadingly inventive puzzle game by Sebastian Gosztyla, has all of this and more.

Online, Killzone 3 isn't going to cause mass outbreaks of tumbleweed on CoD and Battlefield servers but, once again, it improves on Killzones 1 and 2.

Yakuza 4's production values are through the roof, its plot is gripping and quirky, it's often very funny indeed, and it would undoubtedly sell in millions if it was published by Rockstar rather than Sega.

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.

While you’ll become overly familiar with the limited number of levels, the arrangement of enemies and power-ups is always different. No two fights feel the same. Like the brilliant Tetris Effect, Superhot deftly sidesteps monotony and instead becomes hypnotic, inducing the zen-like trance state of the archetypal action hero when deep in the throes of violence. Ultimately it doesn’t matter who you’re fighting or why. What matters is the fight itself, the spectacle and the flow. Superhot’s self-directed choreography emerges triumphant; stylish, dynamic and gripping.

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.