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.