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.

Yes, it is indeed a proper, grown-up third-person shooter. But not, alas, a particularly good one.

If Life Is Strange were a Netflix series, I would probably have stopped watching it a few episodes in. Instead, it’s a game I’ve been playing for more than a decade, and I care about these characters. (I also appreciate that more than a smidge of the original’s millennial cringe remains: a Foals song plays over the credits.) Life Is Strange has always been corny but it has also always been earnest, grounded in friendship and feelings. Max and Chloe deserved this chance to end their story – and so did we.

When set against the non-VR first-person shooters, a genre in which only those games that have benefitted persistent, focused iteration and a king’s ransom of investment can now compete, Farpoint seems embryonic and amateurish. Its thrills are short-lived, but the lessons that can be drawn from its struggles in trying to transpose the genre into VR will surely echo for a long time to come.

I’m glad this game exists, but I wish there were more to it. There wasn’t enough variety in the virtual landscapes or in the characters’ conversations to make the long night drives or train journeys appealing beyond the second or third go-around. It is a game that wants us to think about the contradictions and complexities of being alive on this Earth, but also, it doesn’t seem to come from a place of great life experience. I would be fascinated to see what these developers would make in another 20 (or 50) years.

Right now, those prepared to embrace Driveclub for what it is will find a very accessible, carefully crafted, refreshing speed-over-sim driving experience that often provides fabulous fun.

The Medium is hugely ambitious and could have been a site for incredible, innovative storytelling. Instead, it fumbles sensitive topics, plot points evaporate into thin air, and characters who are studied closely are left behind and never mentioned again. Even while taking notes, the story became difficult to follow. It took me 12 hours over three nights to play, and towards the finale I was astounded by how a game so short could feel so long. This certainly is a game of two worlds: one very beautiful and one very empty, unfortunately leaving us with a game that is all skin and no spirit.

The scale of Mass Effect: Andromeda means there’s a lot of stuff, and thus a lot of bad or mediocre stuff.

A new story in the world that they love, but one in which they’re participating, not just watching – which isn’t afraid to raise some sensitive issues around topics such as friendship. Roll on episode two.

But for gamers wanting a nicely sedate, yet increasingly fiddly and demanding challenge, Pilotwings Resort delivers in the same way as that introverted bass player – with modest, affable confidence.

Despite the rudimentary presentation and simplistic goal, this satirical game quickly draws you into its web of intrigue as you see how these seemingly unrelated events connect to reveal – if you’re a willing believer – a tangled plot to defraud democracy. Conspiracy! shows, with keen effectiveness, how the natural human urge to spot patterns and turn events into coherent stories fuels internet sleuths, and how a well-intentioned search for truth can topple a person into a pit of destructive paranoia.