Pokopia turns out to be huge, and unexpectedly complex. As new zones opened up beyond that first wasteland, I realised that this game was probably going to occupy me for as long as I wanted. (With 300 Pokémon to catalogue, the conclusion of the story need not be the conclusion of the game.) This is not a child-friendly Poké-painted simplification of the life-simulation genre, but instead an accomplished celebration of it, borrowing the best of all its many influences.

In the future, when the subject of the funniest comedy games of all time crops up, the usual names will be there – Monkey Island, The Stanley Parable, Death Stranding (I’m kidding) – but now surely a new one will join them. Coal Supper has produced perhaps the first great abstract Yorkshire-based cartoon puzzler of the 21st century. Thank goodness.

As someone who has played Tekken since 1995, who once smashed a PlayStation controller to pieces trying to beat Kazuya Mishima in Tekken 2 and who, as a young games journalist, often found himself in the Official PlayStation Magazine games room taking countless screenshots of Yoshimitsu’s Helicopter Stomp, Tekken 8 is an orgiastic pleasure. It is both familiar and new, eccentric and intuitive, and it does what all great fighting games do: it makes you feel incredible when you pull off an elusive series of moves to almost balletic effect. Tekken used to be dismissed as a showy poser by Street Fighter and Virtua Fighter veterans, its combos seen as over-automated and inexpressive. But later Tekken titles have added subtle layers of complexity, and now Tekken 8 wants everyone to see how that works...The King of Iron Fist tournament is calling. It is time, once again, to answer

Here is a keen reminder of gaming's ability to provide we who live in a world charted by satellites and Google Maps with new frontiers, with the unfettered joy of discovery, with the sense of our own psychical and mental horizons being expanded.

Where modern blockbusters are often weighed down by bloated worlds or predatory business models, Dead Space cuts right to the quick.

Sure, The Séance of Blake Manor is an autumnal treat filled with spooky scenes but it is also that most joyous of discoveries: a game that challenges, delights, thrills and educates in equal measure.

It all adds up to a new lease of life for one of Nintendo’s younger series, bolstered by revised combat and a gorgeous new look that endows these 3D characters with the grace and style of older games’ portrait art. By turns grandiose and silly, but always engrossing, this bubbling school soap opera is a game to spend a summer with.

Ever since it first worked out how to assemble pixels so that they resembled something more recognisable than aliens, the games industry has dreamed of creating one thing above all else – a game that is indistinguishable from a film, except that you can control the lead character. With LA Noire, it just might, finally, have found the embodiment of that particular holy grail.

Of the many things Death Stranding 2 is trying to say, the message that comes to the fore is: you are never truly alone. Global disasters, big tech, even death itself – these things might abstract the way we connect to one another, but they can’t sever the connection altogether. Not bad for a game about delivering boxes.

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.

From the stop-motion, claymation backgrounds that dress some tucked-away areas, to mind-bending stage transitions, and the commanding full orchestral score from composer Kristofer Maddigan, there’s not one aspect of The Delicious Last Course that feels undercooked.

Requiem has had so many clever set-pieces, tense chases, and joyfully gruesome encounters by that point that it’s easy to forgive it simply running out of ideas. Capcom has been on a hot streak for a while now, so it’s no shock that Requiem delivers. But it’s a very pleasant surprise that Resident Evil still feels this vital.

This is the battle royale genre pitilessly trimmed to its wildest moments, where every encounter is a riot of explosive jump-cut hyper-violence. It is not for the faint of heart or slow of trigger-finger.

Like Kentucky Route Zero and Disco Elysium, the writing here occasionally sacrifices clarity for floridity, although its ornate descriptions do add detail and texture to the rudimentary pixel art.

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.

Dreams nonetheless still offers a set of powerful, enjoyable tools at a low price and hours of fantastic tutorials. Adults may find the presentation a little too charmed by its own whimsy, especially in light of the tension between an art for art’s sake message and a commercial walled garden. Yet it’s likely to encourage many younger players to bring their own dreams to life.

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.

Even if you are not nostalgic for the originals and or interested in skateboarding culture, there is still plenty to enjoy. The levels feel small by modern standards and the systems behind the skating aren’t always well communicated, but the first two games remain deeply engrossing, refined creations. Chasing scores, puzzling your way to seemingly accessible collectibles and drumming up some friendly rivalry with another player is as exciting as it ever was. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 open a portal to a place, time and subculture – and it’s a delight to step through.

If Alan Wake 2 matched its narrative charms with greater depth in play, you’d be looking at a very special game indeed. As it stands, it’s a thrillingly spooky ride that can, at times, feel too much like you’re just pressing forward while weird things happen around you. That said, I very much enjoyed those weird things, and while Alan Wake 2’s combat lacks the developer’s usual pizzaz, it is Remedy’s best narrative adventure yet.

On the one hand Horizon: Zero Dawn is an ambitious technological showpiece for Sony’s new PlayStation Pro platform and a visual benchmark for this console generation. And yet its underlying hunter/gathering gameplay mechanics and zonal map architecture have barely evolved from their obvious origins in the long-established franchises Far Cry and Tomb Raider.

You could pick Wilds up as a newcomer and have a tremendous time playing through the story. You could stop there and it would still be worth the price of admission. But I will be playing it for a LONG time yet.

The Infinity Ward engine is far from cutting edge – the overall look of the game has not moved on enormously since MW2. But the vision, the choreography, the sense of scale and detail – they are awe-inspiring at times.

What Remains of Edith Finch is a game that succeeds in recreating the childhood joy of reading a book and being utterly transported into its pages, only to reach the end and realise it’s not real. It will touch the heart of all but the most soulless of gamers.

This a game without the bloat of the modern blockbuster – no co-op mode to allow two friends to assassinate hand-in-hand; no lip-service multiplayer to distract the development team and divert their budget; no upgradable hub to grow or furnish; no open world to impress and weary. Rather you're given a series of handcrafted missions, each with its own optional twists and turns, each with a start, a middle and an end, the plot written by a designer, the script penned by a scriptwriter and the narrative transcribed by you.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a riveting puzzle game, which uses its eerie visuals and elusive story as an intrinsic element of the experience rather than a mere design affectation. It is a game that asks subtle questions about the nature of creativity and play, and later it takes a breathtakingly meta turn that will thrill those who remember Kojima’s tricks in the Metal Gear Solid series. It is also a meditation on the troubled relationship between art and commerce, and quite frankly, there could not be a more timely concern for a video game to explore.

What Nintendo's designers do with this new spatial freedom ranges from amazing to even more amazing.

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

Above all, what stands out is the developer’s deep knowledge of and love for the period. The dialogue drips with fascinating historical detail, supported by an extensive glossary of terms. That, combined with a focus on the minutiae of everyday people’s lives, results in a game that provides a wonderfully evocative window into the past. The glacial speed of progress and preponderance of text might be a barrier, but Pentiment is a gift to any player who longs for a historical setting that’s more than a surface texture.