The Ivalice Chronicles is not interested in narrative flexibility; its plot does not bend to the whims of the player like other RPGs. The story’s framing – recounted as a historical account in the distant future – makes this abundantly clear. As such, the game is less about fantasy and fairytales than history itself. Forget easy resolutions: here, events simply produce yet more events; trauma begets trauma. It is one battle after another for Ramza and his comrades.

XCOM 2 is a perfect example of how iteration should work for games: it takes a great original, fixes and streamlines the problems, and doubles-down in unexpected areas. Among its greatest achievements is adding a sense of pace to the overall campaign and the moment-to-moment combat. This is an about-turn from the principles of the original that could have gone wrong but instead is the making of the experience.

Dishonored 2 is both luxurious and consistent in its set dressing. Every virtual item demonstrates its own kind of wondrous craftsmanship: the taut leather, the sunny brass. Each room is a varnished memorial to some hollowed-out forest.

I don’t think I’ve seen half of what Forbidden West has to offer. It bored me sometimes with endless dialogue and exposition, but is equally generous with things to do and places to explore and creatures to unwisely provoke. Unlike many open-world games it is continually offering you something new, and a couple of the tools you acquire later in the game really open the whole place up. It’s got the spirit of a Metroid or Tomb Raider-style puzzle adventure on the scale of an Assassin’s Creed. And once again: by god, it is beautiful. I’ll happily endure ten minutes of being lectured about terraforming, in exchange for marvelling at these sunken caves, forbidding plains and mechanical T-rexes.

The things is, you don’t have to think about anything if you don’t want to; you can just enjoy the adrenaline rush, blasting symbolic victims of player violence (enemies even disappear in a whirl of multicoloured light when shot, a self-reflexive reference to the sheer disposability of non-player characters). But a darker subtext is always there, if you want to look beneath the gleaming surface...In this way, Deathloop gets to have its cake and eat it – over and over again. And it is, to be fair, absolutely delicious.

The Room Two is more than just a worthy sequel, expanding the formula and experimenting with some new ideas - it's a fantastic, scrumptiously crunchy experience in its own right.

Video gamers may wonder why they would play a card game when their medium has moved beyond such limitations; tabletop gamers may bemoan the fact that people are getting excited about the wrong card game. But if you fall awkwardly between those two groups, Hearthstone will keep you hooked for some time.

Perhaps I am asking too much. We don’t pry for depth from Mario as he rescues his princess, or ask what motivates Tom Nook in his real estate empire. Like pretty much all Nintendo’s games, with their long legacies and perfect jumps, this feel good to play, and that should be enough: but I don’t come to a Nintendo title for enough. I left Dread feeling that perhaps the real legacy of 2D Metroid will be the games it inspires, rather than the games themselves.

Flush with flash new tricks, simpler action and a bulging roster of hostile creatures, the latest instalment of the enduring series is an absurd delight.

Those subtle changes and little overhauls make all the difference, and they’re wrapped up in perhaps the most beautiful first-person shooter ever made – one that captures the sludge of the trenches, the cacophony of destruction of a battlefield, and the intensity of desert standoffs and mountainside raids. Dice has taken a risk visiting a time period not seen in major multiplayer shooters before, and Battlefield aces it. This is a lavish package that capitalises on a stagnancy in the genre, offering something new, exciting and, most importantly, solid.

For single players, it's an entertaining and gorgeous-looking dungeon hack but it's a bit short, extremely linear and hardly pushing any boundaries. Playing online (and Blizzard isn't really giving us a choice) makes it a better balanced and more compelling challenge, with all the potential to be the kind of lifestyle substitute that Diablo's legion of hunter-gatherer fans should relish.

Whether or not you choose Fifa 11 over Pro Evolution Soccer is more likely to be a matter of taste and tribal loyalty, but Fifa fans will be even more delighted with this year's offering than they were with Fifa 10.

If you've never played LittleBigPlanet before, then this PS Vita version is the ideal introduction. In fact, it's the ideal introduction to games in general, as it will teach you the basics of how to make them, as well as providing you with a huge dollop of entertainment.

Deadfire is an entertaining adventure that will keep anyone with a soft spot for this genre hooked. It has a confidently told story and the combat and character progression are as fun as the original but easier to understand. It is also a commitment to finish, taking tens (if not hundreds) of hours to complete.

Every design detail serves to propel the player forwards with as little friction as possible, with enough surprises and twists to prevent the formula becoming stale. It’s a real delight to be the Doom Slayer: to put everything else aside and focus on just the problem in front of you. Especially if that problem is a swarm of angry demons.

The Battlefield games are very much designed for the cognoscenti, and those in the know will rush to download Vietnam.

Mouthwashing is a difficult but engrossing experience, a work of surreal horror invoking the cinema of David Lynch and Dario Argento, but also extremely functional as a game, or at least a study of what games are and what they want us to do. That titles like this are still being made and have global distribution is one of the few bright spots in a depressing year for the games business. Book yourself in for a flight as soon as possible, you will and won’t regret it.

While slow in patches when it deviates from its core strengths, or occasionally fiddly in its mini-games, the game is buoyed by its dialogue, warm and charming art style, and Holowka’s soundtrack, which keeps even the occasionally clunky platforming from feeling too tedious.

This game may be beautiful, but it is also deadly.

Hot Pursuit, like the high-end vehicles it fetishises, has been crafted with genuine care, with great insight, with technical brilliance. Gran Turismo 5 will grab the headlines and the purist vote, but it surely won't live like this game does; it will be an austere cathedral to Criterion's joyous modernist structure.

Played alone or in co-op, played in Arcade mode or one of the more specific mission challenges, Nex Machina is a thrilling masterpiece.

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.

New Leaf is a world on a cartridge slightly bigger than a stamp, one full of beautiful, wise and hopelessly optimistic observation of humans as social animals. It is a magical creation.

The early hours feel like the playable equivalent of being sent to military school, and demand saintly patience – but it’s an investment that pays off. Much like in Red Dead Redemption 2 before it, I happily lose hours wandering around this vast simulation, curious to see what wonder and depravity I might stumble on. It’s telling that despite spending more than 115 hours in Bohemia, I have yet to roll credits on the main quest line. If you’re uninspired by the prospect of roaming yet another frictionless open world where everything comes easy, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a breath of fresh air – scented with just a hint of dung.

But if it feels challenging, the fact that Witcher 2 is fiendishly hard from the outset is half its appeal.

Halo 4 is brilliant. If you've never played an entry in this series, this is as good a place to start as any and if you're a fan, rejoice; with 343 Industries Halo is in safe hands.

The update makes elegant use of the PlayStation 5’s controller’s quasi-magical properties. Tilt the controller to guide a note along a musical stave and play a mournful lament on the flute. Wearing the appropriate outfit, haptic buzzes will guide you toward hidden valuables, the force of the pulse quickening the closer you are to the treasure. Despite the intermittent violence, this is a beautiful world to explore, lovingly crafted and compellingly framed.

Some fans of Blow’s earlier work seem to have been hoping that the mazes they saw in the trailers are just a veneer for a deeper, mind-blowing experience, but really the world and whatever narrative you can find in it are dressing for an incredibly impressive collection of puzzles. Whether or not you find a deeper meaning at the end, the journey will have been worth it. After all, only those who actually enjoy solving the puzzles will make it that far, and even after 41 hours and 358 solved puzzles I’m eager to go back for more.