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.

This extraordinary game tests you to the limit – even as it insists that it absolutely does not exist.

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.

Euphoric is the best word for Tetris Effect. It makes my skin tingle and my mind sink into a state of receptive bliss. It is, somehow, a puzzle game about the extraordinary experience of being alive on this Earth. And if that sounds totally insane: try it. You’ll soon understand.

In tuning the defensive systems and the attacking AI, the development team has unlocked the potential that Fifa 12 only hinted at, creating a game that, at last, seems to invite improvisational play, a game in which your own skill as a player comes to the fore.

Football Manager 13 is the most in-depth, detailed and complex football management simulator ever made. But I must admit, I've bitten my tongue as I've written about most of these new features. The last thing I personally wanted was a new set of variables to worry about as I play the game, and for even more hours to have to be invested just to get through a season.

It is a genuine pleasure to play something that has been so lovingly envisaged, and which is so true to its source material. It’s a game everyone with a PS5 should experience, augmented by an admirable range of accessibility options to ensure as wide a group of potential players as possible can be Spider-Man. This is what mainstream action adventure video games should be: a big, wholehearted fantasy, invested with rewarding details and loaded with conflict and emotion. In all the ways that count, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is the embodiment of that famous Stan Lee motto: Excelsior!

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.

Characters are memorable and well drawn, literally and figuratively, and the game ably tackles thorny issues such as the consequences of school bullying, and the terrible toll taken by anxiety, depression and domestic abuse. For the most part, the 12-hour runtime flies by as you get to know every delightful nook and cranny of the cosy neighbourhood; only the final third drags a little. It feels worthwhile after the superb ending, though, which ensures that this game will live on in your memory for a long, long time after the credits roll.

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.

The sheer volume of quests and weapons and monsters also means that, quite apart from being a brilliant game, this has incalculable longevity. The life of a hunter isn’t for everyone. But if killing something massive, carving it up, and making a snazzy hat seems in any way appealing, then Monster Hunter Generations might be your game of the year.

I wonder how anything will ever better Ocarina of Time in its small but vital corner of this bloated industry.

Absolutely reeks of effort, of care, of love for the sport. Blast EA and its peers for the way they run their businesses if you want to, but recognise this: with friends, with practice, with a will to re-think your approach to defence, Fifa is an absolute joy to play.

Peppered with devious puzzles, Ori and the Will of the Wisp is an irresistible challenge. There is extraordinary attention to detail – the entire world feels alive with excitement and danger. I struggled to put down the controller as I progressed deeper into the game, unable and unwilling to let anything stand in the way of Ori realising his true destiny. A bold and ambitious sequel.

The way in which the developers manage to wrangle the various, divergent threads of your unique journey, with all of its composite choices and outcomes, while entirely concealing the seams is masterly.

This is a wonderful game: a beautiful, tense, camp, gory summation of everything that is so good about Resident Evil. Wherever you find yourself, whether rose garden or torture dungeon, it is alive with intimate detail, from the sounds of distant screams and chants to the sight of a grizzly murder scene or a beautiful vase. It is resplendent, delicious and decadent, like an incredibly rich banquet served amid the detritus of some horrible battle. Believe me, you will feast on it.

New sidekick Cappy could have been just another annoying sidekick, but its inclusion only adds to the playfulness of Nintendo Switch’s first Mario adventure.

If this is your first Fifa game on the new gen consoles then you will be blown away by all the little details that together contribute to an overall experience not too dissimilar to watching football on live television. If you owned Fifa 14 on Xbox One or PS3, Fifa 15 is still a significant upgrade, though maybe not the revolutionary product that it was built up to be.

This is a stunning-looking game, whether witnessed from the ground or the rooftops – I won’t spoil the cat’s journey, but the developer wrings copious novelty and some impressively creepy moments from this shut-off city in the seven-ish hours it takes to play through. It’s certainly far from twee, with the possible exception of the bucket-lifts that you can ride down from rooftops, paws and ears all poking out over the top – and those are so cute that they’re instantly forgivable.

For veterans who remember the original (and I reviewed it at the time), it is an unmissable nostalgic treat. For those who don’t know their T-Viruses from their Code Veronicas, the experience is easily vivid and entertaining enough to stand on its own merits. This is horror game design as true craft.

Pandora feels more like an actual place than a virtual battleground, thanks to Gearbox's attention to detail in this game...I mean, when was the last time you cared about the name of any gun manufacturer in any shooter you played recently? Listen, I've played the heck out of the COD: MW titles, and I've used a TAR-21 more times than I care to mention, but I couldn't tell you who manufactured it... The gun-makers in Borderlands 2 don't even exist, for goodness sake, and I'm already brand-loyal to one of them.

It’s been a while since I’ve played a game that fostered such gentle intimacy between characters – and there’s cooperative multiplayer, too, if you fancy recruiting real-life friends as fellow adventurers.

A game as unexpected and compelling in its message as in its moment-to-moment challenge.

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.

Hitman is unquestionably the finest game in the series. It might be one of the best stealth games ever made.

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

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.

Sony has sold millions of its PlayStation VR headsets and until now it’s been tough to recommend one experience as a killer app. Soulful, technically proficient and at times almost tearfully beautiful, No Man’s Sky Beyond is as close as we’ll get.