There’s nothing so gauche or straightforward as a Miss Marple denouement reveal, where you discover whether or not your conclusions were correct. In Paradise Killer the truth is more complicated and, counterintuitively, all the more satisfying for it.

This is the kind of video game fighting that puts your heart in your mouth, an exhilarating whirl of slashes and strikes and dodges. Each jewel in Zagreus’ armoury – brass-knuckles, greatshield and sword, railgun, spear – has its own rhythm: some favour quick flurries at close range, others charge up to unleash hell on rooms full of gorgons and cursed chariots. Conquered chambers sometimes bring a new blessing from one of Zagreus’ relatives up on Mount Olympus, boons that add a watery damage-dealing flourish to your dash or imbue your weapon with lightning, calls that summon gods to unleash magical arrows or make you invincible.

This Definitive Edition might have been wiser to double down on the original, slightly hokey script and performances, rather than strive for something more sophisticated in the rewrite.

BPM is a brash, earwormy delight, aimed at the heads of Doom fans and lapsed Guitar Heroes alike.

Perhaps it’s a little safe in the way it goes about things, anxious not to lose that Spelunky magic by disrupting the familiar flow. But that spell hasn’t worn off after 10 years. With its dastardly remixes of existing themes and a bunch of brilliant new additions, this will certainly replace Spelunky HD as the definitive cave-diving Derek Yu roguelike. I wouldn’t change a thing – though some of my former turkey friends may have different feedback.

Running at a breathless 60-frames-per-second and with tiny loading times, Hotshot Racing is a slick callback to a much-loved era of racing games made by people who are clearly passionate and knowledgeable about the genre. Older players will get all the references, and newcomers will enjoy a bright, exhilarating game that forgoes modern frills for pure, seamless racing entertainment.

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

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.

Wasteland 3 is treading creatively irradiated ground. The nuclear post-apocalypse has been explored to exhaustion, in video games and elsewhere, and no amount of weird factions or sex jokes can prevent it from feeling like an aged rock band on a comeback tour: the tunes are still decent, but there’s no youthful vigour.

The idea of a literal battle of the bands is a good one, and I was always keen to see what the next encounter would look like. But the lack of substance to the actual fights was invariably disappointing. Despite some impressive sights and sounds, in the end No Straight Roads has too many potholes to make its musical journey worth recommending.

Peaky Blinders: Mastermind is stuck between abstraction and fan fiction, ambition and restraint. At its best, it’s streamlined; at worst, stifling and predetermined. Give me an Alfie Solomons rum-empire management game, and you’d have my attention.

Wherever you go, this game captures the wonder of flight, and the spiritual and emotional rush of seeing the world in a different way.

While the game’s style is like a Homeric epic seen through the panel of a comic book, the soundtrack of melancholic twanging guitar complicates the theme to something new and unexpected, a kind of undead western. It’s slickly compelling stuff, if repetitive after a few hours and, invariably, punitive. Yes, in West of Dead, death is an inconvenience rather than a sentence, but it’s one that is often delivered quickly and without reprieve, which makes selecting a “New Run” a little bit harder with each cruel setback.

This is an unmissable, sugary treat, bursting with kaleidoscopic entertainment, and is available for £15.99 on Steam and free via PlayStation Now. It’s a perfect entry point to battle royale games for those who are intrigued by their structure but put off by their violent undertones. And even though you can’t play against your family, you can all gather around the TV and enjoy the hilarity of 60 bean-shaped critters trying to simultaneously cram themselves through a narrow doorway, or across a rotating platform. It is lovely to see a game like this – so aware of its own silliness and so aware that it is exactly what we need right now.

It might be made of papercraft, but Origami King has a lot of structural integrity, and unexpected depth. If you don’t fold at the tricky battle mechanics, the reward is an elevated, postmodern delight.

The primal glee that comes from being cast, for a moment, as the Ur-hunter in a world of cringing prey barely diminishes during the course of the game, and it’s deeply pleasing to master the kind of dripping echoic domain which, in most film and fiction, must be merely survived.

It is the striking cel-shaded design, though, that elevates Röki just above games such as Year Walk, which is similarly inspired by Scandinavian folklore. The design enhances minor artistic details – whether it’s snow glistening on a treetop or a hostile character’s imposing shadow – to create a more involving experience. Röki’s pleasing aesthetics are well-matched by an absorbing story that always keeps you on your guard.

Unfortunately the game has a few logic issues of its own. A handful of bugs, including one that breaks the game and forces you to retreat to earlier saves, threatens the delicate relationship of trust that exists between player and designer, as each time you get stuck, you question whether the fault lies with your reasoning or simply a glitch. Patches will, no doubt, quickly fix the issues, at which point Beyond a Steel Sky will join its stablemates as a modern classic.

While you’ll become overly familiar with the limited number of levels, the arrangement of enemies and power-ups is always different. No two fights feel the same. Like the brilliant Tetris Effect, Superhot deftly sidesteps monotony and instead becomes hypnotic, inducing the zen-like trance state of the archetypal action hero when deep in the throes of violence. Ultimately it doesn’t matter who you’re fighting or why. What matters is the fight itself, the spectacle and the flow. Superhot’s self-directed choreography emerges triumphant; stylish, dynamic and gripping.

It would have been wonderful to see this team’s giant imagination expressed through the subversion of, rather than adherence to, well-worn puzzle platform conventions, but perhaps that is just plain greedy. It is, after all, such a treat to find a gorgeous narrative game that owes nothing to the culturally prevalent aesthetics of Disney, Marvel or Studio Ghibli. While the puzzle construction at the heart of Creaks is formulaic, that should not be a disincentive to give this short, singular experience a try. No time with an Amanita Design game is ever wasted.

Unlike Assassin’s Creed, which always uses its historical settings as stages for its own eccentric stories, Ghost of Tsushima sticks so closely to the tropes and storylines of classic samurai fiction that it sometimes forgets to have a personality of its own. After I caught myself repeatedly checking my phone out of boredom during the story missions, I decided to abandon them entirely for a while and had a great time chasing foxes, bathing in hot springs, composing deeply average haiku and climbing mountains in search of a legendary bow instead. This is the most beautiful version of Japan ever conjured in code, and when running errands and slashing Mongol spearmen to bits gets tedious, you can always just drink in the view.

Friends of Mineral Town remains an engaging, warm and homey experience.

With real travel compromised right now, tagging along with Signs of the Sojourner’s caravan is one way to experience the sights and smells of new streets.

The Almost Gone draws you in with a sinister family mystery, but its aesthetic beauty and strange, succinct puzzles end up carrying it.

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.

This is an unlikely comparison, but now that I’ve had some time to absorb The Last of Us Part II, it reminds me thematically of Shadow of the Colossus, another game about how consuming grief and anger can be. I was similarly poleaxed by that game’s clever manipulation of the player’s power, the way it also used the language of video games to make you think twice about your actions. The Last of Us Part II is another story that could only work as a game, the kind of challenging, groundbreaking work that comes along two or three times a decade.

It’s also a shame that we see none of the main game’s focus on player creativity. Between each level you’re returned to your training camp where you can buy new items and practise with fresh weapons, and it would have been a nice touch to be able to build your own little castle there. But as a retro-tinged hack-and-slash jaunt with plenty of Mojang character and humour, Minecraft Dungeons is a hugely diverting treat that’ll provide hours of fun for locked-down families.

Despite its heavy themes, the game exudes fondness for the region it depicts. Wind whips across sandy beaches, chippies host late-night chats between friends, and Kasio gazes at stars through a broken roof while a house party rages below. Gaelic and local slang pepper the dialogue, alongside a helpful glossary. The sense of place, strength of writing, evocative art and elegant interactions make If Found … a moving drama, beautifully capturing the growing pains of early adulthood.