The less said about its unconvincing voice-acting the better and the plot holds few surprises. But even those foibles can be overlooked when Stellar Blade gets its hooks in and you glance at the clock only to realise it’s 3am. Damn you, you adorable mongrel.

It’s the sheer force of the lead actors’ performances that will lead you through a somewhat laboured tale of a hero whose mental strife overshadows the challenge of her adversaries.

Once you temper your expectations – it looks more like a last-generation title than the hard realism of Half-Life: Alyx – Vertigo 2 packs enough thrills to justify its mid-range price tag.

The scientific tasks at your destination really aren’t that interesting. Instead, the heart of the game lies in the methodical, even calming pursuit of a distant waypoint. There’s a soothing peace here out in the beautiful wilderness, even amid the roar of the engine, the shrill whine of the gears and the soft cursing as you get bogged down in yet another puddle of ooze.

Old Skies may not be as pioneering as Wadjet Eye’s revered 2018 adventure Unavowed (which still comes highly recommended). Secondly, the tension of any high-stakes scenes also suffers because repetitive trial and error functions as a viable if hardly inspired tactic when the logic of a solution doesn’t stand out. But by teasing out Fia’s emotional muddle amid the intricate cause and effect of time travel, it finds its own place in the history of cerebral puzzle games.

As rough around the edges as it is – the lack of impact from the weapons, the endless hunt for keycards and the right locked door – System Shock still adds up to more than the sum of its parts. It’s a game that sows confusion and fear in a way we rarely experience now, while reminding us the AI apocalypse might be closer than we suspect.

Sure, Avowed has a sense of the familiar in its squad RPG tropes. It draws on a long lineage that stretches from Skyrim to Mass Effect to, more recently, Dragon Age Veilguard. But it playfully weaves its elements into an enthralling fabric that wraps you up and won’t let you go.

Austrian-based developer Microbird Games has created something distinctive and compelling with its debut effort – a depiction of their native Alps where the inside of the mountains are more interesting that the peaks outside we regularly admire.

The modest size of the team at Raccoon Logic becomes apparent sometimes – the awkward physics and occasionally funky enemy behaviour can hamper the gameplay mechanics. But this a goofy little treasure, a passion project for a small team bruised by their encounter with a corporate gorilla. They’re still here and Stadia is long gone. Who’s the monkey now?

Keeper succeeds more as a delightful voyage into the weird than as a conventional videogame with challenges, goals and quests.

Blendo seeds its fiction with mischievous humour, from the lamebrained actions of the space invaders to the catty mewing of the trapped animals. But it’s the slapstick comedy of the confrontations with the pirates in Skin Deep that draws the biggest laughs.

You’d never mistake Age of Imprisonment’s gameplay for the mechanical ingenuity contained in Tears of the Kingdom. But this Zelda adventure jailbreaks itself from the constricting conventions of its musou prison.

This 20th-anniversary edition of Beyond Good & Evil dodges that trap by being genuinely entertaining, playable and polished over its relatively short running time. Maybe it’s the banter between Jade and Pey’j, perhaps it’s the restless diversity of its levels, or could it be just that Ancel packed his designs with myriad lovely touches.

The worst offender among your soldier pals is an overly chatty sidekick who regularly prods you over the radio to re-explore old areas. Part of Metroid’s appeal has always lain in getting lost in its creepy caverns but Retro clearly wants no newcomer to be in doubt for long about where to go next. Despite all that, Beyond emerges from development purgatory in better shape than could be expected. Some of its innovations may not gel with the core Metroid principle of a lone woman versus a planet of hostiles. Yet the classic design ensures the Samus suit never goes out of fashion.

For my money, it’s the joyful purity of Adventure mode that will win you round – pitting you and your reflexes against craftily designed game worlds with just two thumbsticks for control.

The detailed art style looks gorgeous in handheld mode but forces the Switch to struggle noticeably on a big screen when it’s pushing more pixels. Shackled by the tedious storytelling and tame dialogue, Mario and Luigi feel like the relatives you should visit more but who are frequently annoying when you meet them.

Taken in isolation, DKC Returns HD stands as a generously endowed 2D side-scrolling platformer in the grand tradition of the series. Colourful and punchy, it taxes the reflexes and the brain via 80 levels densely packed with hazards, secrets and optional challenges.

The confined nature of the levels can sometimes be problematic when grappling with the wildly bucking ghosts, not least because aiming the vacuum feels a tad awkward. Younger or less experienced players drawn in by the colourful setting and gentle humour may find the battles with bigger baddies rather challenging. But at their heart, Luigi’s escapades serve up a helping of supernatural whimsy that stands up well after more than a decade.

It still offers a comprehensive package of enjoyable football with plenty of tweaks here and there in Ultimate Team, Career and Manager modes. But for me the changes amount to just that – tweaks that don’t substantially alter the package.

Hell is Us may not have been made with a substantial budget but by choosing a path less travelled with its unusual design, it feels more rewarding to a jaded player sick of being led by the nose in many in a blockbuster rival.

Despite its few knots, South of Midnight hangs tightly together, tying up its threads deftly while spinning an enthralling yarn. Just don’t mention the S-word.

They say love means nothing to a tennis player but it’s so easy to lose your heart to this spirited slice of sport.

For the first time in years, some peculiar animation glitches reared their heads – don’t think we’re supposed to see inside players’ heads during match build-up, nor the occasional melding of limbs in goalmouth clashes. But that foible and some clunky menus aside, FC 25 puts on an impressive performance, albeit one that could be considered level on points with FC 24. What a shame that the game no longer has any credible competitors to keep EA on its toes.

Reforged is a puzzle in itself. It’s like the pleasure you get from visiting an old friend you haven’t seen in a long time and who’s never looked so well. But it will also leave you wondering whether you’ve outgrown them after so many years.

Mario vs Donkey Kong 2024 has a time-worn charm polished by Nintendo’s acute attention to detail and its mid-price probably earns it a review star more than it deserves. Juxtaposed with the furious invention of recent full-priced stablemates such as Super Mario Bros Wonder or Kirby’s Forgotten Land, it’s a bit of a relic.

Probably the harshest judgment you could hurl at Operation Galuga is its lack of true reinvention. Maybe it was never on the agenda – and Rogue Corps showed deviation from the template could be disastrous. But despite a graphical makeover and some light tinkering, squint and you might well be playing one of the many Contra versions from the 80s and 90s.

You may remember Sony’s last samurai-set game, Ghost of Tsushima in 2020. The similarities are legion – both are built on the same open-world template. The US-made Tsushima triumphs on a technical level thanks to sumptuous visuals and Hollywood-like polish. Rise of the Ronin looks at times like something out of the late PS3/early PS4 era, a bit glitchy and twitchy. Yet its intense swordplay and native authenticity imbue it with an absorbing playability that’s hard to ignore.

Jamboree TV lacks a bit of coherence in the overall Mario Party experience but it serves the Switch 2 well in serving up family-friendly options that show off the new machine. Don’t forget that Switch 2’s unique GameShare function lets you connect another Switch 2 or the older Switch console so that up to four players can compete – but requires only one copy of the game.