UFO 50 should be admired for its tenacious commitment to its mission - creating a fake machine from the 1990s and populating it with a diverse and authentic compilation of very real and mostly entertaining games.

Each descent into the pit begins with an almost pathetic damage output but as you gradually gather a chaotic constellation of powers, the screen begins to resemble a pinball table on overdrive, an intoxicating display of destruction orchestrated by you. It’s anything but a straight shooter, it’s a memorably sideways take on a classic.

It feels as if Nintendo has a way to go to crystallise the open world into something beyond a random meander. Despite this reservation, Mario Kart World elegantly nails Nintendo’s goal of showcasing the Switch 2’s horsepower while shifting the series into a new gear to surprise and thrill a legion of fans.

There’s a very understandable reason why Black Ops 6 has performed noticeably better at the tills compared to last year’s poorly received Modern Warfare 3 – it’s actually a damn fine game, the best in years.

If you’re looking for faults, the games’ roots in the motion-control era leads to some frustrating moments related to the role of the on-screen cursor. You might also carp that SMG1 in particular doesn’t always make it clear when the conventional rules of gravity apply, sometimes sending Mario tumbling to his doom. Nonetheless, these count as minor quibbles set against the sheer exuberance and star quality of Super Mario 1 + 2.

With most remakes or remasters, the result is only ever going to be as strong as its foundations. With such an exquisite Fares blueprint to work from, the remade Brothers can’t help but carry on that great family tradition.

Donkey Kong Bananza might be considered too easy for most players – even the boss battles barely raise a sweat – and overall doesn’t occupy the same rarified air as Super Mario Odyssey. Yet the bulldozing ape ably showcases the power of Switch 2 and earns a place alongside Mario Kart World as an essential purchase for owners of the new console.

Marathon would be remarkable as it stands for its enigmatic storytelling but Bungie’s love of riddles elevates the end-game to new heights. The Cryo Archive has only just unlocked in the last week or so and already players have been delighted and frustrated in equal measure by its secrets. Some who encounter it won’t like the randomised nature of its components and others will just wonder why they can’t just shoot stuff to win. Yet veterans of Destiny’s great raids will fall hard for it. Marathon works hard to rebuff your advances and could do with playing less hard to get. But for the player who’s seduced, this could be your next great love affair.

The two leads make for charismatic avatars, differing wildly in their combat styles and thus lessening the possibility the player will tire of the formula that underpins the gameplay for long periods. We have not been short of sumptuous hack’n’slash blockbusters set in Japan’s beautiful countryside – from 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima to last year’s Rise of the Ronin. But Shadows somehow edges them in its synthesis of ancient Japanese culture. For sheer spectacle alone, it rarely flags, treating the player to an endless stream of exquisite tableaux, from majestic castles to bustling towns to imposing mountains and forest.

If you’re a Switch 2 owner who somehow spurned this previously, this reissue with extra DLC is unmissable. For existing fans who may have played the original to death, it’s much less essential.

TR-49 is another link in the chain of Inkle’s success, elegantly encoding narrative inside a puzzle game. There’s a ghost in this machine and we can’t be sure whether it’s offering a lesson from the past or a prophecy for the future.

Think of this as an homage to audacious action cinema – from the likes of Hong Kong director John Woo – but remember you are no passive observer. You will need to practise, practise, practise. Kill or be killed. Repeat to fade. Yet forever irresistible.

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.

Kojima hasn’t lost his predilection for pretentiousness nor the preposterous but in Death Stranding 2 he’s created a powerful piece of entertainment propelled by the sheer force of his personality. There’s probably no one else in gaming who could have got this made – layering the human need for connection with grand sci-fi themes and a satisfying gameplay loop. We should all be grateful for the 61-year-old’s unique talent.

Simogo showcases its characteristic ability to wrap compellingly novel gameplay in a distinctive visual aesthetic, all the while telling a captivating story.

You will curse Blue Prince many times in your early runs for its capriciousness – before permanently unlockable items and acquired acumen begin to ease your route to the finish line. Persist and you will appreciate the interlocking brilliance of Ros’s creation. Resist and you will be pointlessly pounding your head against the wall of a dead end.

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

It comes as little surprise that Thank Goodness You’re Here emanates from the same publisher as Australia’s epically silly Untitled Goose Game. If you surrender to Coal Supper’s similarly surreal whimsy, you will also have a honking good time.

Pro Skater 3+4 has been lovingly restored by Iron Galaxy, a different developer than the Pro Skater 1+2 remake (which was handled by Vicarious Visions) – and not the same people who made the 2000s games either. But somehow they’ve captured the feeling and nuance of those heady originals where it was as much fun laughing your head off at an audacious failure as it was pulling off a breathless sequence and landing on your feet.

The puzzles remain as pleasantly headwrecking as ever, sometimes relying on noticing tiny details, other times requiring meticulous deductions based on trial and error. Few could blame you for sneaking the odd look at a walkthrough that at least points you in the direction of a solution. The developers acknowledge they’ve applied several tweaks to modernise the game. “This is not the same old Riven, but we hope you’re as surprised and intrigued by the new one as we were,” they say. On the evidence of my playthrough, you won’t mind getting stuck in this captivating prison with no hope of release.

It comes within touching distance of true greats such as Super Mario Odyssey thanks to nuanced controls and visual creativity, though perhaps Nintendo’s work retains the edge.

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 DLC mode doesn’t change Forgotten Land fundamentally despite a handful of new big-mouth abilities such as a supercharged jump. However, a punishing boss rush awaits at the end of the new levels, one that will probably confuse and confound players accustomed to the gentle challenge in the rest of the game. That sting in the tail aside, this reworked package of Kirby’s mouthiest moments will satisfy every fan’s appetite.

Mizuguchi has a fine pedigree in fusing music, visuals and gameplay, his Tetris Effect rebooting the seminal block puzzler in 2018 via sensory override. Lumines Arise runs a similarly psychedelic nightclub, playing different instruments but achieving the same out-of-body fever dream.

Hotel Infinity may be too purist in its pursuit of abstract puzzles – would a few hints of human presence been too hard? – and the intellectual challenge errs on the side of facile. But this is one stay that will lodge in your mind long after you check out.

Even if replaying scenes in a different way exposes the reality that you rarely have significant influence, Dispatch sends you away with a smile on your face and a hankering for more from Adhoc.

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.

Nomada keeps its game tightly focused, leading to a running time of about four hours. But the melancholic exploration of the intertwined emotions of parenthood, death and nature will stay with you for a lot longer.