Highly refined and just a little faded, Civilization remains the classiest act in the "4X" marketplace.

Demon's Souls is undoubtedly a tough nut to crack, but if you're prepared to dig beneath its hard shell, you'll find a game that is compelling and deeply rewarding in equal measure.

It is deceptively simple but is bursting with life and will have you addicted for weeks.

In the Left 4 Dead series, the perennially over-performing Valve has put together yet another classic franchise, and while the absence of fundamental overhaul obliges me to be sparing in my praise of the sequel, it should serve you long after Modern Warfare 2’s charms have faded.

It's a game built round a single mode, in effect, but with its hefty community presence, asymmetrical flex and raw kinesis, it offers more entertainment value than racers many times its size on paper.

What The Lost and Damned did with grime and grittiness, Gay Tony does with glitz and glamour, and I love the colourful, Algonquin-led carnage in this series finale.

"Resident Evil 4 in space" doesn't cut it - Dead Space is neither as ambitious nor as engrossing as the Gamecube Goliath. But it's still an expertly realised, slickly implemented survival horror experience.

Patently unterrifying, Dead Space 2 is nonetheless a feat of paradigm-splicing worthy of Frankenstein himself. The scars of creation are visible on its flanks, repurposed muscles and organs bulging through the skin, but somehow everything works in harmony. All told, Isaac Clarke can do without his day job.

It's not just an incredible PSP Metal Gear – it's an incredible Metal Gear and an unexpected leap forward for the series.

It’s unlikely the idea could survive another sequel without stretching the universe too far, but for now BioShock 2 is an unmissable journey back into a suffocating, intoxicating world.

DICE has essentially repeated one of 2008’s better party tricks, rolling out a hearty, well-defined shooter that offsets limited solo enjoyment value with immense online replayability. If we must dwell on the profundities of blowing stuff up, this is the way to do it."

Still, an opportunity has been missed. EA has the resources, and DICE has the talent, to put together a fantastic Vietnam game, one that delves rather deeper into the setting than weapon rosters and track lists. Instead, the pair have treated Vietnam as a Flavour of the Month.

It's a game built round a single mode, in effect, but with its hefty community presence, asymmetrical flex and raw kinesis, it offers more entertainment value than racers many times its size on paper.

Heavy Rain isn’t a film, or even a game trying to be a film. It’s proof of just how compellingly a game can use film, of how gripping a warmed-over scenario or humdrum script can become in the hands of a skilled design team. It filches ideas from cinema, doubtless – what big budget character-driven release doesn’t? – but it’s because it’s a game, in the final analysis, that it’s marvelous.

NSMBW bends over backwards to be inclusive and somehow manages to succeed.

In a generation where Nintendo seem ever-more preoccupied with hardware innovation and its expanded audience, Retro's dependable high-quality output bodes well for the future.

Black Ops reveals a franchise travelling in two directions at once, simultaneously more relevant than ever and among the most redundant of shooters.

Spirit Tracks is still such a polished and wonderful game that its faults are only relative to other entries in the series and is therefore still better than 99% of all handheld games out there.

Sony has taken an unforgivably long time restoring WipEout to our living rooms, so it's just as well the results hold up under scrutiny - and then some.

A slightly conflicted, sometimes lacklustre but generally star-struck and - above all - massive first person shooter with a plump online underbelly.

Shooting the PSP’s anaemic line-up full of proven material may seem sound commercial sense on the face of it, but for my money the last thing the increasingly sidelined machine needs at this point in its life is more leftovers – even leftovers as delicious and nutritious as LittleBigPlanet.

In an age of endless bald space marines, colour pallets that know nothing beyond brown and grey, and gritty urban sandboxes, Bayonetta is a breath of fresh air.

Ratchet and Clank might be living on borrowed time, but between the gags and the glitz we’re happy to forgo collecting a little longer.

Faster, tighter, better balanced and - astonishingly - even glossier than its older brother. The career mode still needs work, the AI could be sharper and offline punch-spammers have it a little too easy, but otherwise this game is every inch the champ.

A wonderful game, full of happy happy joy joy from start to finish. If you don't smile at it then you're an idiot, frankly.

But it's The Sims to near-perfection, crafted with love, calculated to give the most enjoyment to a player and as involving, as simple to get into and as downright fun as it has always been.

One of the best series in handheld history is back for more, a refined and updated experience with the fantastic addition of online play.

At worst, this is one of the best rental options this year. It doesn't have the depth or longevity of the big simulation racers but for sheer hair-raising off road action, a new franchise is born.