Lacklustre finale aside, this is everything you could ask of a headline third-person shooter and more.

This isn't just a prettier SFII - it's the absolute king of fighting games.

This isn't just a prettier SFII - it's the absolute king of fighting games.

At first, GTA IV was sort of feeling like a 9/10 game to me. There were a good few moments where I shook my head and jotted down another negative. But as the experience sank in, as the story captivated me, and as the pace quickened, I was very quickly humbled. It would be ridiculous to factor these minor gripes into even one point of a percentage in terms of scoring, because of the magnitude of the game as whole.

It's stupid, it's nonsensical, it's over the top, it's full of awful dialogue, it demands long sittings and it hasn't changed much from the first game ten years ago. But then, it's Metal Gear Solid, so who cares? It's undeniably brilliant, captivating, exciting and downright fantastic, definitely worthy of at least a few furrowed brows throughout the experience.

Another worthy addition the GTA cannon, Chinatown takes all the best the previous games had to offer and adds plenty of own ideas into the mix.

From the hollow wind blowing down through subway tunnels, to the radioactive dust clouds swirling throughout the wasteland, up to the buzzards circling the encampment where the bodies of 30 slave traders lie; Fallout 3 is as much a game as it is a training sim for the coming apocalypse.

Arkham Asylum is the kind of eventual coming-to-form which renders years of half-arsed franchise transplantation not just forgivable, but worthwhile.

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.

It's without a doubt one of the best downloadable game expansions ever made, and a truly worthy addition to one of (if not the) defining title of this generation to date.

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.

Mass Effect 2 succeeds ultimately on the strength of its world and BioWare have created one of the most beautiful, fantastical, consistent, comprehensive and coherent universes seen in science fiction, let alone video games.

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.

In Redemption, Rockstar have succeeded in taking an over-subscribed genre and realizing it with such atmosphere and boundless possibility that it fluently captures the thrill of the Wild West, and with that they’ve taken the Red Dead franchise into the big league, proud to stand alongside the best work they’ve ever produced.

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.

But MCLA does everything right, and has plenty of longevity packed in.

With another memorable single player mode to look back on, in addition to the excellent Special Ops mode and more multiplayer goodness to look forward to, Infinity Ward has once again come up with a cinematic masterpiece.

Chains of Olympus ticks all the checkboxes a God of War fan could want and constantly manages to surprise you.

If it isn't the War To End All Wars some have prophesised, Killzone 2 is definitely the exclusive FPS your PS3 has been waiting for. While the intensity of the spotlight Guerrilla brings to bear on how you go about shooting stuff occasionally leaves its scenarios in the dark, those intimidating good looks, chiselled hide-and-seek engagements and savage online modes are plentiful compensation. After almost five years of infamy, the franchise has taken revenge on its critics

It's nothing revolutionary, but you can't fail to enjoy World at War and it ticks every box rather convincingly.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

A quantum leap in concept and design, and one which falls inches - nay, millimetres - short of a perfect score. There's no better reason to own a PlayStation 3.