It’s not bad, it’s creative and a change of pace, but it pumps up difficulty in a really unsatisfying manner. It doesn’t feel rewarding to play, t’s convoluted, and it’s confusing. Despite that, it’s still probably the most interesting attempt yet at learning from Dark Souls and creating something new.

While Andromeda is lacking some of the overall urgency of previous Mass Effect games, it makes up for that somewhat with the increase in scope and detail to the world. It’s certainly lacking polish, and several areas of the game feel like steps backwards for the series, but there is stuff to love.

It’s a shame the writing is unmitigated garbage, because the game it’s been dribbled onto is fantastic. The level design is an improvement over the already sublime Master of Shadows, and there are some genuinely memorable missions that make great use of the world Cyanide has built...But that writing. The intelligence of its predecessors, which explored everything from racism and activism to free will and existentialism has been replaced by Family Guy-level cultural references and fourth wall-breaking guff that swings from insulting the player’s intelligence to downright offensive. Shards of Darkness could have easily been Cyanide’s best game ever if the writer was locked in a cupboard.

Echo is a fantastic experience, but a poor stealth game. Its worldbuilding, presentation, dialogue and characters all very, very nearly do enough to excuse the awful AI, poorly implemented mimicry mechanic and lacklustre sneaking. Stealth aficionados might not get what they’d expect out of an ex-Hitman team like Ultra Ultra, but anyone looking for an engaging, character-driven adventure will be in for an absolute treat.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a surprisingly fun and fair entry in the series well worth a look.

For many of you reading, A Normal Lost Phone will be well worth playing. If you discover the intricacies of the mystery in the path the game intends, you’ll get to explore a phone that feels like it contains a real slice of someone’s personal and private lives. If you, like me, solve the core of the mystery within a few minutes, you may well end up feeling frustrated at the lack of motivation provided for tearing through someone’s intimate information.

Pure Farming 2018 might not be the best simulator around, but it does come close. Farming Simulator 17 offers a consistent quality to its environmental design that PF2018 stumbles on, and it’s slightly more respectful of the player’s time (seriously, an hour for a field is ludicrous). What Pure Farming does instead is offer more of just about everything any would-be sim aficionado needs to get into the genre.

Sadly, nice visuals and a bit of banter isn’t enough to make Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite anything more than a blazing disappointment. It was always going to have a rough time: MvC is a beloved series, and there’s no avoiding the critical eye of series die-hards. You know that, I know that, but apparently Capcom didn’t, and it shows. This should’ve been so much more than what it is: a promotional vehicle for Disney’s Marvel films with questionable balance, muted fighting, and frustrating DLC practices.

Farming Simulator 17 is excellent, and has already become my number one go-to “Zen game”. If I’ve had a stressful day, or if I’m just feeling particularly anxious, I can stick Netflix on and quietly tend to my perfect little farm. With its attention to detail, wonderful environments and depth of simulation, if a quiet, relaxing time looking after a farm is something you’d be interested in, you’d be hard-pressed to find something that better fits the bill than this.

Mafia 3 is a game that gets in its own way. The city is beautiful, the themes are mature and the story, writing and performances are all easily some of the best we’ve had in games this year, but then the incredibly repetitive missions, wonky AI and technical glitches all make getting to the meat a royal pain in the arse. I’ve never loved and hated a game simultaneously quite as much as Mafia 3.

Really, Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is just a bit disappointing. It’s functional enough, and if you’re a die-hard fan of Warriors and Berserk going in you might get some fun out of this, but realistically it’s not worth picking up for most players.

Farming Simulator 18 is an ideal place for beginners to hop onto the series, but for veterans it may feel overly simplified. The controls work astonishingly well, it looks great, and the timescale has been radically adjusted for the shorter playtimes of a handheld device. But I do question developer Giants’ decision to number portable titles alongside the ‘main’ entries like this. While 18 is good as a portable game, it is still drastically inferior to last year’s release.

Episode Gladiolus is DLC you can safely skip. While the new combat mechanics are neat, and there are some cool bosses to face off against, how it fits into FFXV – from its lack of plot significance to literal “buy the DLC now!” pop-ups over the course of the game – reek of the worst kind of DLC this side of pay-to-win. Sorry Gladio. You’re nice to look at, but not much else.

The Division: Last Stand is an expansion creaking under the weight of its base game. The problem with the entire package is that it amplifies the problems veterans and newcomers alike have had with The Division over the course of the past year: server issues, hackers, a lack of content and loot storage problems plague what could’ve been an excellent closing point to the game’s first year...What is there is good. The incursion is well-designed, and the Last Stand mode itself is a solid, quick blast of tactical PvP goodness that I’m already itching to get back to. It’s everything players have been asking for, but with not enough of the polish or tweaking needed to make it truly great...I’m not angry, Division, I’m just disappointed.