Your AI adversary occasionally makes confusingly foolish mistakes in early rounds, but that doesn’t diminish the significant challenge, in this highly polished and mentally taxing game that feels as though it was made for touchscreen.

It may not be the sort of game you’d play for hours at a time, but it’s ideal for a swift, invigorating break in your day.

The Game Boy Color lives again, via an inventive top-down adventure that’s filled with clever design decisions and surprisingly nuanced combat and gameplay.

Not only an extremely authentic Bond adaptation but a masterful action adventure in its own right, that manages an impressive balance of storytelling and cinematic spectacle.

A beguiling mix of Nintendo whimsy and sandbox style platform gameplay, with more unique ideas than many franchises manage in their entire lifespans.

The closest thing to a new Batman: Arkham game there’ll be for many years and a great co-op adventure in its own right, that somehow manages to be unpredictable all the way through.

A giddying rush of fast cars, beautiful landscapes, and pounding music that never lets up; the forgiving driving model and continual feed of new events providing a conveyer belt of instant gratification.

The mobile port works beautifully, its timed button presses easy enough to pull off on a touchscreen and its cute, deliberately blocky graphics looking alluringly colourful on a small screen.

A surprisingly conservative follow-up to Returnal but the transcendent third person action is so well orchestrated that qualms about the storytelling and lack of innovation seem like only minor concerns in comparison.

An impressively successful follow-up to Vampire Survivors, that features entirely different gameplay but a similarly deceptive sense of depth and nuance to its charmingly low-tech action.

The joy of playing something that isn’t a sequel or licensed tie-in is considerable in its own right but this tightly designed third person actioner is a pleasure from beginning to end.

A loving homage to the original X-COM, that’s far more interested in turning up the difficulty than coming up with any new ideas.

An impressive, near-essential expansion for Borderlands 4, with an excellent new vault hunter and some of the best level and mission design in the franchise.

Although the game moves fast, you don’t have to, gradually moving your avatar and adjusting their angle of fire as you smash your way through its stages. It lends itself well to mobile conversion and remains just as addictive as it was on PC and console.

A tough, flashy, and surprisingly versatile extraction shooter which houses a magnetic loop of death and loot beneath its occasionally obtuse idiosyncrasies.

An inessential but enjoyable expansion for the best 2D Mario game of the modern era, with some fun multiplayer distractions and a soupçon of new single-player content.

An anime-infused arcade racer with a full-blown story, cracking multiplayer, and an OTT driving model that gamifies every part of its tricky, knife edge races.

One of the best puzzle games of recent years is also one of the most empowering and cleverly designed, as its stretches seemingly simple mechanics to impressive lengths.

This release includes all seven DLC packs, comprising challenge tombs, new weapons, and outfits, making it a real value for money proposition. It’s great rediscovering Lara’s swift journey from ingénue to casual mass murderer, via a whole lot of looted historical relics.

Following up last year’s well-received game is an unenviable task, but WWE 2K26 manages to build on what’s come before with some game-changing mechanics and welcome refinements.

A welcome reminder of the origins of Pokémon and while the game’s age is obvious in more than just its graphics the unbounded sense of exploration and experimentation remains as compelling as always.

A welcome reminder of the origins of Pokémon and while the game’s age is obvious in more than just its graphics the unbounded sense of exploration and experimentation remains as compelling as always.

A wonderfully engrossing cosy game that combines the best of Minecraft and Fallout 4 to create a Pokémon spin-off that, for the first time in a long while, is constantly surprising you with its ambition and variety.

An excellent 3D platformer that rather than just trying to copy Nintendo has plenty of ideas of its own, with some thrilling freeform action.

The most entertaining new Resident Evil game in over two decades, with fantastic combat, amazing graphics, effective scares, and the most enjoyably bad one-liners in the business.

It’s spooky rather than scary but with a great script and characters, and some smart puzzles, this is a must-play for anyone who enjoys the kind of stories only video games can tell.

A deep, demanding turn-based strategy game-cum-deck builder whose Soulslike sensibilities leave you to uncover the complexities of its combat, story, and world on your own.

An excellent compilation of seven games from the heyday of Bomberman, but it’s a shame it doesn’t have more online options, to make joining in the multiplayer fun easier.