A great VR experience that is more than just a simple sniper simulation, with some impressively replayable missions and a great marriage of VR and motion controls.

The world didn’t real need a Mario Vs. Donkey Kong remake but this is still the absolute best effort Nintendo could’ve made, with tons of new content and the same enjoyable but undemanding puzzles as before.

Considering it's been almost seven years since the last game Dead Or Alive 5 has shamefully few new ideas, and makes you wonder whether the series didn't belong in the big league after all.

While there’s no exploration, your character effectively just walking from fight to fight down an endless corridor, the intricacy and subtlety of each combat encounter continues to deepen even after hours of play. It’s a masterclass in game design, working flawlessly on a touchscreen.

Part tactical role-player, part bullet hell shooter - this is hard to get into but worth it if you do.

A charming, polished, and warmly humorous detective game whose cute 3D dioramas and delightful graphical touches are a pleasure to interact with.

It's not a simulation but it is the only semi-serious baseball game with a chance of appealing to non-fans.

A raucous VR splatterfest that captures Deadpool’s brand of sardonic humour and gratuitous violence perfectly, with sky high production values largely making up for the overly simple combat.

It’s been a long wait for a World Of Goo sequel and the only real complaint with this amusingly inventive follow-up is that there’s not more of it.

A true successor to Myst, with puzzles as ingenious as they are uncompromisingly obscure. Although the experience is hampered by serious technical problems.

It undoes some of the damage of the last few games, but taking the series back to its roots is an admission that Ratchet & Clank has done nothing but go in circles all generation.

A rare, honest-to-goodness video game comedy that will delight Rick and Morty fans but also features some imaginative use of VR.

No fun at all on your own, but together on the same couch this is one of the most entertaining co-op puzzlers of recent years.

Konami forgets it's already made the ultimate Contra tribute - and it's not this bland rehash.

Some effort has gone into this ill-advised port, but it's still a pale shadow of the HD original.

A disappointing final whistle from EA as the new mechanics and fine-tuning create little in the way of major change, for a series that has long been in need of a major revamp.

A clever of mix of new and old that blends together several different platforming greats but still maintains a distinctive identity of its own.

A good looking and competent retread of a second rate original, which improves on everything from the graphics to the driving model, whilst maintaining the game’s cinematic essence.

The usual mix of the mundane, the inspired, and the not quite fully-formed, but at least two of the five maps are minor classics.

A curious sequel whose simplified combat and lack of challenge undermines some of the best level design and puzzles in any recent Metroidvania.

The casual fan will find plenty to enjoy but diehards will see Madden 20 as just another facelift to a franchise that knows how to succeed but struggles to innovate.

A Pokémon fighting game may not seem like the most obvious spin-off idea, but the end result is a surprisingly fun and inventive multiplayer game.

The classic gets some well implemented new features that extend but don't overwhelm the original.

Bullet hell at its finest, with some genuine innovation for a 2D shooter and some great visuals.

A slight disappointment after the surprise hit of Stick It To The Man, but still one of the best modern day equivalents to LucasArts style comedy and puzzling.

A fiercely imaginative puzzle solver that builds on all the best elements of Call Of The Sea to deliver a genuinely challenging, Lovecraftian-flavoured adventure.

Another impressive open world environment is wasted on dull, joyless gameplay and repetitive missions, making Syndicate as banal and artless as Assassin’s Creed has ever been.

It's now the only game keeping vehicular combat alive, but even fans will be disappointed at the lack of change and ambition - in what is more a remake than a reboot.

A charming and well-made role-playing adventure, but despite how much it might resemble Pokémon it has nothing like the depth of Nintendo’s games.

The best Mario Party in a very long time, and while it’s shallow and silly it’s also one of the few times casual and core gamers can compete in perfect (dis)harmony.

There’s a disappointing lack of invention in the paper thin story and characters, but the combat and witty dialogue is as good as the series has ever been.

An utterly bizarre mix of influences that tries to squeeze in far more elements than would ever be deemed sensible, but somehow manages to work despite it all.

A relatively original and enjoyably bizarre puzzler, that seems more at home on 3DS than Switch but still offers plenty of seafood-themed fun for everyone.

A little undercooked, but this is still an enjoyable attempt to create a more cerebral shooter.

A great follow-up to The New Order, which cleverly reuses all of its best features and yet still finds time to add plenty of new elements of its own.

A small but worthwhile expansion for one of the year’s best games, that provides a welcome hint of more difficulties to come.

Certainly a career high for Kirby, but he still wilts next to serious platforming competition.

Your mileage will vary greatly in this epic-scale shooter that rewards only the most dedicated.

Fortunately, it’s great fun anyway and avoids some of the frankly exhausting grind of Destiny 2. It’s constantly tempting to drop real cash, but even without giving in to that, there’s lots to explore and do, and a hefty chunk of plot to get your teeth into.

A charming and often inventive mix of Animal Crossing and Zelda, that lacks depth but not ambition.

Its biggest problem is touchscreen controls, the joystick and buttons regularly proving elusive and making precision platform stages just as nightmarish as you’d expect. But get past those moments of finger-slipping, iPad-hurling frustration and you’ll discover an unusually well-made and inventive tour of gameplay from the last three decades.

A little rough around the edges, especially in terms of the storytelling, but the interminable wait for this open world zombie sequel has been worth it.

A successful re-imagining of the classic 90s interactive movie, that retains the characters and setting but adds some fun new puzzles and VR wonderment.

It may not offer any surprises, but with a mountain of modes, options and unlockables this amiable golf sim is another excellent showcase for the PS Vita.

It was probably foolhardy to ever try to bring The Sims 3 to consoles and despite a spirited attempt this is just a shadow of the PC version.

Mercilessly difficult, and unusually complicated, but the best looking and most varied BIT. TRIP yet.

A well constructed tennis game that takes practise to get the hang of, with neat role-playing style player upgrades and a season-based structure that helps prevent monotony.

Microtransactions rear their ugly head once again, but they’re not enough to take the shine off one of the best portable Ridge Racers so far.

Professor Layton may offer a more cerebral challenge but Rhythm Thief has more than enough charm and imagination to waltz its way into your affections.

There are many clever, elegantly-designed puzzles, which escalate in complexity to include multiple light sources. But there are also some nasty bugs in later levels, several of which require you to quit and restart the game.

It all still works on touchscreen, with a few inevitable compromises, making it viable to play while you’re out, before returning to your PC or console.

One of the best arena shooters of recent years, but its high skill requirement and bland characters create an unfortunately high barrier to entry.

There are some issues with game difficultly and length, but this is one of the most successful Kickstarters so far – and an excellent retro style role-player in its own right.

Far Cry Primal is a perfectly entertaining game, but it’s a hard one to get too excited about, especially when it seems as if only a few twists would’ve turned it into something considerably more interesting. As it is though it suffers from needlessly basic storytelling and a general lack of vision. Although it’s no disaster it does feel like a backwards step for Far Cry, and gives no real hint as to what its evolutionary future could or should be.

The longest-running game you've never heard of gets a typically competent but characterless makeover.

A worse game than the already flawed original, whose poorly crafted action is as ineffective as its clichéd attempts at horror.

A downloadable spin-off that, while reasonably good value for money, manages only to underline how shallow and repetitive the combat was from the first game.

More than just XCOM with talking animals, this inventive strategy game has plenty of new ideas of its own – even it’s a little lacking in replayability.

The game itself is as generic and unmemorable as ever, and does little to deserve talk of a sequel, but this is a notably better PC port than Sony’s first attempt.

Mindlessly enjoyable in its way, but also hugely repetitive and despite four versions of the character it never seems to make the most of any one of them.

A real Super Mario game on smartphone might have seemed impossible at one time, but this has all the polish and charm you’d expect of a top flight Nintendo game.

An enjoyable counterpart to Ghost Of Tsushima, with some truly excellent combat, but the bloated open world elements can often suffocate your enjoyment.

No fun at all on your own, but together on the same couch this is one of the most entertaining co-op puzzles for many months.

Not a game that particularly needed a remaster but that in itself speaks to the quality of the original and the potential of the new sequel.

The least brown shooter ever made, with the colourful graphics and accessible controls supported by an imaginative and surprisingly well-crafted online experience.

The least interesting WarioWare entry so far, with overcomplicated multiplayer characters and microgames that seem to have lost their sense of manic invention.

Graphically beautiful and abounding with references and Easter eggs, it’s a not-quite-driving adventure that’s overflowing with charm and wit.

A reskinned Borderlands 3 that would’ve been much better off as an expansion, given it’s too short to justify the outrageously high price tag and too long to hide the lack of variety and new ideas.

Such an old school role-player that most of its influences predate video games, and although an acquired taste it's clearly a refined one as well.

The Heist is by no means essential but it marks a decent start to what could be another intriguing Spider-Man story. However, it’s already clear that these post-launch adventures will only extend, not enhance, your overall experience with the original game.

As hardcore as first person shooters get but fascinatingly distinctive as a result - if you have the resolve to endure its rougher edges.

Not the deepest wilderness survival game in terms of gameplay, but certainly one of the most atmospheric and thought-provoking.

An innovative and cleverly nuanced mix of race game and puzzler - albeit a rather pretentious one.

A charming indie platformer with a fun central gimmick and excellent movement options, let down by garish visuals and some deliberate retro foibles.

The original game remains the best entry in the series but Jamboree TV on its own adds little of value and isn’t worth the upgrade.

For better and worse this is Harvest Moon in all but name, with a few useful new ideas but still the same old crop of problems.

A great Metroid game and a great Aliens tie-in, and only a few rough edges stop this from being a minor classic all of its own.

The basics of gameplay work tremendously well, but the game is bogged down by too many niggling faults and the sense that it’ll take until at least next year to fulfil its potential.

A mixture of roguelike and Zelda: A Link To The Past that looks and plays extremely well, but even with some notable improvements still doesn’t get the balance quite right.

Not a standout year for Call Of Duty, as while the campaign offers some fun action and minor innovation Zombies and multiplayer are beginning to feel very tired.

The one LucasArts game that didn’t need a remaster gets one anyway, but it can’t do anything for the game’s brevity or lack of challenge.

The best Dark Souls clone so far features a number of interesting new ideas and also offers an experience that is easier to acclimatise to for new players.

One of the best roguelikes for a long time, whose randomised abilities work perfectly to add variety and unpredictability to its tale of an 80s style post-apocalypse.

This new episodic graphic adventure is mild cheddar compared to the original TV shorts and movie.

It always sounded like a bad idea, but although Zelda has inspired one of the best Dynasty Warriors games to date the end result is still well below average by any other standard.

A pub band cover version of Forza Horizon 5, that despite a few unique ideas doesn’t come close to the fun and variety of its inspiration.

A largely successful attempt to create a more cerebral style of horror game, even if it frequently comes across as just Alien Isolation with ghosts.

An impressively ambitious attempt to open up game modding to everyone, although at the moment the action is curiously backwards.

A fascinatingly bizarre indie thriller that mixes multiple gameplay elements and narrative influences to create a disquieting but consistently compelling descent into cosmic horror.

Nintendo continues to paint over some of the best features of previous Paper Mario games, but the great script just about saves the dull combat.

The most bizarre narrative bait and switch in video game history, as a tense, emotional thriller sticks the worst landing since Eddie The Eagle.

If you’re going to make a console compilation and leave out what is arguably the best entry then it’s hard not to see that as a missed opportunity.

A clever, if not wholly original, action strategy that's only lacking in single player appeal.

It’s a shame it isn’t a full remake, but The Dark Descent remains one of the most frightening and atmospheric video games ever made.

It’s an impressive achievement given the game’s inherent complexity but, especially on a phone screen, battles are fiddly, with the job of highlighting and dragging units rendered inaccurate by the size of your thumbs compared with your microscopically small fighting men and cavalry. The less time pressured diplomatic elements work far better.

A parkour and puzzle game that is not quite as action-packed as its marketing suggests but still represents a superior VR experience, that wouldn’t be nearly as captivating on a flat screen.

Unoriginal and blandly presented, but an effective vindication of Move - with at least half of the games being the best ever adaptations of their sports.

A clever mix of World Of Goo and Drawn To Life that makes good use of the Wii and your own imagination.