A cheap-looking and unambitious remake of a generic Pokémon entry that seemed bereft of new ideas in 2006, let alone now.

A cheap-looking and unambitious remake of a generic Pokémon entry that seemed bereft of new ideas in 2006, let alone now.

Lazy, amateurish, and half-finished are not how you usually expect to describe a Rockstar game, but this easily avoided mess shows three classic games in the least flattering way possible.

Skyrim is back yet again, with a graphical makeover and new user generated content, but at full price even fans of brazen commercial cynicism will find their eyebrows quietly reaching for the sky.

A bigger and better sequel which works as both a compelling management sim and a celebration of the Jurassic Park franchise.

The battle system is excellent but the Shin Megami Tensei series once again misses a golden opportunity to reincarnate itself, with its sparse plot and sky high difficulty.

A reliable entry full of variety and worthwhile content, that simultaneously leaves an aroma of staleness that is beginning to taint the whole Call Of Duty franchise.

Brought to life with high quality voice acting that adds to its eerie atmosphere, there’s some decent puzzling and 2D exploration on your way to its final showdown, in what is quite clearly a labour of love.

It’s intensely satisfying when you get it right, with strings of good decisions leading to lengthy but increasingly precarious survival. Unfortunately, its slow drip feed of rewards means it takes too long to unlock new cars and especially tracks, making it a protracted grind even if the gameplay itself remains compelling.

It may lack some of its inspiration’s subtlety and finesse but it looks fantastic, plays a reasonably balanced game, and has certainly got scope for further refinement as it settles in.

It’s gently whimsical and considerably less mechanically complex than either Pokémon Go or Wizards Unite and while it does offer some encouragement to go out and get some fresh air, it’s almost more pedometer than game, and is all but pointless on a tablet.

While it’s undemanding and not a game in the conventional sense, the high production values, tactility, and level of detail make Townscraper a delight to interact with for those who fancy a break from all that touchscreen twitch.

Sports Interactive have done it again. The match engine roars into the modern era with significant and overdue AI tweaks, and whilst there are still some stale features the game feels deeper and easier to navigate than ever.

The best in the series so far, that embraces the open world approach in a way previous entries never quite did – while also being an endlessly enjoyable and highly varied arcade racer.

A 3D platformer which wears its inspirations on its sleeve but manages to offer enough individual style and unique platforming dynamics to stand on its own.

An unasked for remaster of a tedious, badly written survival horror that is even less effective now than it was seven years ago.

Riders Republic is exactly the game it is trying to be, with a modern take on early 2000s xtreme sports games that works in terms of everything except the corporate-mandated ambience.

Remakes of old N64 Mario Party boards may not sound the most desirable release of the season but in terms of easily accessible party games there are few better options.

A highly competent but disappointingly unambitious real-time strategy that fails to move either the genre or the Age Of Empires franchise forward.

A traditional turn-based role-player which utilises its tabletop disguise with charm and polish, but isn’t long enough to fully capitalise on its ideas.

There’s no question that effort has gone into making it though, and that kids of an appropriate age will enjoy it – but that enjoyment is only likely to last a few sessions at most. At that point you will have spent £35 on something that isn’t really that much more interactive, and certainly has less educational value, than a free mobile or browser game.

A surprisingly ambitious cosmic space adventure that excels the more it diverges from the movies, offering robust action, impressive visuals, and unexpectedly sophisticated storytelling.

Easily the best of the Dark Pictures Anthology series, which finally manages to serve up some interesting characters and effective horror scenes, with an appealingly gothic atmosphere.

The Japanese role-playing game stripped back to its bare essentials and yet rather than an exercise in nostalgic pandering this is one of the most compelling and sharply designed dungeon crawlers of recent years.

A work of devilish cleverness that’s both a mockery and celebration of collectible cards games and an increasingly disturbing horror story about the cost of victory.

The series may no longer be the graphical tour de force it once was, but all three Crysis games remain highly playable, your nanosuit’s suite of powers adding a distinct twist to the shooter action.

A hugely disappointing mess of a game that magnifies all of SWERY’s worst tendencies and fails to compensate in terms of the unengaging characters and script.

While it never forges its own identity, or escapes the shadow of Left 4 Dead, Back 4 Blood provides a great cover act, that captures all of the original series’ magic.

One of the most enjoyably weird games of recent years and yet surprisingly easy to grasp, with an engaging mix of action and survival gameplay – and a good dose of surrealist imagery.

The original was always highly simplistic and repetitive, and neither the passage of time or being in 4K can do anything to improve this disappointingly trivial actioner.

A mechanically solid and fun Super Smash Bros. clone which doesn’t have the style, personality or affection for its characters to reach the heights of its inspiration.

One of the best Metroid games ever made and a thrilling restatement of everything that makes the series, and the genre it inspired, great.

Colourful and brutal, funny and horrifying, Far Cry 6 is the distilled essence of its franchise, as well as a richer and more coherent experience than recent outings.

On paper it does everything XCOM does and more, but poor balancing and overcomplicated rules means it’s just not as much fun.

Another sub-par remaster of Super Monkey Ball that ruins the precision and elegance of the originals and replaces it with janky, unpredictable controls and shoddy presentation.

A shameful launch of a barely playable, graphically embarrassing game that shames the memory of PES and may have killed the new franchise before it’s even begun.

Although the quality of the puzzles remains the same this unexpected expansion certainly isn’t just more of the same, with an unexpected new survival horror element.

A charming puzzle platformer which makes great use of its puppet show concept but falls short in longevity.

An unexpected gift for fans of the SNES original and while the remake is seriously flawed in terms of both graphics and gameplay its sheer oddness is still highly compelling.

A very narrow selection of games, from a format that does not work well on modern TVs, but Aria Of Sorrow in particular stands out as one of the best Castlevania games ever made.

It’s hard to believe this is Hideo Kojima’s preferred version of the game, considering it side lines so much of the core gameplay and adds little else of any substance.

An exacting remake of Diablo 2 that will not only please those that played it the first time round on PC but works impressively well on consoles too.

An ambitious release that focuses on new animations and gameplay innovations but the execution needs refining, whilst matches feel too heavily skewed in favour of defence. [Provisional Score = 70]

A bigger, more ambitious stealth sequel which revamps the original’s mechanics and personality but most of the changes are to the game’s detriment.

Highly impressive on a technical level but the throwbacks to PS2 era game design feel less like a homage and more an indication of the developers’ lack of experience and imagination.

A stunning visual style can’t hide the fact that Sable is not only uninterested in guiding its players but it doesn’t really care about entertaining them either.

There’s so much reused content it barely feels like a new game at times but the storytelling in Lost Judgment is some of the best, and most thoughtful, the Yakuza series has ever known.

The 2D visuals are absolutely stunning, but the simplistic action and pretentious storytelling undermine what could have been a true neo-retro classic.

A chirpy spin on the skateboarding sim genre, undermined by poor level design and frustrating gameplay.

The real problem though is that it’s missing career mode, which was central to Rush Rally 3. Despite the excellent interface and handling model it leaves the game feeling a little unfocused.

Online battles provide the odd moment of fun, but matchmaking is regularly unfair, the gameplay little more than a flimsy veil over the upgrade system and in-app purchases, and your character’s stats overwhelmingly the most important factor. It’s dull, over-commercialised drivel that’s not even a shadow of the franchise whose name it sullies.

Metal Slug: Commander is a dystopian masterclass in late stage capitalism. It does look nice though and is thankfully unrelated to the upcoming Metal Slug Tactics.

There’s a solid racing game in here somewhere, but it will need further development to reveal its delights.

A dark and comical action adventure with excellent combat mechanics, sharp writing, and a memorable cast of characters.

Not quite a misfire but while the action is highly entertaining this time-looping adventure squanders much of its premise on disappointingly straightforward objectives and a curiously tame portrayal of unchecked hedonism.

A well designed, turn-based roguelike with a winning art style and a wide variety of options – even if it is a bit too random.

A charming addition to the Life Is Strange franchise that has one of the best branching narratives in any video game and one of the most likeable set of characters.

A successful attempt to modernise and broaden the appeal of the Tales series without completely abandoning its JRPG roots.

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

Technically it’s still the best modern Sonic, if you don’t count Sonic Mania, but time has not been particularly kind and neither has this unambitious remaster.

A better game than the earlier spin-off but Travis Touchdown’s time is clearly over, even if he is still able to provide some entertainingly odd boss battles.

A series of darkly comic spy-themed VR escape rooms that revel in their ability to kill you in inventive and unexpected ways.

There’s some mild improvement on last year’s game but the Madden franchise still feels lost, with too little depth and too many bugs.

It’s trying its best with an obviously low budget but rather than replicating the tension and thrills of Aliens this has much more in common with one of its lacklustre sequels.

A great sequel that is just as surreal and imaginative as the original and manages to be both a silly comedy platformer and a surprisingly affecting character study of regret and lost love.

An audio-only RPG adventure which feels like a new benchmark for the genre, through challenging combat and excellent sound design.

The underlying game is still too reliant on the Ubisoft formula but the new content and Legends mode make Ghost Of Tsushima Director’s Cut a notably better experience than the original at launch.

A clever and idiosyncratic time loop detective thriller with top notch voice acting, which suffers from circular gameplay that quickly descends into monotony.

An enjoyable, likeable mash-up of dungeon crawler and dating sim undercut by simplistic combat and a short running time.

A highly competent alternative to Civilization but the list of unequivocal improvements is disappointingly short, with an unfortunate lack of real innovation.

If you’re not too bothered about seeking constant action, but prefer your games to possess a discernible intelligence, overlying a message which is delivered in a subtle yet insistent manner, then you’ll love Road 96. The illusion of generating your own road movie works perfectly, and whether you view it as simple escapism or something deeper it manages to entertain either way.

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

Clever, unique, and often pretty puzzling, Sixit is another title with no enforced microtransactions, although you can choose to support its developer to the tune of £1.99.

A turn-based roguelike set in a universe that’s similar to but legally distinct from Doom, and where every choice you make has immediate and long term consequences.

A cleverly constructed narrative adventure that explores serious issues of morality without ever being preachy, and still allowing for an intricately designed, non-linear gaming experience.

Ingenious, devious and endlessly entertaining, Baba Is You works just as well on touchscreens as it did on Switch and PC, and for anyone who enjoys having their mental faculties brutally tested, it’s about as good as it gets.

It’s a bit buggy, with the latter part of runs increasingly likely to suffer from game save destroying glitches, but while it works its interconnected resource creation and city defence is hugely addictive.

It’s reasonable to suggest that this is more of the same, but when the original is this good, more is entirely welcome.

Viewed as a visual novel where you have to sit through large numbers of identical, non-interactive fight scenes, you could enjoy it purely for its plot and characters, but this is not a game in the conventional sense.

Its mellow pace, peaceful sound effects, and steady built-in intensity are reminiscent of Nintendo’s formative Game & Watch titles, with Mini Motorways remaining mesmerising throughout.

A thoroughly entertaining mix of Dark Souls and Zelda that has few genuinely new ideas but still manages to enthral with a unique charm of its own.

A deeply disappointing co-op shooter that squanders its excellent graphics on a bland and repetitive attempt to make a sci-fi Diablo.

A twisting and engaging portmanteau tale of the unexplained, set in a London that’s refreshing in its finely observed normality.

A worthy follow-up to the cult classic original, with a great mix of Japanese role-playing and beat ‘em-up elements – even if the storytelling is sometimes hard to follow.

Ace Attorney meets Sherlock Holmes turns out to be a great premise for a new game, with a subtle change in formula that works as both absurdist comedy and historical drama.

This is a simulation, and very much not a game, but it’s also the most graphically impressive console experience ever seen and one of the best adverts for Xbox Game Pass so far.

An addictive and accessible MOBA which takes advantage of the Pokémon license to great effect but is hampered by an abundance of free-to-play irritations.

A revolutionary approach to storytelling and an excess of charm makes this modest little indie game one of the most important new role-players of the new generation.

A loving tribute to the past and present of Japanese role-players, with some impressively clever time travel powers and gorgeous artwork – although it’s a shame about the random battles.

The most uneven of the 3D Zeldas but its highs soar well above its immediate contemporaries and while the motion controls are still hit or miss at least there’s now an alternative.

Codemasters’ best Formula One game so far adds an excellent story mode, along with a raft of new tweaks and options to make it more accessible.

Solve puzzles, find and plug in carbon eating machines, and recover seedlings that flourish on nutrients tucked away in secret areas. There may only be 14 plants to recover but getting all the nutrients in each level is a much bigger task. Although Doomsday Vault’s been out for over a year it’s just been updated to add four extra pyramid-themed levels and a spruced up seed vault with a viewing platform to stand and survey your crops.

As puzzles get more involved you can deploy power-ups (purchased using in-game currency) to help extend the time limit or automatically turn all pie pieces the same colour, in this engaging and well-designed puzzler.

It’s fun and polished as far, as it goes, but it feels as though more content might be due in future updates. It’s also seriously light on instruction, leaving the impression of having been rushed out to a tight deadline.

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.

A clever reinterpretation of classic Monster Hunter action in the form of a Japanese role-playing game. Although it can often seem a little too oversimplified compared to the mainline titles.

When one of the main new features of a game is its ability to play itself, it’s a hint that a franchise is beginning to run out of steam – especially given Disgaea 6’s limp script and 3D graphics.

A tragically awful attempt to revive the Dark Alliance name, with horribly repetitive combat, empty storytelling, and a dragon horde’s worth of bugs.