The combat is good, and the script has its moments, but otherwise this is a highly repetitive open world shooter that makes very poor use of its licence.

Innerspace meets Smash T.V., except retaining only the worst elements of both in this slow-paced and tedious dual-stick shooter.

The real mystery here is why Nintendo continues to allow such a minimum effort cash grab to dilute the Pokémon name, in yet another bland and repetitive dungeon crawler.

Part of the problem is clearly the budget, with low-tech visuals and poor sound quality, but that would’ve been a lot easier to forgive if the gameplay had been stronger. It’s not awful, and is a reasonable gateway game into other, better games, but the obvious danger is that if you’re unimpressed by the flawed experience of Narcos you might be even less likely to try out XCOM. And since nobody really expected a game based on Narcos to be any good, that would be the real tragedy here.

Skull And Bones has great naval combat but far too little else to recommend it, with a weak story and gameplay systems that amount to nothing but endless busywork.

A competent enough clone of Final Fantasy Tactics but unlike the TV show it lacks any real sense of imagination or invention.

Despite the name this lacks any kind of zip at all, in what may be the most mundane and unexciting platformer Nintendo has ever put their name to.

Surviving zombies is fairly easy but the real enemy here is tedium and a shopping list of design mistakes that makes this one of the worst zombie games of the year.

A 3D platformer so bad it brings to mind Bubsy 3D rather than Super Mario 64, in what is a considerable step down from the already mediocre original.

A fun and unusual take on the third person stealth game, that suffers from some humourless writing but benefits from a surfeit of peculiar magic powers.

One of the more reprehensible examples of withheld content in recent months, although you aren't really missing much from the mission or character.

Not the worst tie-in of the year but one that runs out of ideas even more quickly than the films.

An odd couple crossover that is not only a loving homage to Star Wars but the best Angry Birds game so far – well, except for the sequel that this monstrously expensive port fails to include.

A disappointing homage to the Mega Drive games of yore, that emphasises all the wrong elements in terms of both gameplay and game modes.

There’s probably no way to make After Burner interesting again without turning it into a completely different game, but there was no need for Sega to prove that fact yet again.

It’d be nice to say that at least it’s something different but Contrast is far more mundane and derivative than it first appears. It’s also a near farce on a technical level.

An inexplicably careless remaster, where none of the changes are unequivocally for the better and the experience is brought down further by numerous bugs and missing features.

The real question here is why Rebellion has bothered to remaster the game at all. If it’s a first step towards releasing more 2000 AD adaptations then we’re all for it, but viewed on its own merits this is the same mediocre shooter it was more than a decade ago. For fans of the character it is at least a faithful adaptation, but viewed as anything else but fan service its thrill-power is far from zarjaz.

There are some interesting ideas and visual effects at play here, but they're not nearly strong enough to support such a monotonous adventure.

A very poor first person shooter buoyed up by the promise of things to come, and an impressively ambitious attempt at a cross-format connected universe.

The weapon-crafting is great but given the manipulative microtransactions this free-to-play shooter is not worth your time, let alone your money.

Another ineffectual attempt to transpose the Dark Souls gameplay and atmosphere into a sci-fi setting, although the split-screen mode is an interesting novelty.

What’s most unforgiveable is how imprecise slugcat is to control. We know there’s the whole slug side of things to consider, but he’s a lot heavier than he looks in the videos and because of the procedural animation he often doesn’t respond as quickly as you need him to. Add in the boredom and repetition from having to constantly hibernate and the game proves to be very aptly named: it’s dull, miserable, and makes you want to stay inside and do something else instead.

A no-thrills arcade racer that straddles the line between nostalgic throwback and outdated curio, and while fun in short doses it quickly loses its novelty.

As repetitive and predictable as any movie tie-in, but the core combat is sound and Green Lantern's powers are handled well.

Sega's new dumbed down sequel isn't a disaster but it requires little skill and proffers little satisfaction.

An interesting attempt to cross Dark Souls with a roguelike, but it’s not a very well mixed cocktail and the ingredients really needed to be chosen with more care.

One of the most technically impressive PlayStation VR games so far but a disappointingly drab and unfocused prequel to Until Dawn, that takes itself far too seriously.