A beautiful looking 2D side-scrolling puzzle game whose lack of challenge and regularly recycled mechanics prove disappointingly bland, with no significant improvements over the original.

Absorbing VR tower defence that improves on the original game in almost every department, but is let down by a pointless, tacked on narrative.

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.

A very run of the mill Metroidvania that does little of interest with the God Of War setting and stumbles in terms of the dull combat and unengaging plot.

An accomplished and darkly witty first person puzzle game that’s predictably not as good as Portal, but does come surprisingly close at times.

The newly vertiginous sandbox levels prove an excellent canvas for sneaking and stealing, in a welcome new entry in what feels increasingly like the spiritual successor to Thief: The Dark Project.

An inventive sequel whose small improvements in gameplay can’t make up for tedious firefights and minigames, and a less witty script.

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.

A darkly atmospheric horror puzzle game from the original developers of Little Nightmares, that’s undermined by dull puzzles and too much trial and error.

Suda51’s punk attitude results in another uniquely bizarre third person action game, but this one has more life and originality to it than most of his other more recent titles.

One of the most complex and rewarding strategy games of recent years, hidden behind a mask of weird humour, ugly visuals, and a lot of random number generation.

The best Mario Tennis game since the N64 era and a hugely enjoyable multiplayer game with a ton of single-player content, although there’ll still be too many gimmicks for some people.

The incremental pace of progress and presence of numerous currencies are the remnants of its microtransaction-based original version, which is still available on Android, where its clean graphical style and slowly complicating interactions remain moderately entertaining.

Even without the controversies surrounding it, Yakuza Kiwami 3 is a huge disappointment, with no useful changes and a worthless new expansion.

The best Soulslike not made by FromSoftware, which expands and improves on the series’ exceptional combat with two separate play styles and a fantastically wide range of enemies and locations.

An historically authentic military flight sim that rewards the hard work put into mastering its combat, although there was no need for it to be quite this inaccessible to non-propellerheads.

Almost as conflicted as Hamlet himself, this is both an amusingly whimsical graphic adventure and a frustrating, needlessly obscure chore.

A sorely underdeveloped, crafting-orientated survival horror game, whose neat comic book art style isn’t enough to compensate for sub-par combat and storytelling.

A loving remake of a JRPG classic, with pitch perfect graphics and charming, if simplistic, storytelling and combat.

An outdated and uninteresting Soulslike that takes an already flawed original and makes it even less compelling, with unengaging storytelling, bland visuals, and repetitive action.

A flawed but brilliant mountaineering game that splices survival gameplay and a fascinating four-limb climbing system with exploration, risk-taking, and the emotional fallout from a climber’s loved ones.

A lo-fi 8-bit style twin-stick bullet hell shooter whose exhilaratingly weird music and catalogue of surreal weaponry is undermined by technical problems and a reliance on luck.

A genuinely funny Paper Mario style role-player, with entertaining puzzles and a welcome mockery of LinkedIn culture, let down by rhythm action battle mechanics that don’t quite work.

A fabulously imaginative and unique take on the budding detective genre, that mixes clever investigation work with an unpredictable but gripping story.