The best Pokémon clone by a significant margin and arguably a more enjoyable experience than the more recent 3D games, with some clever new ideas and fantastic visuals.

A 90s style JRPG with dungeon exploration, random monster encounters, and a penchant for crafting, whose rough and ready production values undermine its comforting milieu.

A small but welcome improvement on Fallen Order, that offers little in the way of originality but does have some of the best lightsaber fights and Soulslite action this side of the Outer Rim.

An exceptionally pretty slice of DLC that does nothing to address the faults of the main game but does manage to emphasise its many successes, especially the graphics.

An excellent remake of one of the best strategy games of all time, that is as accessible and versatile as an action game but has some of the most deceptively deep tactical combat ever seen in a console release.

A surprisingly lean and mean sequel which amplifies the bloody thrills of the original through its impressive presentation and flexible mechanics.

A failed attempt to turn Minecraft into a real-time strategy game, that goes out of its way to be as shallow as possible and is made worse by fiddly controls and terrible AI.

A welcome reminder of an unfairly forgotten franchise, but while Battle Network is an ingenious and fun action role-player it is possible to have too much of a good thing.

A loving homage to 16-bit classic Flashback but despite some fun visuals the clumsy controls and combat could have done with a bit more modernisation.

As with the main game, our fears that the more generic control system would undermine the appeal of the original have proven unfounded and the remake of The Mercenaries is great fun and makes the whole package seem like even better value for money than before, with enormous replayability for a single-player game. We can only hope that Capcom doesn’t get greedy with DLC – at least not for anything that was in the original version – but either way The Mercenaries only makes a great game even better.

Slick, high-tech, and impeccably well designed; this is the best golf game of the modern era and the new standard for others to aspire to.

A prequel to Road 96, that adds skating mini-games but removes the procedural generation of the original – but it’s still engagingly written, and has a lot to say.

Although all the brass and wood are reminiscent of The Room series, puzzles here don’t involve as much physical tinkering, instead offering more cerebral challenges, getting you to unpick written and pictorial clues, connecting props spread across different parts of each room. It also makes imaginative use of your mobile’s accelerometer in a set of conundrums that can be pretty taxing. Fortunately, there’s a hint system, but for anyone who enjoys having their brain teased this will be a delight.

First released in 2009, the Apple Arcade version is unchanged, and remains a masterclass in minimalist touchscreen interface design, even if its slow pace and singular focus may put off adrenaline fans.

Like the recent and mostly terrible, Tomb Raider Reloaded, Mighty Doom uses the well-worn Archero template, this time to somewhat more interesting effect.

Each region’s effectively its own puzzle, and even in the training level it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to complete all the goals, recycle your buildings, and take off in your airship on your first attempt. It’s got a meditative pace, but with so many possibilities to consider at each stage you’ll be glad of that.

The game is as compelling as ever, and this is an interesting opportunity to compare it with the TV show, but at launch this is one of the worst PC ports from any major publisher in a long while.

An entertaining and fiercely satirical evocation of a future corporate dystopia, that manages to be both genuinely funny and surprisingly varied in its gameplay.

Given it’s a free joke download, we’re not going to give The Murder Of Sonic The Hedgehog a score but we still recommend you try it out for yourself, be you a casual or diehard Sonic fan. Hopefully next year other publishers produce more April Fool’s gags of this quality and not just the usual tedious fake news.

An unlikeable, repetitive, and blandly designed clone of Payday that wastes its celebrity filled cast on an equally substandard script.

More up close and personal zombie slaying in post-apocalyptic New Orleans, retaining the original’s focus on exploration and crafting, and its relentlessly uninspiring combat.

One of the best post-Breath Of The Wild open world adventures, but while the game’s heavily influenced by Zelda it ultimately plumps for amiable exploration over more rugged adventure.

A solidly constructed VR roguelite that combines guns and magic for some memorable runs, even if its graphics and setting won’t be winning any awards.

A highly original puzzle game that turns the act of telling a story into an entertainingly convoluted process of logical deduction and amusing plot development.

A short but sweet VR romp that replicates the Peaky Blinders universe perfectly, even as it runs up against some of the intrinsic limitations of VR gaming on the Meta Quest 2. [Tested on Meta Quest 2]

More a reimagining than a straight remake but despite the difficulty of recapturing lighting in a bottle, this is both a loving tribute to the original Resident Evil 4 and a great game in its own right.

An improvement on last year’s already firm foundations, WWE 2K23 continues the franchise’s rebirth with steady improvements, beefed up game modes, and an epic recreation of WarGames.

A moderately entertaining on-rails action game that fails to learn anything from its predecessor Until Dawn: Rush Of Blood or indeed other, much older, lightgun games.