A great game for novice fighting game players, with some interestingly unique ideas, but the bland fantasy world and lack of playable characters lessen its impact.

An incredible technical achievement but one that is surprisingly short of genuinely new ideas, and often struggles to get the balance right between VR showpiece and satisfying gameplay experience.

A whimsical and engrossing VR puzzle adventure, who’s lack of hand-holding and gentle discoveries prove consistently engaging and relaxing.

An unfairly neglected part of the Doom canon is given the remaster it most certainly deserves, in what is one of the most welcome retro remasters of recent years.

A significant improvement on the reboot and while there are still a few flaws the core combat is some of the best in any first person shooter this generation.

Animal Crossing finally gets a sequel that moves the franchise forward, in a surprisingly timely release that is perfect for this year in terms of both its gameplay and its philosophy.

It’s not changed much but what improvements there are, are all positive in what remains the best Dark Souls clone not made by From Software.

There are neat graphical details, with chunks of masonry blown off buildings by grenades or tank rounds, and your tiny soldiers will automatically dive to the ground when a machinegun opens up nearby. The base game also had some excellent DLC, which will hopefully make its way to this rock solid iPad port.

There’s always someone falling off something, or getting impaled on something else, in a cacophony of tiny sound effects reminiscent of the chaos of LittleBigPlanet 3’s excellent multiplayer mode.

Although graphically pretty, the controls are often slow to react to your input and swiping to swap out redundant power-ups is horribly temperamental, undermining a great deal of the potential fun.

It may not be able to claim much originality compared to its predecessor, or Metroidvania games in general, but this is still one of the best examples of its craft this generation.

Even after just a few hours of gameplay it’s obvious that this is an important contender in the battle royale genre. Whether interest will quickly fizzle out, as happened with Blackout, remains to be seen but the early signs suggest Warzone will rage on for some time to come. [First Impressions Review]

A highly unlikely combination of Ace Attorney and Picross but despite the game’s best efforts it’s a mixture that never really gels together.

A fun, fairly brief campaign that offers plenty of memorable scenarios and a suite of improvements that turn The Division 2 into a true contender for the looter shooter throne.

A highly enjoyable action romp, with a winning sense of humour and a hugely entertaining range of unusually varied weapons.

A thoroughly uninteresting roguelike that undermines the most compelling elements of both the genre and the Pokémon universe.

Space Channel 5’s dancing aliens and high camp work well in VR, but with only around half an hour of gameplay this represents astoundingly poor value for money.

The games are beginning to approach their sell-by-date, but the impressively oppressive post-apocalyptic atmosphere still has plenty of appeal.

A highly successful reboot of one of SNK’s most unfairly forgotten franchise, that takes its rightful place as one of the generation’s best fighters.

Another excellent PC-to-Switch port that revives the Theme Hospital with a heavy dose of humour and impressively involved business management.

A gruelling and protracted stat-management simulation, with paltry interactions and stilted dialogue that’s entirely removed from the actual process of parenting.

An unexpectedly enhanced version of one of the best action games of the PS2 era, which even now offers better and deeper combat than most modern rivals.

An inspired mix of survival horror and battle royale that also manages to blend competitive and co-operative gameplay into a terrifyingly entertaining whole.

Giving everyone the ability to create video games is a wonderful thing and Dreams is far easier to use, and adapt to your own requirements, than you might imagine. Although the one thing that it teaches above all is that no matter how easy the physical act of video game creation becomes, making a game that is enjoyable to play is something else entirely. That shouldn’t put anyone off though, but instead inspire you with the knowledge that, thanks to Dreams, all that is stopping you from becoming a world-renowned video game creator is hard graft and a vivid imagination.

Another good value expansion pass from Nintendo, that doesn’t quite make up for the flaws of the parent game but does manage to emphasise its most positive qualities.

Two of the best action games of the last generation make the jump to current gen consoles and prove just as entertaining as they ever were.

With its launch problems well behind it, Street Fighter 5 is no longer a disgrace to the family name, with the Champion Edition able to take on any other fighter this generation.

Dead Cells’ hugely engaging roguelike-meets-Metroidvania gets its first paid-for DLC and becomes even more compelling than it was at launch.