A thoroughly 21st century take on Breakout that may just be a classic in the making, mixing 70s style bat and ball mechanics with a succession of insane power-ups and a deeply interlinked resource generation minigame.

It’s still as embarrassingly low-tech as ever but this is easily the best of the 3D games, with a surprising amount of ambition and invention, not to mention real-time combat that actually works.

A very peculiar platformer, whose wonky mechanics never fully deliver on the fever dream promise of its ambience, but at least it plays better on more modern formats.

A refined but unadventurous restart for the Battlefield series, which returns to the thrilling spectacle of the classic entries, even if it doesn’t do very much that is new.

A fun roguelike beat ’em-up that manages to expand the genre beyond its arcade roots, with relatively deep combat, excellent animation, and four very different playable characters.

The new developer perfectly recreates the art direction and atmosphere of the originals, but there’s a lack of innovation and variety in this otherwise enjoyable quasi-horror sequel.

An extremely insubstantial Star Wars pod racing themed VR and mixed reality experience, that is technically competent but whose greatest value is in demonstrating the limitations of AR as a concept.

It’s atrocious, failing both as a tactical combat game and a whodunnit, instead settling for charging you to win more frequently via its paid battle pass.

A multiplayer driven dungeon crawler with flashes of comical entertainment, but which neither excels as a party game or as a captivating solo grind.

The quintessential tactical role-playing game is revived for a new generation and while it still has its flaws, the bedrock of both the gameplay and the narrative remain as solid as ever.

Both games are not only Nintendo at their peak (as good as Odyssey is, we consider both Galaxy games to be superior) but the whole art of video games. The creativity, the craft, and the bond between your simple control inputs and the magic happening on-screen has never been bettered. A decade and a half ago, Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 stood as two of the best video games ever made and that is absolutely still the case now.

A well-meaning Zero Escape expy that’s too simple for puzzle fiends and too shallow for anyone looking for a nuanced examination of dealing with one’s trauma.

A decently tweaked iteration of EA’s domineering football sim, but while the changes might not be seismic they are all positive.

One of the best-looking open world games ever but the formula is beginning to feel increasingly outdated, despite the cool visuals, fun samurai gear, and surprisingly good plot.

A beautiful, meditative Lego-based puzzle game for two, that emphasises playful fun over challenge, although to such a degree that it’s all over a bit too soon.

A solid roguelike with a fun and well-balanced challenge, but it does little to move the formula forward and in certain respects is actually inferior to its predecessor.

An excellent extension to an already large and polished game, with welcome new gameplay additions and a whole new island to explore.

Disturbing yet thought-provoking survival horror sequel, that stumbles slightly in terms of the repetitive combat but is easily the best new entry in the series since the PS2 era.

In its current early access state, Skate is a contradiction. It tows the line between giving just enough of what we asked for by bringing the Flick-It system to modern platforms, while also being something of a storefront on wheels. It has the mechanics to last forever, being an outright hoot with friends, but the infrastructure could vanish overnight. 15 years on, EA has delivered a game that captures the joy of skating, but whether it can capture the heart of skateboarding remains very much in question. [Early Access Review]

The Beast still feels like an extended piece of DLC, which while entertaining in itself lacks any new innovations and has an unwelcome clutch of bugs.

It’s not quite the same calibre as Mario Kart World, but those disappointed by Nintendo’s racer will find Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds an ideal alternative, thanks to its heart-pumping action and unique ideas that make it more than just a carbon copy.

A relatively entertaining new mode and a mostly empty new island result in one of the most overpriced releases Nintendo has ever produced.

A fun, extra slice of Indiana Jones’ familiar brawling, puzzling, and tomb raiding that sits comfortably inside the Raiders canon without adding anything distinctive of its own.

Gearbox’s venerable looter shooter has finally developed a modicum of maturity, with improved gunplay, a proper open world, and some half-decent storytelling.

A beautifully executed and immaculately polished continuation of Hollow Knight’s Metroidvania artistry, with a similarly lugubrious art style and occasionally rage-inducing difficulty.

After a few dozen rounds the jaunty but unremittingly insistent music is enough to trigger homicidal rage, but once that’s switched off it’s a breeze, to the extent that our first non-three-star performance was the boss fight on stage 30. If you like your challenges gentle or have a game-curious preschooler in the house, this might be just what you’re after.

Released in 2019, Wargroove is what can politely be called a homage, and less politely a blatant copy, of Advance Wars. It borrows its cartoon styling, turn-based tactical gameplay, and at least some of its sense of balance between units. Just swapping a semi-real world setting for a Tolkien-esque fantasy world. Its sequel doesn’t for one moment try and reinvent the wheel, instead providing a massive additional dose of the same thing. This time its campaign is split into three sizeable parts, each of which focuses on a different faction, with its own units and variations in terrain. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s the roguelike Conquest Mode, and a souped-up map creator. It’s a huge game, and just as polished and entertaining as its predecessor.

While it’s perfectly playable as a freebie, its monetisation is aggressive, from the recharging energy required to play levels, to repeated entreaties to buy upgrade packs, even if underneath all the sales effort its gameplay remains mildly diverting, and its artwork sublime.