A complex strategy game with some severe accessibility issues, especially on consoles, but give it a chance and it’s a rewarding and deep sci-fi experience.

A well designed, turn-based roguelike with a winning art style and a wide variety of options – even if it is a bit too random.

While it shares some of its playful approach to perspective with Gorogoa, this is no puzzle game and involves no player choice, but it does have a pleasing emotional resonance, even if the relentless melancholy eventually makes you want to go back to Poinpy.

A joyous, challenging and chaotic first person sandbox of destruction, that also requires tactical thought and planning, with a huge amount of extra content and fan-made add-ons.

Not only one of the 3DS's best launch games but also one of the most accessible and entertaining turn-based strategies of recent years.

Garden Warfare 3 in all but name, but while it’s not an emphatic improvement on the previous games it’s still a highly enjoyable, family friendly online shooter.

An even better game than the original, whose innocuous visuals hide a tense and unpredictable survival horror of surprising potency.

Despite all the effort to seem wacky and surreal this is an oddly un-engaging follow-up to Excite Truck.

SWERY’s latest work seems unusually derivative at times but the mix of disturbing atmosphere, surreal situations, and serious subject matter is still hugely engaging.

Easily the best One Piece video game there’s ever been and a genuinely fun and innovative Japanese role-player in its own right.

FromSoftware struggle to force the square peg of Elden Ring into the round hole of a co-op roguelite, and while they just about manage to make it work the whole game feels like only a half-successful experiment.

A clever demonstration of all the Wii U's features and, more importantly, a mini-game collection that can keep any gamer – from casual to hardcore – equally entertained.

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.

The pioneering space adventure makes an impressive landing on PlayStation 4, with more content than ever and the promise of even better things to come.

Survival mode is the only time Starhawk comes together to create a properly entertaining whole. In all the other game modes it's merely a loose collection of bullet points and underdeveloped ideas, ones which never gel together into the multiplayer classic this could so easily have been.

A far better game than it will probably be given credit for, and a good sequel that tries to add depth to the gameplay and even more variety to the characters.

One of the most visually distinctive games of the year, that proves you don’t need realism or gore to be scary – in this enjoyable mix of stealth, puzzle-solving, and surreal horror.

It won’t convert many new fans to either series but this is a successful mix of the best of both (minus the map-making) and whose new ideas deserve a future of their own.

A worthy follow-up to the original coin-op collection but the selection of games never feels quite as varied or vital, and the continued lack of museum features is a shame.

The best combat flight sim ever on a console, with a huge range of aircraft and locations - as well as difficultly settings to suit every kind of gamer.

Episode 4 is a definite step forward though and the hints about what will happen in the fifth and final episode suggests it may be the most politically charged of all.

It might not be as funny as Portal but the puzzles are almost as inventive, in this contrived but entertaining crossover.

The best Need For Speed in a decade – but that says far more about the moribund state of the franchise than it does this workmanlike new entry.

Beautifully presented and ingenious throughout, Supertype is a uniquely oblique take on word play.

The updates have brought definite improvement, but even after two years the huge scope and ambition only serves to hide how simplistic and repetitive the gameplay is.

A significant improvement on the last game in terms of mechanics, but still a 2D beat 'em-up that frustrates as much as it entertains.

While it never forges its own identity, or escapes the shadow of Left 4 Dead, Back 4 Blood provides a great cover act, that captures all of the original series’ magic.

It’s unclear how much Nintendo is going to market Labo as an educational toy but it certainly has great value as such. It not only stimulates artistic urges but making full use of each of the Toy-Con garages feels like the most entertaining science lesson ever. The potential seems limitless and while Labo may not be a video game – and in that sense will provide little relief to Switch owners looking for something new to play – it could well be the next big thing. For big kids as well as little ones.