Astonishingly, you can play up to four-player co-op if you have enough controllers, which adds an entirely new dimension, but even solo its glorious art style, chiptunes, and well-balanced battles help make up for the usual roguelike bugbear: a whole heap of repetition.

Tricky, mentally taxing, and immensely satisfying, Finity is one of those games that keeps getting better as your understanding of its systems deepens.

It’s hard to tell how games with such a complex economy and shifting balance will evolve, and while this doesn’t land with the same wow factor as Marvel Snap, it’s a promising start, albeit one that comes with a lot of grind. For a game with Warcraft in its name that’s most certainly in line with expectations.

A much smaller Like A Dragon game, that offers everything fans love about the series, but one that doesn’t quite justify its own existence.

A well designed, technical tour de force that lives up to the enticing prospect of an officially licensed Codemasters rally game.

A host of new features and gameplay improvements blend well and make the game more realistic and fun – and they save you time faffing around doing tasks that used to feel more like chores.

A funny and supremely inventive story-driven puzzle game, with a plot based on Greek philosophy that’s delivered with the lightest of touches and a goofy sense of humour.

An uneven blend of turn-based RPG battles, cooking, and skateboarding elevated by its excellent narrative and memorable cast of characters.

One of the best WarioWare games ever, as long as you’re playing with other people, with some of the most interesting use of motion controls since the Wii era.

A perfectly paced vertical exploration of a lost civilisation, that offers the most authentic climbing simulation ever seen in a game and retains its air of mystery and discovery right up to the closing credits.

A surprisingly competent attempt at making a lost sequel to the movies, with some excellent action and ambitious but flawed storytelling.

A fascinatingly bizarre indie thriller that mixes multiple gameplay elements and narrative influences to create a disquieting but consistently compelling descent into cosmic horror.

A peculiar sequel that at times seems to be purposefully undermining the best elements of the original, but it still gets just enough right to please both existing fans and potential newcomers.

It might not honour the series’ creator, but Metal Gear itself is paid due homage, in one of the best, and most complete, retro compilations there’s ever been.

An occasionally spectacular follow-up to one of the best action platformers of the last few years, which unfortunately dilutes some of its appeal by shooting for a wider audience.

A visual novel set in the world of Roadwarden that offers some degree of choice, but whose real charm comes from its straightforward prose and troubled, authentic-seeming characters.

The best visual representation of Hellboy outside of the comic books, but an absolutely terrible video game, whose shallowness and lack of variety is matched only by its constant repetition.

A successful re-imagining of the classic 90s interactive movie, that retains the characters and setting but adds some fun new puzzles and VR wonderment.

A fantastic 2D platformer that immediately takes its place amongst the pantheon of Nintendo’s very best titles, with such a constant stream of new and surreal ideas you want to stand up and applaud it by the end of it.

The best Spider-Man game ever and probably the best use of Venom in any medium outside of comics, with the stunning visuals and slick gameplay overcoming a certain overfamiliarity.

It’s no Sonic Mania, but this is still one of the better attempts to create a modern day 2D Sonic The Hedgehog, with impressive visuals but boring boss battles.

A Total War game proves not to be the best way to explore one of the most fascinating periods in ancient history, with boring real-time battles dragging down positive changes to the grand strategy elements.

There’s a lot to do, with quests and hunts coming thick and fast, as it once again strongly incentivises you to get fresh air – since it doesn’t work either indoors or in a moving car. While early days, indicators are that this could have the longevity recent Niantic games have lacked.

From its glorious art style to the amusingly European callouts of Zok! and Shunt! as damage gets inflicted on enemies, it’s a lovingly crafted modern take on the genre.

A charming, if basic, detective game is transformed into a patronisingly simplistic visual novel for only the youngest of Pokémon fans.

It’s not the world’s most radical sequel but Train Sim World 4 is a sizeable update for the virtual train set, with plenty to please new fans and old.

The debt to Advance Wars still overshadows it, but despite a relative lack of new features this is a solid sequel to one of the best indie strategy games of the last few years.

Assassin’s Creed gets back-to-basics with a shorter, more focused – if slightly less polished -campaign, and a return to an impossibly beautiful looking early-era Middle East.