Not the high-end remake that some fans would have been hoping for but even as a, at times, too faithful remaster this is a fascinating second look at one of gaming’s great unsung heroes.

Broken beyond belief but also a fundamentally bad idea for a video game, with inanely shallow and repetitive gameplay - Gollum is not only the worst mainstream game of the year but of the last two generations.

A disappointing attempt to ape the magic of Inside and Limbo, which despite some of the best visuals of the year suffers from unimaginative puzzle design and storytelling.

The offensive microtransactions aren’t a surprise but the tedious open world structure obscures what is a surprisingly nuanced and technical arcade racer.

Whatever your views, it’s a monumental piece of game development and well worth a look, even if just to marvel at the high budget window dressing and wallow in its manifold, blissful absurdities. [Review in Progress]

A fantastically clever puzzler that would be perfectly welcome if it was just a 3D Lemmings clone, but it soon evolves into something far more imaginative and unpredictable.

A charmingly narrated VR puzzle game, with some interesting mechanics, but it’s let down by mechanical difficulties and occasionally insufficient signposting.

An excellent sequel and one of the best Zelda games ever made. A follow-up that builds upon and refines the achievements of the original, while adding many new and equally innovative ideas of its own.

Its touch controls work well enough for the button mashing and occasional dodges the game requires, although fighting your way through areas that previous runs failed to complete, long after you’ve collected all the loot they have to offer, is as tedious as it sounds.

Even though this has the feel of a game originally built for freemium, and later converted to being genuinely free for Apple Arcade, it manages to be reasonably challenging, your upgrades sincerely needed to progress through its levels. It’s also the only game we’ve come across where you can level up the protagonist’s hairstyle. There’s not much punishment for dying, other than having to replay the current map, but its exceptional level of polish and a clearly talented art department make it a tempting distraction.

As is traditional, the opening hours provide rapid upgrades, before slowing things down to encourage you to spend money. You and your alliance will also regularly find yourself at the mercy of bullying, big spending whales, but at least you’re not forced to watch any ads.

The latest in a franchise that dates back to before the original PlayStation, Worms WMD fortunately eschews the series’ dreadful flirtation with 3D, returning to its good old 2D roots, and adding a fair few twists of its own.

It works really well on a touchscreen, letting you dip in for a bit of mayoral action wherever you happen to be. It may only take a few days to occupy most of the available space in your starter city, but the map itself is vast, letting you experiment with different conurbations across its varied terrain.

A solid sequel to one of the best roguelike games of recent years, that personalises the conflict against Lovecraftian madness while adding to the original’s compelling turn-based battles.

A massive and complex fantasy themed 4X strategy game, made appealingly straightforward thanks to its cleverly refined interface.

A pared back turn-based strategy that successfully replicates the action of XCOM but is so lacking in originality and variety it feels like half the game it could have been.

Immersive sim meets four-player co-op in this vampire themed first person shooter that features competent gunplay but a lack of ingenuity in its challenges.

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.