Each garden is its own discrete puzzle, that takes tapping and experimentation to pick apart, clearing the way for your feline hero to make his way across the next hedge. Lovely hand drawn artwork and a piano soundtrack complement its mediative pace.

It’s nostalgic fun to start with, but you quickly reach a stage where currencies pile up so slowly that you either have to spend actual money or leave it alone for half-days at a time. Despite its high production values, there’s just too little to do.

Gradually unlock and research new weapons and armour to support your increasingly testing forays, in a game that takes some getting used to, but rewards dedication with challenging and complex stop motion battles.

As a straight action game the core combat is elegant and original but the roguelite structure makes the already mountainous difficulty just too much to bear.

A little rough around the edges, especially in terms of the storytelling, but the interminable wait for this open world zombie sequel has been worth it.

Uncharted 4 is one of the best action adventure games ever made but this remaster does so little to improve the experience it doesn’t feel like anything other than a cynical cash grab.

There’s still a lot of room for improvement but this is easily the best Pokémon game for several years and a positive new direction that the mainline games would be wise to follow.

An absorbing, tactical three-person co-op game that does well to expand the Rainbow Six gameplay into a more fantastical setting.

An admirable refresh of a cult classic, with excellent presentation and thoughtfully implemented new mechanics, but it’s held back by its reluctance to modernise in other areas.

Despite the huge variety of moves and characters, this disappointing follow-up to Guacamelee is let down by mindless combat and bland dungeon design.

Kratos looks better than ever in this welcome PC port of one of the best action adventures of the outgoing generation.

Motion Twin’s winning take on 2D Metroidvania roguelikes is kept alive by another excellent DLC expansion.

Multiplayer is still about who has the better car, limiting its playability, but the single-player mode is excellent.

Featuring Buzz Lightyear, Elsa from Frozen, Wreck-it Ralph, Mickey Mouse, Moana, Maleficent, and others, more characters are due this year. It’s a solid start, and provided matchmaking remains this easy, a promising one.

Naturally, it still suffers the same flaws in terms of storytelling and pacing as the console originals, but with all three pieces of DLC included the exceptional value for money makes it hard to resist.

An obvious labour of love that finally provides a full release for one of the best looking 2D arcade games ever made, although it’d be wrong to paint it as a lost classic in terms of gameplay.

Praey For The Gods attempts to do far too much with obviously limited resources and the end result is a buggy, frustrating chore that at no point comes to close to doing anything as well as Shadow Of The Colossus, let alone bettering it. Like a bad pub tribute band, its only real accomplishment is making you appreciate the original even more.

Too familiar, too easy, and too short but if you’re looking for an undemanding time waster on Game Pass you can certainly do worse than The Gunk.

Shovel Knight’s first spin-off is just as good as his mainline games, with a clever take on tile-matching puzzlers that offers an enjoyably unique challenge.

A genre hybrid that turns repetitive loop grinding into one of the most uniquely addictive gaming experiences of the year, with surprisingly few caveats.

The low budget is obvious throughout but the game is clearly trying its best, with a great gameplay experience and an impressive array of options and licences.

When you factor in the £25 price tag, Big Brain Academy: Brain Vs. Brain could be considered a no-brainer, if you’re after a decent party game that’s suitable for everyone. However, the lack of new mini-games and disappointing online features does make this franchise comeback feel more cynical and lazy than it should.

The bizarrely structured and frequently uninteresting story campaign threatens to undermine the multiplayer, but this is still easily the best Halo has been for over a decade.

An extremely solid space combat simulator that struggles in terms of storytelling, and doesn’t entirely justify its open world approach, but still offers an enjoyably unique experience.

An excellent console port of a deep, impressively addictive, and very amusing, sandbox megalomaniac simulator.

An excellent sci-fi platformer with exquisite art design and sublime traversal mechanics, which finds distinctive ground among its obvious inspirations.

A colourful and good-humoured 3D retread of 1990s point ‘n’ click adventures that despite the odd innovation suffers from the same frustrations and limitations as its ancient forebears.

A charming paid-for addition to New Horizons that doesn’t feel exploitative even as it comes off the back of one of the best free updates in recent gaming history.