It’s certainly a better alternative to the mobile game that inspired it, but what few new ideas Octopath Traveler 0 has do little to give it its own identity and paint a worrying picture for the series’ future.

A scary, atmospheric, and cleverly designed survival horror, whose photorealistic visuals and superb sound design help overcome some occasional frustrations.

Almost exactly what fans didn’t want from a new Metroid Prime but while it is widely inconsistent the majority of the game is undeniably entertaining.

One of the best scrolling beat ‘em-ups ever made, with fantastic retro graphics, four-player co-op, and as much variety and combat depth as the genre will allow.

Some of the best 2D artwork ever seen in a video game, married to a spitefully difficult game whose main gameplay gimmick only manages to make it more frustrating to play.

It may not have started off life as a VR game but this roguelite first person shooter works perfectly as one, with excellent enemy variety and a mountain of zany weaponry.

An interesting and personal feeling set of first person histories that barely constitute a video game and yet wouldn’t really work in any other medium.

A time loop adventure with an interesting premise and characters, but a frustratingly rigid structure that fails to resolve most of the stories it sets up.

An awful campaign and a lack of innovation drag down the most content-stuffed Call Of Duty game to date, with an eye largely locked to past glories.

A raucous VR splatterfest that captures Deadpool’s brand of sardonic humour and gratuitous violence perfectly, with sky high production values largely making up for the overly simple combat.

One of the greatest twin-stick shooters ever made, with some clever and original ideas married to a thumping soundtrack and appropriately minimalist visuals.

The most baffling Nintendo release of recent years, with a quasi-remake of one of the GameCube’s worst games, that seems specifically designed to irritate and confuse would-be players.

The spirit of Telltale Games lives on, in this interactive superhero animation, with cynical humour, excellent voice acting, and decisions that give at least the illusion of consequence.

A dazzling new future racer that manages to outdo WipEout in terms of handling and graphics, while taking full advantage of VR’s potential.

A cute woodland survival game that looks like an illustrated children’s book but has a few too many rough edges to make full use of its charming setting.

A revamp of Lumines which, in the spirit of Tetris Effect, amplifies its puzzling core with slick visuals, fun new mechanics, and one of the best soundtracks of the year.

A co-op orientated platformer, with cute robots and a deliberately awkward control set-up, that purposefully makes its tough challenge as infuriating as possible.

It’s unexpectedly great, with a warm sense of humour, elegantly designed mini-challenges, and new photographic equipment to unlock. Its engaging, time pressure free interactions work brilliantly on a touchscreen.

Relying noticeably more on action, an automatic bullet time kicking in as you take aim with your silenced silver baller pistols, its colourful good looks and globetrotting look good on touchscreen, although its profusion of buttons are only really suitable for iPad. As ever with games that feature occasional frenzied action, a controller is your best bet. Its Achilles’ heel though, is that it doesn’t permanently save checkpoint data, so if you have to close the app and reopen it, you’ll need to restart the whole chapter from scratch, an egregious oversight for a mobile port with such long and involved missions.

Its eerie ambience and moments of existentialist angst will stay with you long after you’ve finished its five or so hours of lugubrious adventuring, its few buttons and straightforward controls translating neatly to touchscreen.

A massive and gloriously complex exploration, resource management, and factory-building extravaganza that takes hundreds of hours to unlock all its layers of possibilities.

It’s the very opposite of pick up and play but the level of detail and complexity in Europa Universalis 5 is truly staggering and matched only by the difficultly of learning how to play it.

Originally released on PC and consoles, its geometric world and point ‘n’ click interactions are right at home on a touchscreen, making this a wonderful way to introduce yourself to its estimable charms.

Insanely repetitive, horribly shallow, and pointlessly easy – this is the absolute least interesting thing to do with Zelda on the Switch 2 and bad even by the low standards of the Dynasty Warrior franchise.

Another top notch interactive documentary from Digital Eclipse, which explores the early days of Mortal Kombat in enjoyably forensic detail.

Compared to other extraction shooters, Arc Raiders is very accessible and welcoming, but compared to Fortnite or Call Of Duty, this asks a lot more of players than many will be willing to give. Some will become frustrated at the complex maps and aggressive enemies (there’s a lot more PvE than there is PvP, in the average match), while others will appreciate that this is genuinely something different from the norm, which is what most people claim to want...There’s no way of knowing whether Arc Raiders will be popular on consoles or whether its popularity will last, even if it is, but the initial signs are very positive. This isn’t something you just throw on of the evening, while playing on autopilot, but if you’re looking for something more than that, then Arc Raiders delivers. [Review in Progress]

A useful upgrade to previous iterations of Virtua Fighter 5 and while it still exhibits the same old flaws, it ably demonstrates why this is still one of the most revered fighting game series in history.

Excellent remakes of two of the most important games in JRPG history, with pitch perfect presentation and a substantial charm, despite the inherent simplicity.