A better game than the earlier spin-off but Travis Touchdown’s time is clearly over, even if he is still able to provide some entertainingly odd boss battles.

A series of darkly comic spy-themed VR escape rooms that revel in their ability to kill you in inventive and unexpected ways.

There’s some mild improvement on last year’s game but the Madden franchise still feels lost, with too little depth and too many bugs.

It’s trying its best with an obviously low budget but rather than replicating the tension and thrills of Aliens this has much more in common with one of its lacklustre sequels.

A great sequel that is just as surreal and imaginative as the original and manages to be both a silly comedy platformer and a surprisingly affecting character study of regret and lost love.

An audio-only RPG adventure which feels like a new benchmark for the genre, through challenging combat and excellent sound design.

The underlying game is still too reliant on the Ubisoft formula but the new content and Legends mode make Ghost Of Tsushima Director’s Cut a notably better experience than the original at launch.

A clever and idiosyncratic time loop detective thriller with top notch voice acting, which suffers from circular gameplay that quickly descends into monotony.

An enjoyable, likeable mash-up of dungeon crawler and dating sim undercut by simplistic combat and a short running time.

A highly competent alternative to Civilization but the list of unequivocal improvements is disappointingly short, with an unfortunate lack of real innovation.

If you’re not too bothered about seeking constant action, but prefer your games to possess a discernible intelligence, overlying a message which is delivered in a subtle yet insistent manner, then you’ll love Road 96. The illusion of generating your own road movie works perfectly, and whether you view it as simple escapism or something deeper it manages to entertain either way.

A curious sequel whose simplified combat and lack of challenge undermines some of the best level design and puzzles in any recent Metroidvania.

Clever, unique, and often pretty puzzling, Sixit is another title with no enforced microtransactions, although you can choose to support its developer to the tune of £1.99.

A turn-based roguelike set in a universe that’s similar to but legally distinct from Doom, and where every choice you make has immediate and long term consequences.

A cleverly constructed narrative adventure that explores serious issues of morality without ever being preachy, and still allowing for an intricately designed, non-linear gaming experience.

Ingenious, devious and endlessly entertaining, Baba Is You works just as well on touchscreens as it did on Switch and PC, and for anyone who enjoys having their mental faculties brutally tested, it’s about as good as it gets.

It’s a bit buggy, with the latter part of runs increasingly likely to suffer from game save destroying glitches, but while it works its interconnected resource creation and city defence is hugely addictive.

It’s reasonable to suggest that this is more of the same, but when the original is this good, more is entirely welcome.

Viewed as a visual novel where you have to sit through large numbers of identical, non-interactive fight scenes, you could enjoy it purely for its plot and characters, but this is not a game in the conventional sense.

Its mellow pace, peaceful sound effects, and steady built-in intensity are reminiscent of Nintendo’s formative Game & Watch titles, with Mini Motorways remaining mesmerising throughout.

A thoroughly entertaining mix of Dark Souls and Zelda that has few genuinely new ideas but still manages to enthral with a unique charm of its own.

A deeply disappointing co-op shooter that squanders its excellent graphics on a bland and repetitive attempt to make a sci-fi Diablo.

A twisting and engaging portmanteau tale of the unexplained, set in a London that’s refreshing in its finely observed normality.

A worthy follow-up to the cult classic original, with a great mix of Japanese role-playing and beat ‘em-up elements – even if the storytelling is sometimes hard to follow.

Ace Attorney meets Sherlock Holmes turns out to be a great premise for a new game, with a subtle change in formula that works as both absurdist comedy and historical drama.

This is a simulation, and very much not a game, but it’s also the most graphically impressive console experience ever seen and one of the best adverts for Xbox Game Pass so far.

An addictive and accessible MOBA which takes advantage of the Pokémon license to great effect but is hampered by an abundance of free-to-play irritations.

A revolutionary approach to storytelling and an excess of charm makes this modest little indie game one of the most important new role-players of the new generation.