AC4 looks beautiful, and just feels more polished, cohesive, and comprehensive than the last title did.

SWAP Force marks the point at which Skylanders really finds its groove; it’s still super approachable for all levels of gamer (the hard difficulty will challenge even the very best out there, believe me) and finally worthwhile for those of us that like something with a bit of meat on it.

As I mentioned, the boss fights and characters in the game have their own style and charm, and the graphics and pacing of the game is, for the most part, spot on. While the game doesn’t reach the heights of Sonic Adventure, it does manage to fit nicely alongside most of the recent Sonic offerings.

It’s - once again - the best version available, and the updates really are significant this time around.

It’s a bit of a shame that the Arkham-inspired side of this game doesn’t quite live up to what came before, but the Metroidvania aspect certainly does. And this is something for which a lot of genre fans will be grateful.

Arkham Origins has a lot to live up to. I think it gets close but sadly not close enough. You still feel like Batman, but it’s missing... something. Perhaps Batman isn’t just a man with a bunch of extraordinary gadgets, maybe he needs that creepy weirdness as well.

Flashback isn’t a particularly long game, clocking in at around 4-5 hours with limited replayability beyond collectibles for completionists. For $12.95 though, that’s a decent amount of playtime; it’s just a shame that it runs out of steam so early and leaves you wanting flashbacks of the first few levels.

If you’ve played the original, let’s face it, Nintendo prices don’t drop very quickly. You may as well just go and pick this up because you know you want to play it. This is easily the definitive version of Wind Waker and the best you’ll ever play.

Crappy punk music, breweries, tattoos, and exploding heads - can’t get much more party than that.

Brothers is a wonderful piece of storytelling and a fantastic puzzle game that’ll make you want to hug a loved one. Highly recommended.

Patchy. It suffers from bugs that see you teleporting from one place to another, graphical glitches, unfortunate design decisions, and poor level design. On the upside the arcade game is so good it should have been its own game.

Perhaps one of the game’s biggest failings is its price - at US$29.99, you can twice buy Mount & Blade, which does everything Aethereus does but in a much more polished way.

If LeBron’s your guy you’ll love 2K’s latest release. While there’s not a lot new, aside from the compulsory King James worship, the game is a fitting end to the current console cycle.

Dragon’s Crown is certainly the most enjoyable Vanillaware game yet. Being part of a larger party - where their previous hack 'n’ slashers had you go it alone - is definitely the difference maker.

Just Dance 2014 is still a whole lot of fun, particularly if you bring a few friends around to join in. Just make sure you keep a towel handy, as all that dancing can be sweaty work.

The beautiful graphics and facial expressions bond you to Jodie, and the raw emotion embodied by Aiden is conveyed not via gameplay but by sound design and the reactions of the supporting cast. By the end of the game you are as connected to Jodie as Aiden is.

For its target audience then, this game is a winner. The up sell also has to be the education value. The game teaches new words and encourages them along the way to become more proficient at using a keyboard.

Overall, this is a good attempt on the part of Crocodile. Unfortunately, the combination of frustratingly hard boss fights and cheap traps lets it down. I can’t help but think this would have been a great game with better execution.

F1 2013 is easily the best game in the series and it makes me even more hopeful in terms of what Codemasters have in store for us next-gen.

If you've never played Kingdom Hearts before, then Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix is the best possible starting point.

FIFA 14 on the PS3 is brilliant. However, I can't help but feel that there is more coming to those looking at buying the next-gen consoles.

Rain is a moving yet quiescent exploration of a very real emotion. It manages an unsettling but tranquil tale that wants you to confront your own fears of being alone. It does so with story and gameplay in unison, though it could have told us a lot more by saying a little less.

Overall, Team Ninja has done a great job making Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate worth the double dip with additional modes including team play, and a ‘new’ training mode. The additional features make this the game Dead or Alive 5 should have been.

It brings a sense of passion and build-up to a football match which EA Sports haven’t captured as of late.

Add to this one touch dekes, black eyes after losing fights, sticks getting tangled up with arms and skates, a wonderful bogun soundtrack that includes bands like Airbourne and Wolfmother, and you get a deep, great looking, and surprisingly accessible sports game.

There is a tonne of game here, too - the main storyline can easily get you 30 hours or more of gameplay, and then there are a multitude of side quests, post-game content, and replayability to stretch that out even further.

It's worth renting or borrowing the game if you aren’t into the One Piece phenomenon. If you’re a massive fanm it’s a must buy - especially given the fact you won’t see this particular One Piece adventure anywhere else.

This is a well thought out game with a huge amount of complexity. Unfortunately the steep learning curve means the ladder to the top looks almost impossible to climb when you first begin.

There is no doubt that Arma III is realistic. In fact, it is the best combat simulator on the market. Is it fun though? For me, I found it an exercise in frustration at times. Games need to entertain me, not frustrate me.

Turbo: Super Stunt Squad will have a limited shelf-life that can be perfectly mapped to the cinema release of the movie and possibly the follow-up DVD sales window. It will entertain fans of the movie over a wet weekend or two, but ultimately the sub-par graphics, limited gameplay, and clunky controls make this game about as flawed as Ryan Reynolds' acting.

Thankfully the running game has been upgraded from Madden 13.

San Andreas is vast and sprawling and so much fun to explore. There are thousands of things to do and hundreds of missions, so this will not be a quick playthrough.

The Wonderful 101 has its flaws, but thankfully they don’t surface very often, and let’s be honest, the presentation, graphical quality, humour, and insane gameplay make up for any shortcomings that may appear.

The game that lucky little boy’s Dad created is dark, charming, and wildly varied, with a merge of English and Japanese imagery.

Yes, it’s disappointing to see so many bugs, but at the end of the day you’re here for the dopamine reaction that hits when you see those legendary drops, and there are absolutely no issues with that part of the game whatsoever.

A disappointment. It wants to build a complex and emotional story, and mix it with a cinematic shooter. Unfortunately, the story takes too long to get going, and the action is uninspired and generic.

Ultimately, PixelJunk Monsters Ultimate HD isn’t for tower defence rookies. While fans of the franchise will be used to its quirks, its unforgiving difficulty will likely put casual players off. I came into this expecting ‘just another tower defence game’ and despite its flaws - some inherent with being a console port - PixelJunk Monsters Ultimate HD was still a pleasant surprise.

A solid strategic effort, but no Triumph.

A seriously impressive game. It’s a little on the short side, and has a few little quirks all its own, but there’s no question that Guerilla Cambridge have delivered the goods. I still can’t quite believe the technical feats it accomplishes, to be perfectly honest.

Not only is SteamWorld Dig a fantastic way to spend a few bucks (and a few hours), but Image & Form have used it to prove they’re a developer worthy of paying close attention to.

Some new levels would have been nice (there’s no new content on offer, unfortunately) but the 40+ that are here certainly represent a solid investment and will take some time to conquer, especially if you’re a perfectionist.

Perhaps I could look past all of this incredibly juvenile sexism if the game was any good, but it’s really not. The game is played at a slow pace, the story is just confusing, and there’s nothing that makes me actually want to play it.

Does it stick to the MMO tradition? Absolutely. But it takes that tradition and refines it, and captures brilliantly those less tangible elements that make a great game instead of a good one - an inviting, vibrant world, the foundations for a dynamic player economy, and the freedom to take to the world as you please.

This is yet another game that I have enjoyed more than other critics out there. Yes, there are bad aspects to the game, and I feel I’ve listed them all above, but the story and characters found in Lost Planet 3 are more than enough reason to pick this up.

Rayman Legends offers a surprisingly diverse 12+ hours of gameplay - an admirable feat for a platformer of this type.

Coming in at about three to five hours length, The Brigmore Witches is still a great bit of DLC if you’re looking for a way to scratch your Dishonored itch. Yes, it is more of the same, but when it's good and comes with interesting new characters, who’s going to complain, right?

If you’re stuck playing PayDay 2 in singleplayer, or if connection problems and waiting for players to join drives you crazy, you’ll want to do the same.

Saints Row IV is like the ultimate virtual stress-ball. After a hard day of work - or study, or sleeping - nothing quite beats dressing up as a pink and green bunny-rabbit and running around town with a gun that makes people spontaneously break into dance (it’s called the Dubstep gun).

Although it’s no Final Fantasy X (which still remains the greatest of all time) Tales of Xillia is definitely a worthwhile purchase if you’re a fan of RPGs, and provides everything you’d expect from a story-driven game.

Saints Row IV combines irreverence, comedic genius, and fantastic characterisation with one of the most bizarre and ridiculous storylines you’ll see all year. As a total experience, its got the goods.

The melding of Conviction’s third person shooter elements and more traditional Splinter Cell gameplay are more than the sum of their parts here. No doubt about it, this is the definitive Splinter Cell experience. I’d even go as far as to say it’s the best stealth game of this console generation. Sorry, Kojima.

A decent entry into the Halo franchise. It trades in the grand scope of the original games for some bite sized pieces of action that fit the mobile platform well. There are some control quirks which are annoying, but don’t go as far as ruining the experience. All in all, it’s well worth the $8.99 asking price.

I sat down and played this game from start to finish in one evening and didn’t skip a single cutscene (I didn’t even notice I wasn’t skipping them until near the end). The entire time I was engrossed in the game and having genuine fun and it went by quite quickly, a duck blur, if you will.

It melts my brain to think how much money people could throw at this game. So this is a caution to anyone who obsessively collects things. Disney Infinity is a good game, and one that caresses your cranium in a creative and imaginative way. But you will need to throw money at it. Lots of money.

As it stands right now, Payday 2, while it won’t be for everyone, is a lot of fun. Although the stealth mechanics are basic, there’s enough strategic depth and teamwork required so that stealthing missions can be challenging, and extremely satisfying when successful.

The gameplay in DW8 is really quite a step up from DW7.

The system seller Nintendo fans have been waiting for.

If you go into it with the right mindset, it will be worth your time; just don’t expect the usual level of Nintendo polish, because it’s just not up to that standard.

ROTT might not a the game that you will play for ever. It might not even be a game you will finish. But it will make you forget about your mortgage, your job, or your fear of missing out. For one or two fleeting hours, you’ll be a kid again, and that selfish pleasure is worth it.

For $18.95 [NZ], it’s a decent purchase for hardcore fans of platform puzzlers. But the fairly short lived gameplay and ruthless difficulty curve might deter anyone else. Despite being called a puzzle game - Stealth, Inc relies more on quick reflexes and thumb agility, than problem solving and mental dexterity.

I so much wanted this game to be a mindless shooting blast fest, but sadly It failed to deliver on just about every aspect. Thunder Wolves hit the market about 10 years too late, revealing itself to an audience that expects way more than it delivers.

Functional. The motion controls work fine and there's very little lag in tracking your movements. The game’s iconic visual style also translates beautifully onto the big screen in high-definition. But what’s completely lacking here is the casual fun and simple addictiveness that made the mobile game such a success. And without that, I’m not sure why this Kinect port of the game exists.

Some very good writing bumps up the score for this one, but the lazy gameplay decisions make finishing the game a chore.

At $49.95, Luigi U is still pretty steep as far as DLC goes, and it’s probably not vital unless you really love the original game and just can’t get enough.

There are a bunch of features I have not mentioned; teleports, a well thought out maps, network play, and a storyline that has a fair amount of depth - to name just a few - however there are some aspects you just need to play and experience to understand why I have rated this game reasonably highly. Yes, I liked it, and I was a fool to dismiss it so easily. The game is available now on Steam, and at a very reasonable price given its quality. Check it out.

At the end of the day, though, these few good points don’t make up for the flaws with what should be the most important elements of a game like this - the combat and the loot grind - and an overall lack of polish. Being free to play, you don’t lose out on anything but 15 odd gigabytes of your data cap if you want to give Marvel Heroes a go, but with that said, it’s hard to recommend this game over the other free to play lootfests that are around.

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, when I first played Magic the Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014 I was expecting the same experience as last year, simply with new decks. The fact that Magic the Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014 brings a new game mode, in the shape of Sealed Play, to the table (excuse the pun) really adds to the Magic the Gathering feel.

For those who’ve already played Capsized on PC, the console version comes with four extra levels, but I don’t know if that’s enough to justify buying the whole game again unless you really liked it and are desperate for more content. If you haven’t played it yet, and are on the hunt for a cheap and charming, if at times frustrating, indie platformer, then a journey with Capsized’s crew is a good way to go.

It would have been perfect with a little more polish and gameplay variety, but it still manages to be enjoyable, not too hard or scary for younger kids, and a nice looking game that adults hopefully shouldn’t find too unbearable to play with the young ‘uns.

While its simple presentation lends itself more towards phones than 50 inch flat-screens, it's a clever little game that puzzlers will love and gamers everywhere might find something to like. And it might even get passed uncut in Australia.

High Moon Studios have injected just the right amount of crazy into this game and fans of the comics will latch onto it immediately. Others however, might need to prepare themselves for one of the maddest gaming experiences they’ve ever encountered.

It would be an understatement to describe the free-to-play MMORPG market as saturated right now, but Cryptic have tried to boldly move in and change the game, designing Neverwinter with the free model in mind from the outset.

It’s not a cheap app, but it’s a great game! The basic gameplay is identical to the game on PC and consoles, except that you use the touch screen. To do each action you’ll need to press a button on the screen (as opposed to double-tapping). I found this to be an excellent idea because you do not want to lose a soldier to an errant double-tap.

Company of Heroes 2 is a good World War 2 strategy game. But it’s not a memorable World War 2 experience.

In my opinion this is the best kind of arcade game: long sequences of button mashing and shouting at your friends to “get that guy!” before trying to figure out exactly how the Boss can be beaten.

FUSE could have been awesome, but it's not. Graphics and sound are fine. Firefights are intense and you can take out enemies with stealth and melee kills. At times the story tries to give the characters some emotion and depth, but fails, and generally ends up half baked and confused.

One of the best 2D platformers with a tonne of replayability, now in a portable shell.

If you’re looking for something deep and significant, something that will eat away 100+ hours of your gaming life and still offer more, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate is here and waiting.

The comparisons to Uncharted can’t be ignored and, while it might appear a ‘safe move’ by Naughty Dog on the surface, their new franchise undoubtedly pushes the boundaries in a welcome new direction. They have put their well-polished engine to excellent use and put the emphasis on compelling characters to showcase what this talented studio can really deliver.

The gameplay is very much like Uncharted, only with no guns. In the future no one has guns, except the flying robots, who have some kind of energy cannons.

The AI does a solid job of pushing you hard, and also makes its fair share of stuff-ups which, if you are unlucky, can leave your car ruined. It's this kind of dynamic racing that is fun and keeps us coming back for more.

LEGO City is a great game - but I do wonder just how many limitations the hardware had on the final product. Perhaps it has nothing to do with the Wii U, but for Traveller's Tales to omit multiplayer altogether? That seems an unlikely choice, considering their previous work.

There are legitimately scary moments in Last Light, to the point it’s almost one part survival horror to three parts first person shooter.

As it currently plays, Resident Evil Revelations on the PS3 plays like an upscaled HD version of a 3DS title. Which it is. For some games, that might be a great thing; for this survival horror experience, it most certainly is not.

While Anomaly 2 will be easy enough for people who have played the original, it can be a challenge to pick-up and play for newbies - especially once you advance onto the later levels where things heat up.

The pride in the Nintendo legacy is apparent in every single aspect of this title; the attention to detail, and sheen of professionalism is everywhere. It’s a triumph - visually one of the best handheld titles ever seen, and in terms of capturing your emotions, Luigi has you on board from the first sequence. You want to guide him to victory (and safety!) because he is just so darn sweet.

What Metro: Last Light does best is establish and maintain a tone. It is sad. It is hopeless. It is grim. Wonderfully, thought provokingly, and very enjoyably grim.

Soul Sacrifice pulls you in with an interesting premise; retelling the exploits of a dead sorcerer. The levels are short and brutal, making it ideal for a lunch break brawl. As far as action RPGs go, this is the best Vita has to offer thus far, but it’s far from perfect.

The annoying thing about Mars: WL is that Spiders have tried to do everything at once instead of delivering a smaller, more polished game. Everything feels half done.

Colt is a great lead character. He's funny, angry, and an absurdly remorseless killer. The perfect lead for Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon.

If you're an avid collector of zombie games, and you had the best time of your life playing Dead Island, you are probably going to want to give Riptide a decent playthrough. If you enjoyed it before, odds are you will enjoy it the second time, too. But if, like me, you found the first title lacked soul, Dead Island 2.0 is not the Lazarus you are looking for.

The gunplay is unimaginative and outwardly unfun.

If you like fighting games, Persona, or - better yet - both, you’ll be well served by Persona 4 Arena. It’s familiar yet unique, and has enough stuff that’s all its own to warrant its existence.

This is Poker Night 2's biggest problem. I was ready to mute the game after the third time being forced to watch a particular Claptrap sequence. You can't skip segments you've already seen, and some don't allow you to keep the poker game going while they play out.

If you like this kind of thing, buy it, love it, and trade me your teams - there's battlin' to be done.

It does get a little tiresome, however, with so few options and - more importantly, perhaps - the lack of variety in the look of the maps.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised that ORION: Dino Horde was such a disappointment. The gaming industry has been rife with rumors about scurrilous behaviour concerning a very similar title, Dino Beatdown. ORION: Dino Horde's rough edges suggest that it has been quickly brought to market and cynically shoveled out to gamers in the vain hope that its over the top premise will bring in a few bucks.

If you like old school RPGs, but never played the original release, buying Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen may be the best fifty dollars you’ll spend all year. If you bought the original, and all the downloadable missions, sorry people, prepared to get gouged.