Thanks to this brisk pace of play, a constant stream of skill points used to unlock new abilities, and a steady deluge of new equipment and armour that you can use, sell, or disassemble for crafting resources, the sense of progression is both real and satisfying. Once I was on the train, I didn’t want to get off. Still, it does feel like a game with unrealized potential. Players have been spoiled for choice over the last year when it comes to visually breathtaking, narratively rich games with huge and interesting open worlds. Rise of the Ronin is on the outskirts of that conversation rather than in the middle of it. Worth considering, especially for fans of historical epics and solid action, but the competition is stiff.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong is a fun game skillfully made. But families on a budget (just about all of us these days) would be better served spending their gaming dollars on something a little more substantial.

The transition to true open world play may not be going as smoothly as we might have hoped, but the technical issues have yet to push me away. In the end, I’m really just here for the weird wildlife, and there’s certainly no shortage of that in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.

The transition to true open world play may not be going as smoothly as we might have hoped, but the technical issues have yet to push me away. In the end, I’m really just here for the weird wildlife, and there’s certainly no shortage of that in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.

Gotham Knights isn’t really broken, it simply falls short of what has come before. Superhero games come with lofty expectations these days, and it’s unlikely this entry will meet them for most players. It’s safely skippable for now, but maybe check it out once it arrives on your favourite subscription service.

As is, it’s hard to recommend spending $80 on this quirky but erratic crime saga. There’s fun to be had, but best wait for Saints Row to make its way to your subscription service — and maybe receive a few much needed patches in the process.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 earns a modest thumbs up. It’s undeniably huge, delivering good bang for your RPG dollar, and has some interesting ideas on its mind. It’s no Final Fantasy or Zelda, but fans of sophisticated combat and Japanese storytelling should be well served.

As for me, my little family had a pretty good time playing a chapter each night over the course of a week. And while I doubt I’ll play again — I’m fine with how the story turned out for us — I’m pretty sure my mildly OCD daughter is already plotting to go back and fix all the things I made go wrong with my overrides. Who knows? Maybe she’ll find a way to get everyone through this chaotic criminal saga in one piece. But I doubt it.

It’s a party game more than anything else, and one that warmly welcomes just about anyone who can swing an arm. And while the Wii was rife with this sort of casual fare, the Switch could use a few more. That’s why Nintendo Switch Sports earns an easy recommendation for families looking for some straightforward multiplayer fun.

If all you’re after is a lot of shooting and exploding and collecting set within a stunning tropical milieu, you’ll find it here. Have at it. If, on the other hand, you’d like a little more in the way of innovative play and nuanced commentary, best keep hunting.

What Bravely Default II ends up giving us is a nicely polished traditional role-playing game that gently shifts a few of the genre’s defining bars a centimetre or two higher while safely ducking under others. Fans of the form will find it warm and comforting, but I don’t expect it will win over many converts.

It grows repetitive, but the dodging, blocking, parrying, slashing combat — while a bit overly complicated at times — should prove challenging and gratifying enough to keep fans of this sort of game moving forward. The slightly gaudy next-gen visual spectacle is just gravy.

The problem, unfortunately, is that something feels missing without a true hero character with a deep backstory and lots of personal demons and vendettas to drive the narrative forward.

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is, in other words, an entertaining toy that can spark the imaginations of Mario fans young and old, but it’s not necessarily a great game. Proceed accordingly.

I can’t deny that I had plenty of fun taking in this authentic new Star Wars story, but I get the sense that an extra six or twelve months of development could have given us a more polished and less derivative experience.

A special kind of frustration swells up from playing a game that delivers pristine action mechanics set within a creatively vapid world.

BioWare has created a sufficient foundation of story and play mechanics. Now it just needs to figure out a way to properly meld and symbiotically grow both elements.

Problem is, even the spectacular action grows tedious in short order thanks to lazy mission design. It seems nearly everything we do is based on simple math. Kill X number of bad guys to make them retreat. Blow up Y number of power sources to unlock a door. Destroy Z number of this type of facility in order to draw out the next boss. It’s about as basic as it gets.

It might be the closest the game industry has yet come to imagining the mix of tension and monotony of routine life in a world of undead.

But if you’re looking for an insight or two into the sociopolitical troubles currently haunting the country in which Far Cry 5 is set, best not to get your hopes up.

It’s not a bad game so much as a small one hardly worth the price. Unless you (or, more likely, your kids) are diehard Kirby fans who feel compelled to own every game in which Nintendo’s pink puffball appears, there’s really not much reason to invest.

And the sad truth is that those who can’t play for scores upon scores of hours and refuse to spend more money to get the game’s best stuff will likely feel the consequences in online play as they go up against those who have. This could potentially put a serious damper on online fun as time rolls on.

If you like Tolkien fantasy and all you really care about is finely crafted and gratifying combat, then you’re bound to have a ton of fun. Buy with abandon. You’re in for dozens of hours of bloody and gruesome entertainment. If, however, you want a fantasy role-playing game with a little more story, a more thoughtfully designed world that’s a pleasure to explore, and a pace of play that allows for more time engaged in activities outside of battle, then keep shopping. Middle-earth: Shadow of War won’t be for you.

Part of the problem is that, outside of online rankings, there’s little in the way of long-term objectives. Players slowly earn currency while fighting that can eventually be used to unlock more arms for each of their fighters via a kind of lottery system, but it takes a long time to earn enough for even a single chance to unlock new arms. And there’s a chance you might earn arms you already have.

It makes me wish for the return of the good old days of game rentals. Because yes, Farpoint is worth a try if for no other reason than that it shows that a traditional first-person shooter can work in virtual reality – especially if you’re lucky enough to play with a purpose-built gun peripheral. But I doubt many people will get more than a night or two of fun out of it. And they’ll likely become pretty bored by the repetitive level design and unimaginative selection of enemies faced along the way. And frustrated by the wonky cover system. It’s hard to convince myself that might be worth $100.

Telltale's take on Guardians of the Galaxy probably isn't what most fans of the film will expect, and the differences may prove off-putting.

Dragon Quest Heroes 2 adds a substantial amount of traditional JRPG-ing to the Musou formula, Overworld-like areas allow you to explore more freely than the in-story battle missions. Equipment and skills customization rival anything seen in a mainline DQ game. It’s a passable, mostly mindless foray into the DQ universe, which is never a bad place to visit thanks to the colourful, buoyant art and character design from Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama. But more than anything, its best features made me want to play a regular Dragon Quest game instead.

In most platformers, the running and jumping – the movement – is a huge part of the fun. It makes you feel skilled. In Snake Pass, movement amounts to a big fat ball of stress over which I rarely felt like I had firm control. Or at least that was my experience. And that makes it hard to recommend – certainly for the kids towards which it seems to be aimed, and even for die-hard 3D platformer fans.