At this point even a game like FRU is highly unlikely to make anyone rush out and by a Kinect camera. But any existing owners still interested in the possibilities of Microsoft’s sensor bar would do very well to give this refreshingly inventive little indie a shot.

Pac-Man 256 checks off all the key features of the original – short sessions, super accessible play, addictive mechanics – while adding just the right amount of modern conventions, including long-term goals, pretty presentation, and co-operative play.

From its unrelentingly dark story to its challenging difficulty to its imperfect controls, in no way is The Banner Saga 2 the sort of game one sits down to play casually. It is an intense and demanding experience right from the start, and it never lets up.

If killing the undead in a Russian oven heated by fire’s breath sounds appealing, you might give this DLC some consideration. Otherwise, feel free to take a pass.

Crush Your Enemies engaged me enough to while away a lazy Sunday afternoon. The missions are so short that it was easy to just keep clicking one more without paying any attention to the clock on my desk.

It’s not attractive or even very welcoming, but get past this deceptively off-putting veneer and you might just find a game of turn-based tactics worth getting lost in for a few days or a few weeks.

There’s a great game in Street Fighter V, but only if you’re willing to learn the hard way. Capcom will need more than the few thousand competitors following the Capcom Pro Tour to make this game, and the series as a whole, sustainable for the future.

It’s unlikely Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE will attract much more than a niche audience outside its native Japan. Not only is it exclusive to Wii U – sadly, a poor selling system that now feels like it has one foot out the door – but it also seems as though little was done to prep it for Western audiences beyond translating dialogue.

I can imagine some players being disappointed that Inside is perhaps a bit too much like Limbo. From both games’ dark themes and imagery to the sorts of puzzles they offer up, there are plenty of lines to be drawn between them.

The only part of the game that satiated me on any tangible level was revisiting iconic locations from previous Resident Evil games.

About 60 per cent of Trials of the Blood Dragon is wicked barmy brilliance...Alas, the less said about the remaining 40 per cent the better.

The Witcher III: Wild Hunt – Blood & Wine is a bargain by any standard. In fact, you’re almost better off thinking of it as a small sequel than just an expansion pack, so broad, multifaceted, and rewarding is the experience it delivers.

Use your kid as an excuse to buy it, then start a fresh save file and play through it yourself once she’s fallen asleep.

I want to love Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, but the best I can manage is to appreciate its aspirations and intentions.

If there’s a bright side to all this it’s that playing a clumsy attempt at interactive art can’t help but engender a greater appreciation of games that manage to avoid tragic missteps and create a moving, memorable experience that makes us think about our world and ourselves in new ways...Perhaps Dotoyou’s next effort will be such an experience. I hope it is. Koi, assuredly, is not.

While I’ve had plenty of fun with Fallout 4 and, to a slightly lesser extent, its DLC, I’m feeling pretty ready at this point to wait a few years for the fifth numbered entry in the series – a game that, hopefully, will receive a little more of a buffing than its predecessor.

I’ve only spent a couple of hours with Disney Art Academy, but I was pleased with the quality of a Chip – or was it Dale? – drawing I was able to produce completely from scratch following instructions.

For me, leaving a game unfinished is like suffering an itch I can’t scratch. But I don’t think that’ll be a problem with Homefront: The Revolution. I’ve muddled my way through six of its eight open-world zones, and I’m just not interested in playing any more.

In the end, though, Hitman‘s second episode and the limited Elusive Target mode simply confirm my original impression of the franchise’s new episodic format: It hinders rather than helps the experience.

Doom in 2016 may not be quite what I had anticipated, but it has just enough old and new to make me a fan.

Battleborn has laid the groundwork for a decent online cooperative and competitive shooter, but most players would do will to hold off until it rectifies its balancing issues and dearth of content.

[Multiplayer is] competent, polished (I experienced a few connection problems but chalked them up to pre-launch network jitters), and reasonably entertaining. But it lacks the depth and long-term appeal of shooters that make online play their bread and butter.

Like a good film, 1979 Revolution often makes you feel like you’re witnessing real events, or at least an accurate depiction of those events.

That said, if you’ve already got a shelf full of Amiibo there’s no reason not to at least give Mini Mario & Friends Amiibo Challenge a go. It’ll cost you nothing and requires just a wee bit of space on your Wii U hard drive. No point looking a gift horse in the mouth. However, if you’ve yet to pick up at least a few Amiibo or have shied away from collecting the core Mario characters, this is one free game you can skip without losing much sleep.

The Walking Dead: Michonne ends up an entertaining, if not quite as satisfying, addition to Telltale’s slowly evolving series. At its worst it simply provides more of the same action and difficult decision making that fans seem to love, and at its best it delivers fresh canonical insight into one of The Walking Dead’s most interesting characters.

To be sure, Alienation could have done with a little more polish in its RPG systems and the inclusion of an extra mode or two.

Star Fox Zero is a frustrating experience because it has the potential to be a great game – a fantastic game, actually – but fundamental flaws not only hold the game back, they make it downright unplayable at times despite relatively easy fixes.

Even with Zombies proving less of a draw than it has been in a couple of years, the well designed multiplayer maps ought to make Eclipse worth the download for franchise fans.

If you’ve got an evening to spare and want to fill it with some great beats and alien-blasting action, LOUD on Planet X is worth checking out.

Bravely Second: End Layer is probably the superior game. But sequels come with a different set of expectations. And from my perspective, those expectations haven’t been entirely satisfied.

Dark Souls III hasn’t proven to be quite the revelation for me that was Bloodbourne, but during the time I’ve played there was little else I’d have rather been doing.

Whether you should pick up Automatron might end up coming down to how much you dig robots. If you can live without them, you can probably just skip it. If, on the other hand, you want to build your own lethal automaton companion to take with you out into Far Harbor’s irradiated sea a couple of months from now (as I know I do), then Automatron becomes significantly more compelling.

Encounters – generally set in bland open areas – tend to be pretty similar to each other. Jack uses his time shifting abilities – which evolve in terms of range and power, but not sophistication – in the same ways on a limited variety of enemies time and again while relying on an awkward automatic covering system as he reloads or waits for his abilities to recharge. Rinse and repeat. There’s simply not enough variety.

The sooner you can wrap your head around the fact that Dirt Rally isn’t so much about winning but rather finishing the race, the more likely you’ll be to stick around.

I went into 101 Ways to Die hoping for a clever cross between Pain and Lemmings and came out with what felt like a gorier version of Mario vs. Donkey Kong that tasked me to kill rather than save. There were moments of giddy fun at the start, but they petered before too long.

I suspect most of my qualms wouldn’t exist had République been designed from the ground up for PlayStation 4, which is perhaps a point in favour of the hardcore crowd who raise their noses at mobile games. However, these problems are too minor to greatly distract from a game with a compelling dystopian story and stealth action that’s both pleasantly reverential and legitimately innovative.

Hitman feels like a typical big-budget game that’s been fragmented solely to more easily fund its middle and end bits. Whether this is in fact the case matters little. That’s the way it comes off. Even if the rest of the episodes deliver levels on par with the excellent Paris mansion mission, separating them by weeks or months dilutes the experience and diminishes the already spotty narrative.

If you are looking for a very good meat-and-potatoes Zelda game, Twilight Princess HD will likely scratch that itch. If you can’t see yourself playing more than a couple of hours of it, maybe pass.

The between-mission meta game is better than ever, but if you’re like me the reason you play XCOM games is for the turn-based combat. And it, too, has been tweaked in fun new ways.

Horror fans may want to give Layers of Fear a shot if they can find it in a future Humble Bundle or if it eventually pops up as a free downloadable via Xbox or PlayStation subscriptions. I can’t recommend it beyond that.

This short series ought to be all about its mesmerizing heroine and her struggle to harness her regrets. Instead, it seems to be shaping up as a short-form version of a story we’ve already seen plenty of times over.

I don’t know where the series goes from here – perhaps a lone astronaut crashing on an inhospitable planet filled with alien animals who think he looks pretty tasty? – but after Primal I’m suddenly excited again to see what Ubisoft Montreal’s Far Cry team comes up with.

It’s bigger, better, and more robust than many would have expected while maintaining the series’ wonderfully silly spirit. Not quite essential, but definitely worth investigation.

Fire Emblem: Fates is more iterative than revolutionary, but with three years between releases I was happy to return to the franchise’s familiar action and experience another fantastical saga filled with memorable heroes and villains. It’s another terrific entry in one of the very best turn-based strategy series currently going, handheld or otherwise.

For those not interested high-level competitive play just yet – those who want to watch a fun anime-style story while mashing some buttons, or at most learning the characters’ special moves for a gaming night with his or her friends at home – there’s no point picking this up at least until March. At that time SFV might very well be a casual-friendly game with all the tools to teach you the fundamentals needed to unlock the most rewarding levels of play.

Firewatch establishes Campo Santo as a visionary studio with some interesting ideas on its mind. And while its first game doesn’t quite muster the authentic emotional resonance of a first-person narrative masterpiece like Gone Home, it still successfully draws us into its world and makes us care about its characters.

What does matter is that in Unravel Coldwood has succeeded in creating a beautiful, poignant, and compelling game interested in going beyond mere entertainment. It wants to make us think about the what and why of everything that happens.

But regardless of how one happens to feel about the cast switch, Awakening still makes for a pretty attractive bit of DLC for anyone who’s still playing – and would like to keep playing – Call of Duty: Black Ops III.

Bottom line, if you’ve already played Rise of the Tomb Raider on Xbox rest assured that you need not buy it again for PC. But if you’ve yet to dive in and choose to play on PC, take some satisfaction in that you’ll be getting the best version of the game currently available.

As with pretty much any Lego game (except perhaps Dimensions), what it really comes down to is whether you’re tired of the Lego game shtick, whether you happen to be a fan of whatever pop culture property TT Games happens to have on tap, and whether you have someone to sit beside you on the couch so you can play and laugh together – these games are always much more fun experienced with a friend of family member.

It’s pretty much the best puzzle game ever created.

Don’t even bother registering your Amiibo. That way you won’t be tempted to use them. And you’ll be able to play the game the way it was meant to be played for people who have to muddle through without any Amiibo. Do that, and Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam has potential to prove as satisfying as just about every other game in this great series.

Amplitude is destined for most people to become that slightly off record from their favourite band. You spun it a few times the day you bought it, and you really did try to love it. But now it just sits there, rarely played, a reminder that even those you admire most are capable of mistakes.

Even a remastered version of a more or less forgettable prequel from the franchise’s heyday is infinitely preferable to what Capcom gave us in Resident Evil 6. It’s got its fair share of issues and isn’t the nostalgic walk down memory lane that was Resident Evil HD Remaster, but at least it’s a bit more of what this Resident Evil fan really wants.

And I have to admit, Telltale has finally made me feel like I’m a member of team Forrester.

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege knows exactly what it wants to be, and it’s not necessarily something that will likely appeal to a particularly broad swath of players...It’s a small, focused, and intense game with but a handful of maps, modes, and playable characters. Clearly designed for a niche group of first-person shooter fans interested in teamwork, tactics, and authenticity, it entertains with the challenge of honing skills and strategies rather than jamming a mountain of mostly middling content down players’ throats, as so many other shooters seem eager to do...But that means it won’t be for everyone – especially not those who want to play alone.

This sense of freedom combined with the game’s unbridled love of destruction and mayhem is what will earn Just Cause 3 a spot on millions of gamers’ shelves. It’s not particularly polished, pretty, or innovative. And no one would make the mistake of calling it intelligent or vital. It’s just a bit of stupid fun. And sometimes stupid fun is all we really want.

They may have to fight their way to liking the game instead of it capturing their imagination from the very start. Xenoblade Chronicles X is probably the best RPG on the system, but your mileage, much like your Skell’s, will vary.

as it turns out, Yo-Kai Watch is pretty fun. Weird. But also fun.

The only truly game-changing ability I encountered is a jump pack that comes available early on and greatly enhances your ability to quickly move around the battlefield and dodge enemy fire. Beyond that there’s just not much driving us to keep growing our avatars.

Tennis fans should wait for Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash to hit the bargain bins. Everyone else can safely skip it, and hope Nintendo takes our collective refusal to purchase as a message to fatten up future versions of its Mario sports games.

A good game with good timing is hard to refuse. And X-Mercs is a fun bit of strategy that managed to come along when I wanted it most.

Fellowship of Evil is a mediocre stopgap between now and whenever Codemasters gets around to releasing Overlord III.

Fallout 4 is not the bar-raising, generation-defining post-apocalyptic RPG for which players like me might have hoped. But – and this is a great testament to Bethesda Softworks’ ability to transport us to fantastical worlds in which we become utterly engrossed – it is nonetheless a great piece of end of the world entertainment that’s managed to keep my hands firmly on my controller and my eyes glued to the screen and for dozens of enjoyable hours over the last week...Just don’t expect to be blown away with how it looks.

There are few video game adventures that are as good as this one.

Call of Duty: Black Ops III isn’t the best game in the series by any stretch, but it provides some safe and familiar shooting action and plenty of bang for your buck. So long as you aren’t a franchise hater, you’re probably not going to go wrong.

Anno 2205 is a solid city builder, albeit one that doesn’t feel like the full Anno experience to me. If you’re someone who has been interested in the series but has been a bit scared by its fussiness and micromanagement, I’d recommend it. Ditto if you just want a city builder with a heavy resource-management angle...If you’re a long-time fan of the series though, you’ll probably be a bit put off by some of the changes and a very real drop in difficulty.

The Xbox One edition I tested stuttered noticeably about once or twice per race, sometimes more. Even the slightest frame rate hiccups in racing games can result in collisions with potential to send you from first place to last in a blink – especially if they happen on a corner versus a straightaway. Frame hitching cost me a number of races in Need for Speed, and each was a maddening experience.

Tales from the Borderlands: Episode 5 – The Vault of the Traveler is the best episode Telltale Games has produced in any of its ongoing series since the finale of the first season of its iconic Walking Dead series.

Planetbase is unforgiving with your citizens only steps away from the void. A solar flare can irradiate your workers, a stray meteor can suck the oxygen out of your habitation pods, and your crops can fail leaving your people to starve.

Clearly, The Legend of Zelda: TriForce Heroes isn’t going to stand among the greatest Zelda games. Instead, it will go down as one of the more experimental entries Nintendo’s decades-old series. And without much of a story, franchise fans who opt to skip it really won’t be missing much.

Warzone is actually the first Halo multiplayer mode I can see myself jumping into with strangers more than a few weeks after the game comes out. In the past, Halo multiplayer got so competitive so quickly after launch that it simply became no fun unless you had enough friends to fill out the teams.

It may not be what everyone wanted, but it happens to be almost exactly the sort of Assassin’s Creed game for which I’ve been pining now for a few years.

So while I can’t really recommend Minecraft: Story Mode to adults casually acquainted with Mojang’s hit game (like me), or even those who generally tend to enjoy most Telltale adventures (also me), I suspect just about any tween with a passion for Minecraft will have a fine time (like my kid).

It’s a breath of fresh air. A true next-generation rhythm game...But it’s not going to be for everyone.

The best example of this incremental improvement is in the game’s new raid.

Co-op play isn’t as much fun as we might have hoped, and it’d be nice if the designers could find a way around Yoshi’s outmoded aiming mechanic, but the abundance of delightfully creative levels ought to sate casual Wii U gamers and the considerable challenge of tracking down every last collectible on each stage should appeal to Nintendo’s hardcore platformer fans.

If Harmonix continues to build upon what its laid down, Rock Band 4 could end up being a monumental interactive music experience.

If you never played Uncharted 2 and don’t have a PS3, this collection is a good buy on PS4. Otherwise, your mileage will vary.

Even a bit of appealing Amiibo functionality isn’t enough to make Zip Lash a must-have for anyone, save perhaps the little guy’s biggest fans. If you want to play a platformer, plenty of better options exist on 3DS. And if you want to know what Chibi-Robo is really all about, best go back into his quirky past and do a few household chores or give life to some park plants.

The story is interesting enough to drag you through the game’s lengthily campaign and it has some funny moments too, but in between the cutscenes is a whole lot of button pressing.

Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth – Rising Tide isn’t an entirely new game, but it’s not far off. It gives fans of the original game plenty of reason to dive back in for not just one, but hundreds or thousands more turns.

TT Games, Warner Bros., and Lego have decided the price should be prohibitively steep.

As a spiritual successor to The Neverhood, the game succeeds on all levels, but somehow I don’t think it will gain the same kind of cult following this time.

So there’s definitely no shortage of stuff to do. The campaigns alone will fill at minimum a few weeks of nightly play...The question is whether it’s any fun.

Just seems kind of small and limited to me. I think people might expect a little more from an Animal Crossing game.

I can’t deny that I enjoyed it. It proved a fun little distraction perfectly timed to kill a drying cycle in the laundry room on a Sunday afternoon. And I’ll gladly play the next episode, whenever it arrives.

Traverser is a game with a few alluring elements that never manage to fuse into the sort of smart and memorable 3D physics puzzler Gatling Goat Studios intended.

SOMA is made so much better if the player hasn’t the slightest idea of what’s in store before booting it up.

I’d be remiss if I recommended Whispering Willows to anyone without letting them know that, though it tells a nice little story, it comes up mightily short as an entertaining game.

For a game where no one utters a word, Dropsy can be powerful.

Skylanders SuperChargers has great toys and loads of fun stuff to do. Better still, it isn’t (necessarily) going to break the bank.

Success feels amazing. Exhilarating, even. Primarily, I have to believe, because of the co-op aspect of the experience. I’ve probably performed more victory high fives in the last few days than I have in the last year.

The real story is the one you make yourself as you play through each mission, making new decisions each time and writing an action thriller of your own making. That’s what makes Metal Gear Solid V brilliant, and that’s why people will still be talking about it years from now.

It has an unrestrainedly upbeat vibe that just makes you feel happy all over, and it’s still bursting with imagination. There are few other games on PS4 – or, indeed, any console – to which it can properly be compared.

With four maps that only vary in looks, two characters who are without character, no online multiplayer, and four traps out of twelve that are actually fun, Knight & Damsel makes for a fun diversion, but little more.

Mad Max, despite his propensity for violence and vengeance, represents a flicker of hope that humanity’s best will always work to endure and survive its worst. And that, I think I finally understand, is what has kept me returning the Avalanche’s wasteland night after night.

The sixth iteration in Turn 10’s reliably polished series capably lives up to the franchise’s revered name, but doesn’t dare exceed it.