There is an incredible amount of content across all four games, and having that much stuff means you can basically play it in any way you like. Further, every single aspect of the game is unlocked at launch, every map, every level, every upgrade.

If it’s not the best indie game of the year, it’s pretty bloody close to it.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is undeniably distinctive within the Call of Duty family. But it might take a game or two for Sledgehammer to start delivering on the same scale as its sibling studios.

Fantasy Life appeals to the dad in me because it teaches kids that work can be fun. It encourages kids to think that jobs – even real ones like tailoring and carpentry – are like a game.

Something much more tame, a word that should be the antithesis of the series...Game developers won’t fix what isn’t broken and to do so is taking a huge risk, but Bayonetta is a series of firsts and this game feels like it’s playing on repeat.

Of course, the ultimate factor likely to determine whether you keep jiggling your buns beyond the first night will likely be whether you enjoy the music or not, and unfortunately I found this year’s batch of songs a bit disappointing. The vast bulk of them are, at least to my taste, flavourless pop fluff.

Had Sunset Overdrive come out late August, there’s a good chance it would have gotten a lot more time to embed itself into people’s consciousnesses. Now, I hope that some of the interesting things the game does are enough to get it noticed in the deluge of big fall games.

It is certainly more polished than Civ 5 was when it was released, and feels much more like a finished game, where as the predecessor was merely alright until it was elevated by its expansions.

I think there’s an amazing amount of fidelity and love shown here to the source, and it’s one of the few adaptations of the material that seems to specifically get what made the 1979 film special. It’s certainly better than the atrocity that was last year’s Aliens: Colonial Marines. It’s just that it overstays it’s welcome a bit. A lot.

It’s wonderfully accessible. The music library here has something for everyone, and the interface is so intuitive that players of all skill and experience levels can play without much worry of failure. It ought to prove a hit at family game nights and small social gatherings alike.

I have a hard time understanding why Sleeping Dogs needed to be ported to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in what Square Enix is calling the game’s “Definitive Edition”...It collects all of the game’s considerable post-release content – including a trio of story-driven add-ons – in one convenient place, which is laudable. But core game hasn’t changed much. And it wasn’t perfect to begin with...The expression “warts and all” to leap to mind.

I give this game 8.5/10 for being one of details and for so frequently surprising me. Were I a little older and had I played the original, I would likely give this title an 11/10, quit my job, and go LARPing in the desert for as long as the cities remain standing, or until I realize that I’ve taken every modern comfort for granted; whichever would happen to come first.

Ultimately, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel was designed as a game for people who liked the first two Borderlands and want more of that.

You will be mauled and eviscerated. You will be blown to tiny bloody bits. You will watch as your head is severed from your body by big men with chainsaws. Or stomped on by nurses with glowing eyes...But, strangely, I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s all part and parcel to the classic survival horror experience.

There’s just something about its robust creation modules that makes sense to me in a way most other game-making games don’t.

Racing fans will undoubtedly have fun with it for at least a little while.

Thanks to beautifully balanced combat, gorgeous and cleverly designed levels, and an almost ridiculous amount of depth and replayability – traits all noticeably absent in Alien Creeps TD – the high price tag is absolutely worth it.

While [the] handheld game stands on its own and recreates the same fun, bombastic, brawling experience it does feel a little pared down.

It is an outrageously imbalanced and profoundly dissatisfying system.

Everything about it oozes with callbacks and fanservice that Zelda fans will be overjoyed with, but unable to contain the potent mix of Nintendo nostalgia and ludicrous action without tearing at the seams.

This carefully designed, constantly evolving, and weirdly dynamic army of Orcs – especially those strong enough to repeatedly defeat me (more on that in a bit) — is what made me keep playing Shadow of Mordor through to the end, even as I felt growing dissatisfaction with the game’s stillborn and often threadbare narrative.

The level of choice when it comes to Horizon’s 2‘s core circuits is surprising and ensures there’s something for everyone, regardless of your taste in cars.

We both thought it was an improvement on the original – not least because it demands fewer up-front purchases than its predecessor (you can now play co-operatively without buying additional characters) – but agreed that there’s still plenty of room for critical gamers like us to kvetch.

There just isn’t much else EA can do to make this a better game. So it made great, incremental improvements everywhere.

This game has its hooks in me fiercely. And that’s why my review’s score is a 9.5. However, I very much could see a player being turned off by having to repeat missions, by overly-long boss fights and the very specific storytelling techniques or the fact that everything feels ripped out of a pulpy sci-fi novel that thinks it’s important.

EA was so focused on making the gameplay a superlative experience that the company forgot to include a lot of the things that make the series so special. If you’re buying your next-gen console just to play NHL, maybe wait a year. If you already have the console, well, hockey’s hockey, right?

The Sims 4 provides an intimate and varied experience; being as a god over sprites, to then adopt the perspective within creation, and to, with empathy, become another person, to observe a whole family, or any number of people, as frequent and as seriously as one chooses. For what it is, a simulation game of life, relationships and interior design, I give it an [80].

Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen is an entertaining epic. Fifteen bucks might seem steep for a mobile game, but it’s a reasonable price to pay for a fantasy adventure that could end up keeping dedicated RPG fans occupied for weeks or months.