Volume is a bit of a mixed bag. Underutilised voice performances and some really nasty technical issues stand in the way of the title getting top marks. However, it's difficult for us to deny that the actual minute-to-minute gameplay is damn fun.

While RiMS Racing has an enjoyable core racing mode, the addition of motorcycle maintenance and plenty of technical issues on PS5 prove a dealbreaker. If you’re looking for a realistic racing game that is still enjoyable, look elsewhere.

No More Heroes III is a pleasant sendoff for Travis Touchdown – especially so now that it’s no longer stuck on hardware that couldn’t keep up with it. The lack of performance problems make it so much easier to enjoy its wide variety of combat encounters, eclectic minigames, and zany story sequences. It comes at the cost of its other flaws becoming more pronounced, but it’s still a brash and daring passion project from a Grasshopper Manufacture that continues to do whatever it desires.

Zombi has transitioned to the PS4 rather well: the fear-inducing aspects of the second screen are re-created well enough to achieve similar scares, the loading times are greatly improved, and – three years later – it's still a unique survival title that never compromises its horror for action.

A few hours in, you'll likely find yourself scratching your head as seemingly impossible puzzles best you. This can naturally be frustrating, especially as you move so slowly, but you'll feel like a genius once everything clicks. Many stages have optional bonus challenges once you solve them, earning you collectable scrolls complete with philosophical mumbo-jumbo. The main story is more interesting, told wordlessly through a series of dioramas, but it's the puzzles themselves that will keep you playing. It's not exactly original, but The Sojourn is a solid puzzler with well designed levels and some nice ideas.

The Invincible has a wondrous story to tell and dazzling graphics to match, but it's held back from greatness by gameplay that struggles to ever break away from the genre structure of old. Mostly walking and talking, it never feels anything more than serviceable. Still, there's an interesting narrative to experience, and with your own decisions changing events, The Invincible should still be played by sci-fi fanatics.

In a year crowded with incredible titles, Ruiner manages to be a standout anyways. The red neon-plastered world presented by Reikon Games is beautiful, brutal, and terrifying. With some impressive art direction, great music, and a wealth of immensely satisfying combat systems, Ruiner offers essential top-down gameplay, and comes highly recommended.

Samurai Warriors 4: Empires is another solid spin-off, but veteran fans may feel a little let down by some of its streamlined gameplay. However, its dynamic nature is usually enough to make up for its lack of depth.

Dawn of Ragnarok does enough to satisfy by the time that the credits roll, but if you're burnt out on Assassin's Creed Valhalla, there isn't much here that'll reignite your interest. The mythological angle is well played, the fantastical setting is cool, and Odin makes for an intriguing lead, but after a year of DLC and updates, Valhalla's gameplay loop is wearing a bit thin.

While it lacks the endearing appeal of some of its older siblings, The LEGO Movie Videogame is still a strong cinematic tie-in that serves as a perfect accompaniment to the big screen blockbuster – even if you should ensure that you visit the theatre first.

Chambara is a smart, stylish, and truly entertaining game to play locally with friends and family. There's a timeless class to games of this ilk which offer experiences that you simply cannot get elsewhere. As long as you can provide a steady stream of willing players to engage with, Chambara returns the favour with a limited but excellent selection of arenas to engage with them in.

Doki-Doki Universe is a unique and quirky timewaster that unfortunately runs out of steam due to a lack of challenge and variety in its gameplay. While the colourful characters and brilliant art style keep it off the scrap heap, those craving a more involved experience would be better off summoning a different title to add to their collection.

Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin delivers a passable tale that manages to capture the quirky aesthetic and humour of the original game. But its high price point, pedestrian puzzles, and failure to do much of interest with VR makes it something of a letdown overall.

Mass Effect deserves better than Andromeda. The series has stumbled into a new generation, weighed down by tedious open world tropes and a catalogue of performance issues on the PS4. That said, it's not quite the disaster that some would have you believe. There really is a good Mass Effect game here, complete with endearing characters and great combat, but it's buried beneath a mountain of unnecessary clutter. In time, patches may sort many of its problems out, but until then, we can only recommend Andromeda to the BioWare faithful.

Heaven’s Vault will satisfy budding archaeologists and linguistic fanatics in fits and starts, but the overall experience that brings those mechanics together leaves a lot to be desired. Alongside technical frustrations and tedious movement between locations, this is hardly a game we can recommend with any sort of confidence.

Little Nightmares III is a nightmare worth having, even if you’ve dreamt it all before. Supermassive Games holds a mirror to the franchise, reflecting the series’ charming horror, clever puzzles, and grotesque universe. But it plays it safe, adding little in the way of originality. Online co-op is the biggest change, but solo play remains the preferred experience. Overall, Little Nightmares III is unsettling enough to make your skin crawl — just not enough to wake you up.

More of an interactive experience, flOw won’t float everyone’s boat, but if you can overlook its shortcomings and immerse yourself in its world, then you’ll be able to see why this indie hit rose to the surface when so many others sank without a trace.

As long as you can put up with some repetitive enemy design and the story not being all that, then Flintlock is worth a punt. It all comes together for a consistently good experience that never tries to break the bank to become something more. It does nothing insultingly bad; neither does it set a new benchmark for anything specific. Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn is a good video game — nothing more, nothing less.

Its main gameplay is simplistic but becomes totally engrossing, and the technical achievement is impressive. The atmosphere created by the graphics and sound is second to none, and there's an amazing sense of place. Some may struggle to find the fun with the lack of direction, and there are some technical issues that need addressing, but if you're able to create your own fun with the tools that you're given, you'll be playing this for a long time.

It doesn’t hurt that the game is designed with a confidence and flair we don’t often see in VR. Absolutely everything down to the menus has a level of swagger that makes for a stunning experience. Cel-shading works well in certain settings, and VR is absolutely one of them: it allows Fracked’s environments to have exponentially more detail and complexity than a similar game without cel-shading, adding much more life to the title's alpine mining facility.

PSVR2 helps makes the game look incredible, but things feel a bit let down by the PSVR 2 Sense Controllers. Attaching hands can be awkward as the round base on the controllers tends to get in the way, and controlling detached hands is less than precise in regards to turning and moving in a specific direction.

Blades of Fire is a well-made and lengthy action adventure romp that will test your combat skills, provided you can see it through. Taking inspiration from some of gaming's greatest hits, it never quite manages to reach those lofty heights itself, let down by a generic setting and lacklustre art direction. Still, it offers some interesting concepts, with combat and crafting mechanics that remain satisfying throughout.

Simply put, Gauntlet: Slayer Edition is a great lark about with buddies, and Arrowhead almost hit the bullseye with this one, if only the visuals and music were a bit more interesting.

The lack of a tutorial, a stunted story mode, and the inclusion of a poorly judged free-to-play component drains some of the colour from the experience, but as soon as you land that special heart attack, you'll quickly forget all about its shortcomings.

Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 1: Order of the Stone is a lacklustre start to Telltale's latest series.

The game features wild European-influenced locales, mixing cabaret with traces of expressionism in a way that makes the illogic of the world logical. Plus, thanks largely to the rise of 4K TVs — and especially HDR — the game looks better than it ever has. The staccato outbursts of colour when you illuminate the dark or enter select regions help to sell the oppressive nature of the environment. The title was from an era where drab colour schemes and chromatic aberration were the all rage, so there’s not as much use of colour to see with fresh eyes as we would have hoped.

Sports games are pretty predictable. From one year to the next, you’ll see one or two sweeping changes and then a number of smaller tweaks, but beyond that, you’ll by and large be playing the same title. By that logic, it’s actually impressive how much EA Vancouver has managed to change this year given how quick its turnaround is from game to game. Less impressive is the implementation of said changes. Selecting your pass targets is a wholly welcome inclusion and a rousing success. The majority of the other changes, particularly the new checking system, leave much to be desired. Why do so many things feel like they took steps backward? Isn’t this kind of problem usually reserved for the dawn of a new generation? What happened?

While it's not as unique or charming as its predecessor That's You, Knowledge Is Power is a solid, fun quiz game for when you've got friends or family around. While it's a little light on actual quizzing, the Power Plays allow for plenty of game-changing moments and inject some tension into the game as everyone scrambles to wipe virtual goo off of their phones and answer first. With another solid game added to its lineup and many more coming over the next few months, Sony's PlayLink service won't be going away anytime soon.