While the occasional technical issues might hamper the experience somewhat, XCOM 2 remains a superb strategy game that expertly weaves stellar mechanics and emotional story-telling into an engrossing campaign in which every choice that you make feels genuinely important. It can be both brutally difficult and depressingly ruthless, but the scant moments of joy that you'll experience in your attempts to overthrow the alien regime should provide more than enough incentive to keep fighting the good fight.

The patient, cunning mindset Aragami puts you in with its strictly stealth gameplay is something we long for with more titles. With simple yet smart level design and mechanics, it proves to be a focused title with heart and soul that has learned much from its old masters. But the game does lack polish in its performance and appearance, and the AI can be irritating at times. Fortunately, the release's story, visuals, and sound design ultimately help lift it out of the darkness.

Colorado may not be as impressive or vibrant as Sapienza or Bangkok, but it brings its own new take to the game. With a newfound focus on stealth, sniping, and uniforms, this latest mission does well to bring back memories of the sneakier Hitman of old, but some frustrations and annoyances due to the difficulty are present.

Lichtspeer's saving grace is its exceedingly satisfying aim-and-throw gameplay. Simple and yet devilishly compelling, it's the one trick up the game's sleeve that'll keep you coming back for more, despite some very challenging sections and so-so bosses.

Jazzpunk: Director's Cut is a wild ride from start to finish. If you mesh with this style of humour, it's a barrel of laughs, and the game is just downright fun to play. Your experience will only last a few hours, but that just makes sure Jazzpunk never loses steam and is always hurtling forward at a million miles an hour.

The Journey is FIFA 17's headline act, and it's a surprising success. The story of Alex Hunter is this year's centrepiece, and adds yet more value to the already robust and rock solid footie offering that we've come to expect of the series. What's more, the jump to the Frostbite engine has worked wonders as far as presentations is concerned. As accessible as it is comprehensive.

Unlike The Taken King, Rise of Iron isn't an essential reincarnation of Destiny, but it is an expansion that delivers on its promise of rejuvenating Bungie's shooter – even if it does refuse to step outside of the game's well established comfort zone. A few fun story missions, a great new Raid, and a suite of fresh reasons to get back to the grind for better loot should be enough to keep the ever-present darkness at bay.

New modes, impressive tweaks to the AI to make things more competitive, and that stellar in-game presentation that does a darned good job of simulating the real thing mean that there's more than ever for the puck nuts to get their teeth into this time around.

An absolutely incredible soundtrack and great environmental art fail to lift the game from a bog of issues. There are some severe technical issues here, but real criticism should be pointed in the direction of the oftentimes incomprehensible narrative, which needed to be much stronger given the general lack of interactivity elsewhere.

As the industry gears up for another bumper holiday season, The Bunker offers something a little different. It doesn't attempt to give you a bulk of gameplay or mechanics, but it makes up for this and more in its plot and characters. Don't let this experience pass you by if you're looking for an interesting and superb story, because we think this is the FMV genre at its very best.

The NBA 2K series has always been a hard one to improve upon since the revolutionary 2K14, but 2K17 still manages to better its predecessors, vastly improving the MyGM and MyLeague modes while refusing to tamper with a winning formula. MyCareer is once again a very enjoyable story, and general gameplay is as strong as ever. Simply put, NBA 2K17 is a trailblazer.

Slain: Back from Hell has one of the very best pairings of stunning visuals and amazing audio that you'll find on the PS4. Unfortunately, it's let down by a dull combat system and a horribly unfair level of difficulty, meaning that the game never picks up the momentum that it should. Wolf Brew Games had an awesome idea here with stacks of potential, but the complete package is hell to play through.

By trimming the fat, Telltale has delivered a much stronger episode in its fledgling Batman series. The story's beginning to take a shape of its own now, and more interesting personalities are beginning to come to the fore. While it still feels like the developer's laying foundations, this episode begins with a twist and goes out like a rocket – and that's how we'd like it to continue, thank you very much.

There are far more and much better narrative-driven experiences to be had in 2016, and so Dear Esther: Landmark Edition feels like a bit of a relic in this day and age.

an excellent football game in which fun and realism are balanced. Every pass, every tackle, every goal feels like it has meaning, and Konami has done a great job of creating the ultimate matchday atmosphere. Master League, with its new improvements, is more fun than ever and oozes personality, while the myClub mode offers good competition to FIFA's behemoth Ultimate Team. The huge array of customisation and the game's excellent community prevent the lack of licensing from being a problem.

BioShock: The Collection is the best way to experience the world of Rapture and Columbia. All three games and their DLC look great and, despite a slightly creaky port of the first game, perform well. Unfortunately, series veterans won't find anything new, meaning that the visual upgrade and the convenience of having everything pulled into one package are the only reasons to return to games that you may have already experienced multiple times.

The charm, style, and sophistication by which it mixes up so many different styles successfully is a testament both to RIVE's great design and also some of the most beloved games of years gone by.

The Tomorrow Children is an extraordinary, mystifying game with a fantastic core concept of working together for a common goal. While there's a steep learning curve, and the fundamental gameplay is not all that fun, we'd be lying if we said that we weren't engrossed in our duties, and there's just enough depth to keep you absorbed for a while.

A prime example of a below par dungeon crawling RPG. Kinda fun in parts, if not a bit basic and simple, the title has nothing that offers a real challenge and nothing that demands your attention. While the game starts off well enough, very little is added throughout to hold your interest, and it's a struggle to remain enthused about the lacklustre plot and the title's repetitive nature.

It may not be the grand finale that fans of Fallout 4 have been waiting for, but Nuka World is an enjoyable slice of content all the same. With a focus on exploration, the real star of the show here is the theme park itself, which is dripping with detail and dark humour.

Resident Evil 4 is, and will forever remain, a masterpiece. It says a lot when you can pop in a game over a decade old, and still get as engrossed into everything it has to offer like it was the first time ever experiencing it. If you have somehow still never played this game, put down whatever game(s) you are playing and make room for this survival horror smash. And if you've played it countless times on several platforms, it's still worth forking over a couple of bucks to revisit this legendary game.

Even if you haven't seen the Psycho-Pass television series before, Mandatory Happiness does a good enough job of making it clear what's going on to be enjoyable. It tells an engaging and thought-provoking story that deals with some heavyweight and uncomfortable subjects, and one that poses plenty of ethical dilemmas along the way. If you can get past the borderline non-existent gameplay then the narrative will probably keep you entertained for a dozen hours or so, although it may leave you wondering if this story would have been better told over a few episodes of the anime instead.

The gorgeous scenery and animation combined with the amazing, authentic audio make its bosses something that should be hoarded like Fafnir's gold. Even though the gaps between bosses leave more to be desired with disappointing exploration, Thora's tale is one that manages to enter Valhalla's gates with an adequate amount of flying colours.

It's a confounding mess of bright colours, bizarre characters, and unpleasant sights and sounds – but then again, maybe that's entirely the point. Either way, this is a disappointing, bare-bones visual novel, and frankly, we're glad that the trip is over.

Strike Vector EX delivers fun and frantic airborne mech combat action, and while it is only a short lived diversion in single player, it really shines in multiplayer. This one's packing a ton of customisation and an addictive core battle sensibility that will keep you engaged, and it represents a great alternative shooter to the likes of Call of Duty or Battlefield.

The Huntsman: Winter's Curse's relatively short campaign is a slog, with little variation in the types of enemies presenting themselves. Moreover, the plot is so basic that it offers little in the way of distraction from the terrible mechanics of the game. The only saving grace is that this is an attractive game with its storybook stylisation.

God Eater 2: Rage Burst provides hours upon hours of monster slaying fun, but only if you have the patience to wrap your head around its overwrought progression systems. Once you've broken through the initial slog and you're confident in your God eating abilities, you'll find an addictive action RPG that's enjoyable as both a snack and as a three-course meal.

The new kick meter and ability to block kicks and punts makes comebacks and upsets feel possible, while the presentation is as excellent as ever thanks to the new commentary team. Franchise mode is the standout star here, though, with new trading features and the Play the Moments mode ensuring that the game doesn't chew the clock.