None of this diminishes the fact that I’ve had a wonderful time playing Total War: Warhammer and am far from finished with it. But the more I play, the more convinced I become that this is a game that makes a devil’s bargain. It feels exactly the way a Warhammer-themed Total War game should feel, and creates tons of dramatic battles and storylines over the course of each campaign. But to reliably generate all that excitement and tension, it secretly disconnects many of the strategic systems that hold good Total War games together. So do you want a good Warhammer game, or a good Total War game? Because I’m less and less convinced that you’ll find both inside Total Warhammer.

I’m aware how dreadful the AI is throughout. I’m aware that despite its attempts to move things on it’s extremely derivative of a genre that’s wearing itself thin. But I want to recommend it anyway. It’s got this weird bubbling heart underneath it, a clear desire to be a great game despite not being able to reach it. It’s packed, varied, and so bloody enormous. It’s a real muddle, and a muddle for which I’ve developed a real soft spot.

Propulsive, thrilling and breathless, DOOM is the triumph I never expected. I just can’t see there being a better shooter this year, I really can’t. [Single-Player review]

Battleborn isn’t a bad game in the sense that it lacks work or effort – the team has clearly put in the hours – it’s just that, for me, it’s an uninspiring result which can’t justify its hefty price tag.

I think the ending could have been better embellished, provided a little more closure and be a bit less rushed. And gosh does it desperately need speeding up a mite. But I had a splendid time with Kathy Rain, and thoroughly enjoyed a game where I couldn’t see where it might be heading. Kathy proves a complex and interesting character, and, well, I thoroughly enjoyed playing it. Which is the simplest recommendation of them all.

The great experiment of the game was not so much the change of scenery, from history to science fiction, it was the decision to create a Civ-like game of expansion with some complexities and aspects of simulation borrowed from grand strategy. It’s in the simulation of a living galaxy that most of the complexity has been lost, but what has been gained is a precise and finely tuned machine. Less erratic and surprising than its ancestors, but much more elegant in its design.

It is definitely visually improved, but still looks very dated. And the remastering apparently didn’t include addressing the game’s many issues. But at the same time, this is still Shadow Complex, well loved, and definitely a decent time. Just a decent time from six years ago and looking and feeling like it.

The game’s huge for its genre, a good dozen hours at least of bouncing, flinging, zapping and triple-jumping. The new sections only make it better, the new skills fit in perfectly. Few games come close to being this well made, this lovingly animated, and so madly pleasurable to play. If you played it last year, it’s well worth going back (and in May, it’s only £3.75 to update your version on Steam), if not, then goodness me, it’s time to put that right.

Weirdly for a game about sausages the size of hay bales, I’d say this is all meat and no fat or filler.

What you need to know is that Mohawk have made a game that creates tension and ruthless competition out of a screen of ever-changing numbers. Every victory feels hard-earned and every defeat can be traced back to specific twists in the tale, and in each of its half hour sessions, there are as many twists as in Civ’s six thousand years.

The star of the show is Sapienza itself though. It’s a beautiful maze of possibilities, flowing toward the sea with vantage and access points sprinkled throughout. Wherever and whenever you create a disturbance, the ripples spread, causing all of the systems that make the game tick to trigger, and creating thrills and farce as they combine. I’m excited to see new targets and contracts as both the developers and players explore every nook and cranny of the town.

OPUS is very cute, and while the story obviously borrows heavily from elsewhere, and while the core mechanic will feel familiar to fans of Mass Effect, it was almost a lovely idea. I’d love to play OPUS Remastered, with the ideas elaborated upon, the ship clicking given more purpose, and a greater focus on those ambient puzzles. This remains interestingly strange, but never quite interesting enough.

More than anything, it’s left me with a wide grin and itchy fingers, and as soon as I’m done here I’ll be jumping right back into the game.

I really loved it, both as a game but also as a way of facilitating time with friends. The biggest part for me was that sense that everyone had a role. In a lot of co-op or team-based multiplayer games I play you get people who take on the captain role and that can leave other players a bit… backgroundy. With this it felt like you had to have everyone involved because of how the information passing works and how the time constraints work. That sensation might diminish quickly as the group gets bigger or if people are shouting over one another but for the three of us it was really gratifying.

The Average Everyday Adventures Of Samantha Browne is free, a really interesting little thing.

The Banner Saga 2 is a beautiful sequel. There are moments where, as I watch the drama unfold in the dialogue and cutscenes, I almost forget I’m playing a game that came out in this decade. There’s an evocative sense of timelessness about the story and world that few RPGs create. And now that the combat has become a strength and not a weakness, immersing myself in the richness of The Banner Saga’s dying world is almost as enchanting as cracking open the weathered pages of my favorite fantasy novels.

The story felt like work to experience. The best way I can think to sum up this feeling is to say I enjoyed Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture far more on PS4 and that was because after the first chapter I lay on the sofa watching and listening and luxuriating while my companion dealt with the controls.

So yes, goodness me yes, get hold of this. Get hold of the first two, too. But most of all, get this.

While this suite of options is probably something those playing on console will find interesting, I can’t see it appealing to all too many PC players – simply because there are already a multitude of Fallout 4 mods out there that do a similar, if not better, job for free.

As a ‘game’, well, I guess Apollo 11 isn’t answering any questions. As an often mesmerising and thrilling way to pass an evening, I’d point you at this long before I did the Vive’s headline acts such as The Lab and Job Simulator.

With Siege of Dragonspear, Beamdog has come on a long way. It’s not perfect, either at matching the style or being a great new RPG in its own right, and future games will need some heavy QA loving. But, as the company’s first big attempt to both follow in BioWare’s wake (the presence of former BioWare people notwithstanding), it’s a good start and at least a good first step to one day giving us that Baldur’s Gate 3 we’ve been waiting so long for – another nostalgia trip, but with a slightly more practiced eye on the future.

Overall, Ashes isn’t bad, it’s just very plain. Gorgeous, but plain. There’s nothing here that hasn’t been done before and done better. [Single-player review]

The Vive floodgates opened up today: I’m hoping that, somewhere in the sprawl of new titles, I’ll find something that answers the lingering question: what kind of games am I going to play in VR in the longer term? The witty and inventive Job Simulator is an excellent shopfront display for Valve and HTC’s technology, but it is not by any means an answer to that question.

I’m not going to confess to you just how bad I am at Enter The Gungeon. But I think it’s testament to the superbly high quality of its construction that I’m not tiring of trying. This is the genre done right, although with an upbeat, uncruel approach that feels atmospherically more reminiscent of Rogue Legacy than, say, Nuclear Throne. It’s very silly in presentation, but very serious in pixel-perfect controls. Goodness knows if it’s good deeper in, but I’m having a brilliant time not finding out.

If this were to be the final Souls game, I’d be happy to say goodbye. It’s not quite the crowning achievement of the series but it’s a fantastically inventive and fluid interpretation of the formula. And perhaps that would make it a great first Souls game for somebody new to the series as well.

I’m so furious. I’ve ranted about boss fights SO many times, and argh, it’s happened again. A game I was absolutely adoring is now a game I can’t play at all, because of a wildly difficult boss fight.

It really is a lovely thing, offering a good amount of game for a tenner, rising above its own gimmick to be a little bit special.

Generally though, this is just Fallout at its flattest, with Ada a completely forgettable companion and another, Jezebel, nowhere near as much fun as her snarky introduction suggests she’s going to be. The final fight is particularly tedious, coming down to how fast you can kill robots, and more pressingly, whether you can kill them fast enough., in a series of waves at the end of an entirely too long dungeon with only the occasional point of creepy interest in underground labs and on monitors.

It’s so alive, so intricate, and so graceful. I wonder if the difficulty will see it be a less celebrated game than the last two, but it really is a thing of beauty.

A delightful, charming, and relaxing affair. It’s a Sunday afternoon television of a game, and goodness me, does that have a place. It’s funny, daft, and the look is incessantly fantastic. Backgrounds are beautifully drawn, characters are well animated, and the voice cast are all modestly strong. And it’s got Tom Baker in it. I had a thoroughly lovely time.

It’s still the smartest, most elegant, most entertaining adventure game ever made. And now, if you want, it looks new and sounds amazing.

I feel like, as much as I’m enjoying it, the side missions and gun farming only has a limited appeal once the story missions are over. And my stomach churns to think of making my way to the level cap just for the sake of ultimate completion. At level 26, I’m enjoying The Division. At level 30, I’m worried it’ll get repetitive.

There’s so much to see and explore, so many concepts to wrap my head around, that Black Desert Online is a truly memorable MMORPG—if not always a great one. It can be hard to embrace what it is instead of trying to force it to be what it isn’t, but Black Desert offered me a chance at escaping from the by-the-numbers slog that MMOs have become.

With all of that said, technical issues aside, it’s a relief to be playing a Hitman game that is built around the idea of social stealth. The execution may be flawed but it’s aiming in the right direction and the disguise system, which now tips you off when a particularly canny NPC is able to look past your clothes and see the face of a stranger, is as good as it’s ever been.

A rushed ending is really the game’s only let-down. A larger conspiracy, or more surprising reveal, might have given it a heftier punch. And it certainly needed a few more puzzles in the later stages, a bit more to do. But these are minor niggles in a really splendid adventure game of the sort we see too rarely. Grown up, well written, carefully paced, and genuinely interesting to explore.

Stardew Valley is the rare kind of imitation that breaks free of the boundaries of its inspiration, becoming more than just a clone but an experience that thrives independent of its origins.

Clearly the Deponia series is loved by enough people for them to keep making more of them, so I’m sure this will be as gleefully received as the rest. But it’s a nasty, stupid, and most damningly of all, badly constructed adventure game. The animations and art are lovely as ever, the music’s great, most of the voice actors are decent enough, but good grief, please, no more. Just make it stop.

I’ve had an enormous amount of fun playing this, obsessively clearing the map of icons, occasionally relenting and accepting I need to do one of the main quest threads to progress, riding around on the backs of mammoths, diving off cliffs into pools hundreds of feet below, wrestling crocodiles, being dazzled by sunsets, escaping labyrinthine caves, and using my “hunters vision” to track enormous beasts. It’s undeniably great fun, and unquestionably a huge achievement. Just a very, very recognisable one, for all the best and worst reasons.

This is a smart, gorgeously presented game, novel and peculiar, and as I mentioned at the start, with a lot to not quite say. I’m not convinced by the ending, I think it aims for too much “Ahhhh but ahhhhhhhh” and not enough, “Oh.” But the journey toward it had me intrigued, and the game’s final sequence is utterly stunning – level design you won’t have seen elsewhere.

I was thoroughly entertained during the couple of hours that the story lasted. It’s brief, yes, but it’s packed with ideas, both in the plotting which is alternately creepy and humorously self-aware, and in terms of level design and modifications to your toolset.

It’s comfy and I can play for hours, but it’s just not that deep.

It’s been a long while since I’ve wanted to climb a leaderboard quite as much as I do right now.

The biggest drawback to Snowfall, much like After Dark, is that it will probably find a way to clash with one or two of your favourite custom additions. But if you’re a modder, I guess you already live life on the edge. Otherwise, it’s a charming and worthwhile expansion for what is already an excellent city-builder. I have nothing but warmth for it in my heart.

Layers of Fear is an effective scare ‘em up but the sense of dislocation and the lack of character development left me feeling as if I’d enjoyed a thematically messy series of shocks rather than a cohesive horror story. It’s a collection of scary things that are tangentially related to the idea of creative blocks and familial cruelty rather than an exploration of the artist or his personality flaws. By the time the credits rolled, I knew very little about this particular painter that I couldn’t have learned by reading a brief synopsis.

When played locally with others or when the netcode is as good as it can be, Street Fighter V is an astonishingly good fighting game. Simplified without being dumbed down, deep without being utterly impenetrable, it’s as good as the series has ever been. I’m glad that there’s no need for a number at the bottom of this review because how do you score this game? In many ways, it’s the perfect fighting game, an easy 10, but it is woefully lacking in some areas. Waiting for content to be added to the game sucks, but what’s a month when you could be playing this for many, many years to come.

The buggy, like the rooftops, is a temporary form of safety. All of the enhancements in the latest edition – new loot, new levels, new end-game excess – are icing on the cake. Dying Light is about creating moments of safety, empowerment and comedic triumph in a world that wants nothing more than to tear you down, and The Following is a perfect expansion of that central tenet.

Coldwood did put their hearts into Unravel and I can definitely feel that when I play. But despite his woollen charm, Yarny stayed well away from my own heart strings.

Firewatch is a rare and beautiful creation, that expands the possibilities for how a narrative game can be presented, without bombast or gimmick. It’s delicate, lovely, melancholy and wistful. And very, very funny. A masterful and entrancing experience.

I’ve been having a hard time lately; I’ll spare you the details other than to say that I felt significantly better for every moment that I spent in American Truck Simulator’s America. That’s my highest recommendation.

Much like 80 Days, Sorcery stands as a great example of what text can do, the more fun bits of gamebooks between the bullshit bits, and an excellent classic adventure that soon becomes a fascinating modern RPG in its own right. No dice, scribbled margin notes, or agonising little paper-cuts required.

This is a steaming pile of shit.

Lego Marvel Avengers is very much what they’ve already been, but with most of the magic missing.

Under its surface there’s a complexity to Cobalt’s systems and a surprising depth that will keep you playing.

XCOM 2 is an improvement on its predecessor in every way and the vast majority of those improvements have been applied so intelligently that they risk making Enemy Unknown obsolete. That game was a smart remake of a classic. XCOM 2 is a classic in its own right and as good a sequel as I can remember.

Rise is a strong and confident step forward for the new series, but I’m still unconvinced it’s heading in a direction that I particularly like. This new Lara Croft is in danger of becoming a character constantly in the act of becoming something with no clear idea of how to portray that thing once she arrives.

You’ll lose lives, money, resolve and the marbles of your crew, before you’re back at the hamlet with nothing to show, no further forward, another four bodies resigned to the graveyard. You’ll incessantly tour a ragtag mob of reluctant rookies into foregone conclusions. You’ll laugh at the fact you’ve wound up with a nymphomaniac alcoholic who is barred from both the Tavern and the Brothel. You’ll cry. And cry and cry and cry. But I think you’ll love it.

So yes, should the maths homework weirdoness be part of your make-up, and in your case be matched by ability, then is a snap at £1.59.

Deserts of Kharak does manage to be standalone as well as prequel to an old series, and if you’re tired of the twitchy frenzy which grips so many latter-day RTSes, Kharak is a smart and beautiful destination whether or not you still dream of Hiigara. It might be set on land, but by recent RTS standards it’s nonetheless reaching for the stars.

Were it built with more skill, with a greater flow of movement and one hell of a graphical upgrade, and then given a dose of writing that wasn’t horribly reminiscent of its sister show, this could have been quite the thing. And yet, I enjoyed myself at moments, before wearying of its weaknesses toward the end. Fascinating that it came this close.

There are so many smart ideas in here, and the concept is neat, even if obviously derivative. But the execution doesn’t hold it together, with disappointing responses to extremes, and a strangely anticlimactic progression. I feel like if this were given another six months, the game could be as interesting to play as it is in ambition. But as it is, it’s not there.

Oxenfree was an unexpected delight for me. Atmospheric, beautiful and with the ability to feel real connections between its characters.

It’s a tougher, bigger, deeper and more elaborate evolution of an already great idea.

There are many good things within Massive Chalice, but they’re frustratingly kept at arm’s length from me.

I almost walked away during the opening moments, when Sylvio seems like yet another cobbled together mess of repetitive graphical assets. I figured I’d play until the first jump scare and then quit. Instead, I found a game that uses its limited resources to find clever ways to scare the life out of me. It’s a quiet horror game – an anti-screamer, right down to the calm almost-whispers of the protagonist – and it’s a triumph.

Lego Jurassic World ends up being a middling entry for TT’s enormous franchise, but a middling entry by them is still enormously better than most other family games.

As well as being a superb detective game, Her Story might be the best FMV game ever made.

Though simple, Lethis comes across as modern and thoughtful, not chained to nostalgia. I’ve enjoyed my time with it for the most part, but I’m ready to part company with it now: I feel I’ve seen everything and any revisit would simply be repetition. I’d love to see its art approach applied to something a little more organic, though.

When playing DMC4: SE you can see how certain parts of the design had grown archaic. How even Dante, as wonderfully flamboyant as ever, was skirting a razor’s edge of self-parody. And how, perhaps, Capcom’s DMC team felt they had reached their limits with the series. This Dante is the product of so many years of refinement that he feels complete. It makes this the kind of game where, despite all the little problems, mastering the core system is so rewarding they just stop mattering. And it’s something of a full stop, for now at least, on one of Capcom’s most original series.

After its brief hour, with a definitive conclusion, it’s something of a shame to realise it’s not in any way procedurally generated. Start over, as it will offer, and everything’s in the same place it was last time, giving you no incentive for another wander. But while it lasts it’s an extremely pleasant time.

That it successfully pulls off big ideas while ostensibly criticising the danger of big ideas is perhaps a better way to end, and a better reflection of the admiration and fondness I feel for The Magic Circle despite its shortcomings. Or are they?

I love Rocket League. I love it because it’s a near-perfect example of game design; an invented sport that understands how to create feelings of triumph and tension, sometimes flipping the script in a few seconds of controlled chaos. That’s rare enough for me to recommend the game strongly to anyone who isn’t allergic to online play but there’s more: Rocket League takes place in a world I want to be a part of. It’s a place where sport is carnival, the playing field is level (no paid-for boosts or buffs here, just cosmetic unlocks), and competition doesn’t require blood, sweat or tears.

There are some great actors in here, and the effort gone to for the filming, and the extensive script, deserves credit. But the framework into which it’s all been put is deeply flawed. Which is a huge shame. Someone is going to get this idea right, but it’s not this time.

How about telling people that this is a fraction of a game at the point of sale? It’s only a tiny £2.80, as you’d hope for something less than two hours long, but the principle remains: if something’s episodic, you say so. Starting with putting it in the title.

Age of Wonders III does the big fantasy conquest thing if that’s what you’re looking for, and Stardock’s own Fallen Enchantress is worth a look as well. Sorcerer King deserves plaudits for being something altogether different rather than yet another iteration of a game we’ve been playing for decades.

This is really superb. Wonderful new puzzles, not over-complicating or trying to be a level of impossible above what came before, but still offering new challenges and new scope for the same tools. And a whole new story that lives within Talos’s original, but is communicated entirely through community discussion, and feels extremely reactive to the dialogue choices you make. It’s everything you could want an expansion to be.

Smart, subtle and sinister, Cradle is a wonderful work of science fiction that doesn’t quite fit inside the space Flying Cafe have designed for it.

Vran does enough to make itself distinct, and it does it well enough to create the imperative to keep going and going.

A minor diversion at best, without the comic timing or cunning to turn anyone to a life of crime. A weekend of crime, perhaps, at most.

Good performances, some very nice animation (albeit embarrassingly similar to Telltale’s look), and a couple of passable puzzles, just aren’t enough to compete with some astonishingly dreadful design decisions, the monstrously slow pace, agonising traipsing, unskippable repeated dialogue and laborious cutscenes, violently pisspoor platforming and action sequences, complete lack of introduction or explanation of who anyone is for people new to the long-dead series, ghastly controls, cheap and tacky on-screen prompts, obviously designed for tablet interaction, and god-awful instant deaths.

Blues and Bullets’ ambition is untouchable, but for its own sake it needs to calm right down and focus on what matters most.

The climbing is unquestionably repetitive, but that’s not something that puts me off at all. It’ll be the deal-breaker for many, I’m sure, but for those not put off, this is a delightful little thing.

What it offers though is a solid combat system backed up with enough different flavours, little moments of triumph, pats on the head and surprises amongst the very, very quickly familiar terrain to be compelling, like a big bowl of popcorn sprinkled with chocolate. It’s unfortunate that as a hybrid, The Witcher 3 does so much more with a lot of the same elements.

It’s short, it’s brutal to the point of unfair, and I haven’t even mentioned half the things you need to manage, because I don’t wish to either spoil or overload you.

It’ll keep you busy for a long damn time too, even if you only play it once – though, of course, for many there’ll be later playthroughs in co-op or at at unlockable higher difficulties. I think it’s the (admittedly presumed) desire to be the spiritual sequel to Diablo II which holds me back from heaping breathless praise on Grim Dawn, though.

That Dragon, Cancer is an important game because it tries, but not because it succeeds.

This is such a treat, and I fear that the (perfect) name will mean too many people look past it. I love that it’s not mocking anything in particular when it apes early 90s arcade games, and yet feels like it’s mocking the entire universe at the same time. I love that it feels cruel, yet I couldn’t make a good argument to justify why, especially when half your time is spent jumping about a magic pony. So trust me, pick this one up.

Perfect Angle looks like a neat little puzzle about rotating obscure 3D shapes until they align to form objects, but somehow sports the most astonishingly dreadful narrative of all time.

Underneath it all is a sweet little game, that takes its cues from 16bit gaming in many right ways.

It doesn’t have the cleanness or the slow-burn escalation of your old-school C&Cs or the first Warcrafts and StarCraft, so certainly don’t approach it as a return to the old ways, but if you want a giant sci-fi army bashing buildings and monsters to death while a crazy lightshow rages, Legacy of the Void is hard to argue with on that basis.

Despite the fact that I found most of this pretty dull, Thea is an enormously difficult game to stop playing.

It is a game about embracing engineering and being unafraid to encourage craziness, so long as it can be physically done. It is a game that does the very idea of Science, with a capital S, proud.

If you were hoping for a new squad-based game with the finesse of XCOM, or the many tactical choices of Jagged Alliance 2, this is not it. Mordheim is dumb. Mordheim is flawed. Mordheim tries hard and doesn’t succeed. This is not a happy Christmas, everyone, but the misshapen horror of Faschnat. It’s your present from Krampus.

This is so immediately accessible, so ridiculously replayable, and so satisfying to get better at, that it transcends. And if those sorts of games are your thing and you’ve not already delved in during development, then flipping crikey, get this immediately.

The brilliance of Undertale, its delicate balance that it manages for most of the time you’ll spend playing it, is that it understands how to be scary and funny all at once.

A quiet, careful joy, spinning an impressive tapestry out of relatively few threads.

There’s a clever stealth game here, without question. I’d just like it so much more if it ramped up faster and cooled it with all the chest-thumping.

This is an improved version of the game but, in singleplayer and in 1v1, it retains the same rigidity as the original release.

Shadowrun: Hong Kong is a substantial and in some respects lavish cyberpunk romp, which, if looked at purely in its own right, is only really guilty of a bit of visual and narrative flab.