While Hogwarts Legacy makes what seems a genuine effort of inclusion, much of it is muddled.

As much as it can come off the rails, there is something gruesomely compelling about The Callisto Protocol that drags you through its dark, blood-soaked corridors. Perhaps it is its lavishly constructed world; finding your way out of the prison onto Callisto’s snow-whipped surface has quite the effect. Perhaps, when it works, it is the primal satisfaction of the combat; a perfectly executed dodge and clobber before lobbing another zombie into a woodchipper with your gravity glove is a grisly but undeniable rush. It is unrefined and often testing, but if those raw ingredients appeal, there is some ghoulish action to savour.

Pokémon's first fully open-world title has a lot of ideas but never quite manages to stick the landing with any of them.

Pokémon's first fully open-world title has a lot of ideas but never quite manages to stick the landing with any of them.

Conversely, Modern Warfare II’s multiplayer offering is rock solid, comprising a highly polished suite of modes catering to a wide range of playstyles. Traditional small-sided shoot-outs still dominate, of course, but quirkier maps help keep things fresh. Santa Sena Border Crossing takes place on a stretch of highway filled with empty but highly explosive vehicles, while Crown Raceway inexplicably takes place in the pit lanes of an F1 track.

If the Arkham games are Christopher Nolan levels of invention and genius then Gotham Knights is hanging out down in the DC Extended Universe with Zak Snyder and Aquaman. Set your expectations accordingly and there’s enjoyable entertainment to be had.

It feels that EA Tiburon have a conundrum here as there is both too much and not enough when it comes to Madden’s modes. Persevering with stuff like The Yard and Face of the Franchise to keep the options broad is all very well, but when no aspect of the game is given full attention, everything feels undercooked.

And yet that monomaniacal approach is both a blessing and a curse. Devotees will doubtless spend enjoyable hours perfecting their runs but those not so enamoured with Metal: Hellsinger’s central conceit might find the whole thing a little… one note.

But its baggy middle does become more taut in The Quarry’s strong denouement; the threat and deathcount rises, the story threads come together and your decisions show their consequence. The paths you choose make for quite the spiderweb, which Supermassive lets you poke into should you wish, and it is never less than impressive to see all of those different decisions pulling together your own personal story through the game. Even if there can be some odd cuts between scenes, a skipped beat because you managed to get one of the group killed.

Nintendo's boisterous take on our national sport is thrilling and hilarious, but doesn't offer enough options to play with.

Nintendo's manic revival of Wii Sports could use more variety, but its lively appeal is a joy for the whole family.

Look, if the Telegraph’s scoring policy would allow me to give extra points for cuteness, this game would be our highest rated game ever. I really mean that. Nothing else I’ve played comes close. Kirby makes the characters of Animal Crossing look about as appealing as the beasts from the most recent Resident Evil title. But The Forgotten Land feels like candyfloss, all sweetness but not enough substance. Kirby is one of Nintendo’s quirkiest and most charming characters, but he deserves better than a reheated take on one of his big brother Mario’s most forgettable outings.

The example of difficult second album syndrome that most readily came to mind while I wandered these wastelands is the Stone Roses, who spent almost five years trying to outdo their era-defining, genre-defying debut only to emerge with a bloated classic rock retread that effectively ended the band’s career. That’s not to say Horizon Forbidden West is gaming’s ‘Second Coming’ – but it’s not the second coming of gaming either.

Techland's horror sequel features crunchy combat and thrilling parkour, but buries its best bits with a clumsy story and open-world excess.

Despite the fresh coat of paint they feel stuck in the past, rolled off the factory line with seemingly little question as to why they’re doing it...Pokémon fans and newbies alike will love Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl because Diamond and Pearl were great. But there’s not enough brilliance or shine here to add the lustre they deserved.

Despite the fresh coat of paint they feel stuck in the past, rolled off the factory line with seemingly little question as to why they’re doing it...Pokémon fans and newbies alike will love Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl because Diamond and Pearl were great. But there’s not enough brilliance or shine here to add the lustre they deserved.

Undead-battling co-op survival mode Zombies – an acquired taste I’ve regrettably never managed to stomach to any degree – rounds out a solid portion of CoD that can’t quite shake the notion it’s merely providing target practice until Vanguard’s Pacific-themed Warzone map enters the fray next month. Then again, perhaps that’s actually the point.

Reflecting on the nature of revolutionary uprising he comes to the conclusion that everything is ultimately ok as long as you die smiling. Similarly, if that’s all you really want from an open world shooter then Far Cry 6 will not disappoint.

Luis Antonio's smart timeloop starring James McAvoy is an absorbing yarn... if you can see past its frayed edges.

I’ve had a lot of fun with it, both chipping away at Adventure Golf on the train and playing a few rounds with the kids at home. But it is forgettable for a Nintendo game, meaning it isn’t long before you move onto other things. The recently released Clap Hanz Golf on iOS, for instance, which has the kind of oomph that an arcade golf game should have. And the kind Mario Golf: Super Rush is curiously lacking.

The Medium, perhaps aptly, is an interesting game of “nearly there”. It is creepy but not frightening, intriguing but not wholly engaging, clever without capitalising on it. This translates to its story, which I never lost interest in but neither was I completely hooked. The Medium goes to some dark places, touching on a slew of heavy ideas like mourning, PTSD and child abuse. It doesn’t drop the ball on these, per se, but neither does it feel equipped or committed enough to do them justice.

In keeping with the period aesthetic, Black Ops Cold War feels like a throwback in all senses of the word. It’s unlikely to be remembered as a Call of Duty classic but throw in the multiplayer mayhem of Zombies too and there’s enough here to help keep the lockdown blues at bay. Which, frankly, is the most any of us can ask for right now.

It’s a convincing facsimile, which makes trying to save it from Albion and its assorted cronies a more compelling task. And Legion’s big gimmick is that you can play as, well, anyone. Construction workers, lawyers, YouTube stars, retired cage fighters, Anarchists, football hooligans. All are served up by Ubisoft’s smart procedurally-generated trick, each with their own look, background and sometimes even voting record.

Perhaps inevitably, on PS5 the game itself almost feels like a secondary concern to the tech demo but developers Insomniac deserve credit for delivering an experience at once both familiar enough to appeal to fans of the first game but also with a strong identity of its own.

For Avengers to entertain any thought of survival as a service game, then, there is a huge amount of work to be done. Most games in the area falter in their early days, if not necessarily to this extent, and there is the kernel of something good here, with strong combat and definable superheroes that are fun to stomp/fly/bound around with. With new heroes on the way to bolster out the roster, if Crystal Dynamics can find a way to hone the game closer to its strengths than its borrowed weaknesses, there may be hope for the Avengers yet. Otherwise the decision to compromise its otherwise solid campaign in the pursuit of all-consuming longevity could prove fatal.

For now, though, FIFA 21 plays a very good game and it's clear the devs have been paying attention to criticism. Headers appear to be effective once more and off the ball movement has seemingly been rebuilt from the ground up, with two new mechanics attempting to address the deficiencies of team-mate AI. The first lets you manually direct runs with a flick of the right stick. The other allows you to take direct control of a runner by pressing in both sticks at once and then timing the return pass as normal. It’s tricky to master and feels a bit like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time but does introduce a welcome set of skill-dependent attacking options.

Much as last year, then, NBA 2K21 is a fantastic sports game wrapped in an unappealing layer of lootboxes and microtransactions.

The result is a game spread too thin, with a bulging selection of modes to play but none of which entirely nail their raison d'etre. In itself this feels an unwinnable decision for EA to make; bringing in new modes to innovate takes time away from developing other areas that the fans want bringing up to date. Something has to give. And perhaps this year that something has just been too much.

Sucker Punch's PS4 tribute to Akira Kurosawa is gorgeous to behold but its sparse open-world and bloated mechanics has it falling short.

It’s still decent fun, though; which is the game in a nutshell. Disintegration teems with potential and it would certainly be interested to see its ideas expanded upon. But if this fun, flawed first attempt can find enough traction for the team to have another crack remains to be seen. I rather hope it does.

Part of how much you reap from Resident Evil 3 will be down to your nostalgia for the series, part of it will be if shooting the embodiment of a virus in the face with a rail-gun is just what you need right now.

Remaking a touchstone of the medium in this fashion is like creating a big-budget, 10-part Netflix drama series out of the title sequence from Grange Hill. Franchise fans will tune in to see an outsized sausage on a fork only to be confounded by the three episodes dedicated to the netball teacher’s character arc. Curious newcomers tempted by the production values and peerless reputation could find the soporific pacing and weirdly dated references to outsized sausages leaves them wondering what all the fuss was about. And everyone else might just shrug and watch The Witcher instead.

The game doesn’t outstay its welcome over its 12ish hours, which is, truthfully, something of a blessing.

There are some truly great games that can transcend the universe they are set in to appeal to fans and non-converts alike. Fallen Order doesn't do that. There is nothing new or radical here. But as comforting popcorn gaming to indulge in while you wait for your trip to the pictures? Job done.

Factor in the graphical glitches, rampant texture pop-in and generally asthmatic performance levels, even when running on a PS4 Pro with settings optimised to favour smooth running, and there really is no end of reasons not to love Borderlands 3 (and don’t even think about Googling developers Gearbox Games’ litany of employee relations history)...And yet... love it, I do. Guilty as charged.

You can only review what is in front of you. And currently, PES 2020 seems out of form.

Days Gone is a game that is, at once, both so close and so far from being what it could have been. There are certainly things here to enjoy and sufficiently pass the time. Those dusty roads of Oregon being the most prominent, but when that world is so empty and its inhabitants so vacant, it starts to become a real challenge to care.

In a world where blockbuster racers like Forza Horizon 4 provide big budget mod-cons, Dangerous Driving will be too pared back for some. But for simple thrills and focussed spills, it drives right to the heart of the matter.

Wargroove is a very enjoyable game but one which still feels rough around the edges.

It all feels mightily uneven. For every thrilling gunfight or anecdote-worthy encounter in the wilderness are other stories of frustration or key non-player characters wandering away from the objective and getting stuck on a rock. It perhaps betrays the short turnaround since Far Cry 5, with its ideas and changes not given room to flower and make New Dawn the disruptive series experiment it could have been. But if you are willing to look past its niggles and familiarity, New Dawn still provides plenty of post-apocalyptic punch.

Just don’t expect to come away with any fond memories or exciting stories to tell. You jump around collecting orbs, you shoot things and they blow up. And that’s it. But sometimes, that’s enough.

It is a small delight, then, to be able to replay Onimusha Warlords. In truth, it is an imperfect game that thoroughly shows its age (this is an enhanced port of the 2002 original to PS4, Xbox One and Switch, rather than a full-blooded remake like the upcoming Resident Evil 2), but a singular one that reminds you of its forgotten impact.

Its quality can vary as much as its storylines. Detroit’s main issue is that it is a game that is desperate to have something to say, but doesn’t know how to say it. Detroit is too heavy-handed and maladroit to get much past ‘discrimination and genocide is bad’.

Survive isn’t the lifeless husk of the Metal Gear series many thought it would be with its creator no longer running the show. When it gets its groove, it’s something very special indeed - its story, world, and freedom for exploration and creativity are all remarkable. The problem is that it'ss difficult to ignore the malingering corporate influence that has filled the gap in Kojima’s absence.

A mostly good adventure, then, but not without some major foibles. There’s no doubt Battlefront 2 is better than its predecessor but we do miss some the latter’s purity – guns, for example, still feel excellent to fire, but there’s so many of them now that you feel like you’re in Call of Duty shooter territory. Amidst a forcible loot system it creates a slight sense of soullessness that could see DICE’s latest effort risks fading into the background as another decent shooter that misses its mark. This is Star Wars, though, so there’s no doubt they’ll get another shot.

It is probably best summed up by a battle with a beast in the game’s denouement: a suffocating struggle in the dark, punctuated by fierce assaults on the senses that goes on for ten minutes too long, losing its lustre in the process. By turns thrilling, terrifying, thoughtful, thoughtless and tedious. A strange game indeed.

This fuzziness at the game’s heart makes you wonder what magic Fullbright could work with its eye for detail worked into a meatier tale. As it is, Tacoma drifts towards ennui more than you would hope, especially given its familiar setting. But what a setting it can be; rich craft and detailed stories worked into every corner, device and discarded piece of paper. Despite some misgivings, a trip to Tacoma is still one worth taking.

In Local and Private lobbies, Tekken 7 is almost perfect, but comes short of greatness when it comes to looking at the full package, which is a frustrating disappointment.

If the combat is Andromeda’s most pleasant surprise, it is the alarming drop-off in the game’s writing that is of most concern. The dialogue, in particular, is unusually flat and laboured for a Bioware game, while Andromeda often fumbles what should be its biggest moments.

It feels like such a painstakingly created world could have hosted a more interesting and considered exploration of its themes. As it is, Wildlands is a vast, pretty and militaristic playground for friends to charge around in. And at that, you cannot deny its potency.

Where it stumbles is in delivering a believable, human world.

It is still zippy and enjoyable enough -with touchscreen mini-games for purifying and Soultimates- but strikes an awkward middle-ground where combat isn’t involved enough for more experienced players, but is chaotic enough with its machinations to befuddle newcomers.

Still, despite the inconsistencies, The Devil’s Daughter is an enjoyable thriller. Albeit one that doesn’t always know its strengths.

The learning curve makes it likely you’ll want to blast through again at least once with your flight skills finally under control. And this is when Star Fox Zero is at its best: a thrilling, fleeting and flawed joyride.

It is explosive, barely coherent, high-budget bluster. And, for the most part, is rather good fun.

It weaves a miserable tale of loneliness, dehumanisation and sexual and emotional abuse. It will exhaust and upset, leaving you bereft for Renee and the thousands of women like her. Contrary to the title, there is no light here, only darkness. But that doesn’t mean it is not worth a look.

A lack of variety doesn’t stop this being a wholly welcome return for Amplitude. It has a thumping heart and soul, a timeless nucleus of gameplay that I hope Harmonix has the opportunity to build upon. A euphoric finger dance across a fizzing, abstract space.

When you liberate an enemy stronghold Rico sometimes says, “That was fun - let’s do it again.” This feels like a perfect summary for the game: it is 15 minutes of stupid fun on repeat. But that barely matters when you are firing remote-detonated cows at a military compound filled with the red stuff.

Feels like a rushed Christmas pick-up after the incredible fan-service of Super Smash Bros and Mario Kart 8. The tennis gameplay is solid fun, and groups will certainly find some enjoyment at its core, but with a limp lack of variety and none of Nintendo’s usual personality, it’s a functional but forgettable note in Mario’s history on the court.

Despite the volume of content and the sharp precision and attention to detail levelled at everything from visuals to audio, Forza 6 can oftentimes feel like the standard bearer of a bygone age. On the one hand it's a mechanical wonder, but on the other it's firmly rooted in ideologies and design tropes of the past.

It’s good fun, though feels more like a distraction, a shiny thing waved in front of our noses to stop us noticing the proper golf sim is so bare.

Wooly World’s gentle accessibility, then, can be its biggest strength or most obvious weakness… depending on who you are. Either way, there is no doubting the craft.

There’s definite worth in this spin-off, and ample evidence that Climax can deliver, but a greater sense of adventure is needed if Chronicles is to truly soar.

Sure, you’re left with the nagging sensation of unfulfilled promise, but away from the circus of its development and that (perhaps unreasonable) weight of expectation, Broken Age will, in time, be a game many players remember with genuine fondness.

Like a zombie with all its fingers cut off, State of Decay’s reach often exceeds its grasp. Despite this, it feels like a game people should play, if only for the creeping moments of brilliance.

Given the frustration levied by its questionable level design, Hotline Miami 2 loses its replayability factor - something its predecessor delivered ever so well.

Type-0 is a consistently interesting experience despite not always being one that hits the notes it's aiming for. It's an example of how wonderful games can be when they focus on a particular form of design, but simultaneously, it stands as proof that even those mainstream games labelled 'mature' struggle to provide a narrative of wider cultural value.

There is still a great multiplayer shooter here, but it feels more like an expansion than a full sequel - if it wasn’t for the campaign, Hardline would be Battlefield 4’s version of Bad Company 2's Vietnam expansion - it even has the vehicle music. It just forgot to bring the personality.

As a story, it’s all deeply unsatisfying. And that’s a real shame, because a cogent narrative could have papered over some more of The Order’s cracks. As it is, that job is left to visual splendour, decent shooting and a marvellous, if squandered, setting. And, while it lasts, The Order is a game that entertains almost as much as it frustrates. But not quite enough to shake the feeling of a wasted opportunity.

There is a lot that Life Is Strange does well. It is offbeat and interesting, if a little rough around the edges. And with the seed of a mystery planted by the end of the episode, there is enough here to be optimistic about the remaining episodes.

There are a lot of good ideas here, but they haven't found a way of comfortably sharing a bed together.

The additions are welcome, bolstering Black Flag’s excellent formula. The only thing that stops Rogue from reaching the heights of of that game is how its lack of new ideas isn’t replaced by a fresh setting.

Ubisoft’s insistence on releasing what is, frankly, an unfinished product is inexcusable. Players falling through floors, obnoxious NPCs interrupting cutscenes, characters turned into terrifying grotesques as they are rendered without skin. All have been exposed in Unity’s litany of bugs. You could be lucky and not see any of them at all, or they could come and spoil your fun entirely.

In trying to be all things to all people, Dragon Age: Inquisition lacks the impact that it might otherwise have had if BioWare had imbued it with the same sense of purpose that its predecessors carried....Inquisition, on the other hand, offers an embarrassment of things to do but sometimes forgets to provide the motivation to do them.

It doesn’t lack for content, then, but those looking for something filling and nutritious may feel short-changed by the game’s adolescence and humdrum tasks. But sometimes you simply need a sugary, cathartic snack. Taken under these circumstances, at least, Sunset Overdrive’s giddy blasting often hits the spot.

For now Driveclub is a distinctly mixed experience; skeletal in some aspects, but breathtakingly complete in others.

FIFA 15’s biggest changes are cosmetic, and that will is absent. FIFA 15 plays, more than any other recent FIFA sequel, largely the same.

A nearly game; good ideas and intentions scuppered by a desire to cram in as much stuff as it can. Yet despite this, Infinity still provides a lot of fun.

A few tweaks are needed, but things are on the right track.

It is a genuine shame. There is a real sense of creative energy crackling at the edges of Watch Dogs and a mechanical aptitude in its systems that make it enjoyable enough to play. Parts of the game irritated me greatly, but I rarely found it less than entertaining, and there were moments that brought a real thrill. Watch Dogs immediate success almost guarantees a sequel, and Ubisoft have plenty of strong points with which to build upon. But I would also like to see more conviction in their own ideas, rather than avoiding difficult questions and settling into a pattern of familiarity.

As I played Child of Light for review, I found it to be a game that I wasn’t itching to play, but rather enjoyed myself when I did. A pretty, diverting yarn that I’m thrilled exists, but is perhaps a little too nice to recommend wholeheartedly.

Those looking for a breezy party game to show off their new machine will find a game with flaws and frustrations that cannot be ignored.

It’s enormously frustrating. Second Son feels so close yet so far to being the PlayStation hero Sucker Punch and Sony want it to be. It’s likeable, fizzy and nearly always moderately entertaining, but is held back by the mundanity of its missions and a lack of the ambition needed to make it great. A diverting superhero adventure that just isn't adventurous enough.

Almost all the depictions of women in the Metal Gear Solid series have been awkwardly sexualised, a fact admirers have sought to explain away by citing Japanese cultural differences or emphasising that these representations barely impinge on the gameplay. I don’t buy that, personally — it seems clear to me that the director just enjoys this sort of stuff — but it will be fascinating to see his apologists attempt to explain away the scenes that show up, quite unadvertised, on the audio tapes in Ground Zeroes.

For those with the patience, Danganronpa certainly has its moments. And its pitiless, gurning despair-bear will haunt your dreams.

The terrifying debut of Red Barrels is a masterclass in the art of video game horror that is stretched a little thin.

What is here is a thumping, bubbly, precisely-engineered and consistently entertaining platformer, but one that lacks for ambition.

A script that is not as elegant as the first season and one fears that, through hubris or complacency, Telltale has lost sight of what made The Walking Dead so good in the first place.

There’s a decent game beneath some unfortunate flaws and irritating business practice, and I would genuinely like to see Vanguard have another crack at a top-down Halo without such questionable deterrents.

It’s a shame that its brains can not match its looks. If you want a visual tech demo to showcase your shiny new console to your mates, Ryse performs that role with some gumption. But at its core is a violent, shallow and desperately limited hackathon.

At its best, it rivals anything in City. At its worst, it's comfortably the weakest of the three Arkham games. It was a lot harder to recommend a couple weeks ago, when it was a more broken, but now it's certainly worth checking out if you're a bat-fan. Just don't go in expecting anything fresh, new or groundbreaking.

To blow COD out of the water, they will need a more polished game than this. Perhaps the next-generation will provide it.

Black Flag is a good game not because of its meandering plot or lumbering main missions, but because of its invigorating interpretation of swashbuckling on the high seas. A thrilling pirate’s life for us.

It’s a mess. But a fascinating mess.

It’s a superior game to Conviction, but it won’t be held in the regard as the original Splinter Cell or Chaos Theory. It’s spread too thin and too focussed on trying to cater to everybody than exploiting what it’s best at.

To embrace Disney Infinity is to buy-in to the whole package: collecting the physical toys, building in the Toy Box, enjoying the Play Sets. Without interest in all its components, its appeal is diminished.

It's definitely worth a try thanks to the great exploration and fluid combat systems, just make sure you have plenty of patience on hand.

To EA’s credit, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 --like all the PGA Tour games before it-- is still a very good game. But perhaps the imminent next generation of consoles will see the series receiving the overhaul it needs.