It's just a pity that when compared to the franchise's most recent successes, Band Hero comes across as both a bit of a cash-in and more than a little soulless.

It’s a great game in a slightly flimsy initial package, then, but Popcap has stated that it plans to release free bi-monthly DLC to thicken the crop of modes.

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.

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.

Every single aspect of Hyrule Warriors is great fun and utterly compelling. I've easily been losing hours at a time to it. Everything it tries to do, it pulls off with aplomb; there's not a single aspect I've disliked, or found to be a misstep.

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.

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.

The fighting itself is the best, most tangible, its ever been, which is essential to the most battle-heavy title in the series since Lego Indiana Jones.

Space Marine can't compete with the genre leaders in terms of spectacle, budget and direction. And one has to question the wisdom of releasing in such close proximity to Gears of War 3. But for Warhammer 40k fans, or those who just can't wait to engage in a little alien slaughter, Space Marine's solid genre mash-up should prove a satisfying battle ground.

Sports Champions is really rather good on the whole. Table Tennis is exceptional, Archery is great and games like Gladiator Duel and Bocce are fun while showing off some of Move's potential.

Watching my kids play through Diggs Nightcrawler it was interesting to see how strong a connection they had to both the genre and the play style. Certainly, playing a game with a book feels a very different way to spend time that sat staring at their handhelds.

The game's sense of style, great humour and compulsively intuitive gameplay goes a long way towards forgiving many of its flaws.

It's certainly not a title for those who prefer more traditional video games. Instead it's more an interactive exhibit, rewarding you for attentive observation and approaching its unique make-up with an open mind. Do so and you will find a haunting, thought-provoking piece of work.

Alan Wake fans will want to check it out, if only for the morsels of story it gives them.

Perhaps the biggest innovation here is also the most controversial. Making good on their ‘The world’s game’ tagline and pre-release promise that this would be their most inclusive iteration yet, EA Sports have now extended their integration of women’s football to Ultimate Team, the series’ most popular – and lucrative – mode which sees gamers collectively spending billions of real-world pounds buying virtual Panini-like packs of players to assemble the best teams possible.

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.

As a Tomb Raider game, as a coherent game in general, and as a narrative experience, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a startling fall from grace. A severe disappointment in a series that was previously going strong, and a sign that this version of Lara Croft might need to retire.

A gleefully amoral riot of a game shot through with a devilish sense of humour. It's not perfect, and it's certainly not as immoral as it pretends to be, but it is consistently enjoyable throughout and more than guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

Dragon's Dogma is one of those rare games which is brilliant, broken, amazing, infuriating, and one you absolutely, unquestionably have to play.

The sheer variety and novelty of what Hohokum offers, as well as the attention paid to making sure that something as basic as the movement feels great (the only game I think does this as well as Hohokum is another Playstation title, Journey), means that Hohokum is going to be something I come back to, on occasion, for a pleasant escape. And it’s one well worth your time.

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.

The racing experience is zippy and robust, while its gleeful celebration of all things SEGA is wonderfully endearing.

But these hopes were dashed in the final third where poor design, repetitive waves of enemies and button-bashing gameplay took all that my enjoyment and curdled into a numbing disappointment.

For a game made by a team of any size, Mind: Path to Thalamus would be incredibly impressive. For a game made by such a small independent team, it's a masterstroke. Stunning, intelligent, fun, with wonderful puzzle mechanics and a thought provoking denouement, Mind: Path to Thalamus is a game that deserves to be remembered for a long time to come.

But you'll plow through most of what the game has to offer to a single player pretty quickly. And while multiplayer could have been king here, WWE All Stars is also notably lacking in both online and off...But it does offer a silly, accessible and effortlessly entertaining brawler that will particularly appeal to lapsed WWE fans.

This seems unlikely to be a game that can be played hard for 12 months. But it’s also a far more polished and properly executed tie-in than films are typically given. Battlefront does a particular thing very well - it is not so much shallow as strategically popularist. Skill and tactics play their part, but it’s one subservient to the John Williams-scored rush of finding yourself in these battles, in these surroundings.

At launch, in the here and now, it's a satisfying celebration of Ridge Racer's breezy ubiquity at getting the best out of shiny, new hardware.

Whilst FM10 tries its hand at all aspects of football management, it isn’t entirely successful in all its pursuits and does end up lagging behind its older, slightly more mature brothers.