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

If Brink grabs you, it'll grab you hard. Even though the lack of polish is at times a disappointment, beneath the occasional annoyance is a fantastic and refreshing shooter that offers something different to the norm. It's standing on the precipice of true brilliance.

It's not quite pumping lead into their glowing orange weak spots, but it's not far off the mark.

It's an experience like no other, if not always for the right reasons. I adored it, but I couldn't tell you in earnest that you will feel the same. But I will tell you this: you absolutely must play it. How else would you ever know?

While it may lack the grunt, confidence and sustained excitement to truly compete with the industry's big hitters, H.A.W.X 2's missile-ducking, bogey-outmanoeuvring nonsense is a rare thrill.

Another brave and ambitious effort from the consistently inventive Eden Games, then, but another flawed gem. If anything, Test Drive Unlimited 2 teaches us that it's not just the open world you create, but what you do within it that really forms its identity. A shame then, that despite coming across like the coolest guy at the party, deep down, TDU2 is still not really sure who it is.

The final twenty minutes of the game are sublime.

A brilliant game that is nonetheless difficult to recommend to everyone, then. But those with an eye for detail and a fair amount of patience will be rewarded with a deep, engaging and entirely idiosyncratic experience. Just don't go in expecting your hand to be held at any point.

As a huge series fan, I had high hopes for Maiden of Black Water. I certainly didn’t expect to find my attention drifting because the game became boring. For all its flaws in the past, the Project Zero series has never been simply dull. And yet that’s exactly what Maiden of Black Water is.

While Sniper Elite V2 is too patchy to recommend wholeheartedly, its brief flirtations with excellence and its core sniping make for an enjoyable, bloody waltz through Berlin. It won't replace Call of Duty or Battlefield, but its slower, sneakier twist on the military shooter is a welcome concept, even if it doesn't always hit the mark.

Nier is a twisting, turning journey of erratic quality. It's one of the best, worst, most broken, most perfect games I've ever played.

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.

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.

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.

I had more fun making my way up to bed in the dark after playing Thief than I did at any point during its benighted trudge across The City.

So will I be renewing my subscription this month? Probably not. But my month in Metropolis and Gotham was an extremely enjoyable one.

The film truly is a millstone around the game's neck. If this game was called Cosa Nostra or Organised Crime 101 (or something similar) it would feel like a far stronger title altogether. Its open-world game template may be well worn but The Godfather II contains some excellent ideas, and the way it integrates them through a smooth control system is admirable.

With something like Ring Fit Adventure, the variety of exercises and madcap storyline drew me back in time and time again, and in comparison Fitness Boxing 2 just feels flat. Even the budget RRP of £39.99 feels far too much to pay. Given that we’re all mostly housebound at the moment, it feels like there might have been an opportunity to do something more interesting with the concept.

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.

If you have no interest in the anime or manga and simply want a musou game, there are better, more fleshed out options out there, but for Berserk fans it’s rich with cutscenes lifted from the latest anime, faithful to the story, and gives you a chance to hack folk apart as Guts. In other words, it’s a lot of silly, fan-pleasing fun with plenty of scope to improve in a potential sequel.

Despite its less impressive iterations over the years, the Need for Speed name has delivered some truly excellent games - from Underground’s street racing to Shift’s wannabe-simulation, all the way to Hot Pursuit’s absurd action. But rather than build upon this rich diverse history of fun, Ghost Games has sucked the fun out of a game that should epitomise the outlandishness of going really bloody fast. When you could be playing Driveclub, or Forza Horizon 2, or Project Cars, or even the beautiful and superiorly quick Forza Motorsport 6, offering a racer without speed? That’s suicide.

There are enough clever ideas here to mitigate for its shallowness.

As nice as it all looks and sounds, however, one can't help coming back to how lightweight this game is.

Strike Suit Zero isn't a game for the faint-hearted. Strike Suit Zero is tough. Really tough. And while it's this challenge that makes it such a compelling space shooter, it's the very same thing that will drive away players in hordes.

Outside the lacklustre story, I can't help but feel that some of its shortcomings are down to the ageing DS hardware that has never really excelled at producing fully functioning 3D environments.

Like its predecessors, Another Code: R might occasionally wallow in sentimentality, but that’s easy to excuse given how unafraid it is to tackle topics like loss and regret head-on, its distinctly untraditional subject matter making it feel like a breath of fresh air in an industry dominated by physical rather than emotional conflict.

It’s gorgeous, wonderfully polished and a fascinating cast of misfits drag you through a mire of gameplay foibles that make that off switch look ever so tempting. There is some fun and satisfaction to be had in the beautiful and bloody combat, too, but we wish the gameplay was lavished with as much care and attention as the presentation.

Ultimately, it lacks the action set pieces that helped to push the FPS genre to where it is today.