The achievement of Monster Hunter: World, however, is that by the time these more archaic foibles become an issue you will already be in too deep. Any issues melt away as you leap whooping from your seat, punching the air after you slay a giant beast while on your last sliver of health. In Monster Hunter: World, those heart-pounding epiphanies happen with thrilling regularity.

The best change is an interesting contradiction that gives you more control, while taking some away.

Sekiro is a game that, for better and worse, lays down an almost belligerent challenge. Keep playing, by all means, if you can handle it. Such fierce difficulty will not come as a surprise to veterans of From’s previous games Dark Souls and Bloodborne, of course, and will likely relish Sekiro’s propensity to kill you often and without mercy. Few games task you so harshly or dare to drive you to such frustration, but few games are as rewarding or exhilarating when you succeed.

A fascinating game. Through the seemingly endless collisions and alliances between the game's factions, you constantly find yourself placed into unplanned yet unique situations, and forced to make unpleasant choices.

For all of the improvements that are most welcome (and will doubtless help court a new generation of fans) Mass Effect’s brilliance isn’t about technicality. Not really. It is about that total investment in its galaxy and its characters --be it your most trusted squadmate or the elephantine Elcor shopkeeper you bumped into-- that has fully enveloped me again. That hasn’t aged a jot.

Hearts of Stone succeeds in stringing together several intriguing stories, excellent characters and standout moments in quick succession, and very little of it feels like a retread of quests that main protagonist Geralt has already undertaken.

If you've never played PVZ before on any platform, then purchasing it is a no-brainer because it's hands down one of the best video games ever made for any platform.

Beyond the initial threat of difficulty there waits a remarkable combination of accessibility and challenge, of risk and reward, punishment and empowerment.

You see, the best thing about Fable II is the stories you will have to tell, whether they are of love, money, murder or sacrifice. And every hero's is different.

Brotherhood is the franchise's best entry to date and one of the best games of 2010.

Valve has created a more robust version of its predecessor by offering a ton of new content while not losing sight of everything that made Left 4 Dead a sure-fire hit last year. The zombie apocalypse has never looked more appealing.

Titanfall 2 shines when it is, as Alavi says, doing things that other shooters do not. Whether it is in the surprising invention of its campaign, or the busy ebb and flow of its multiplayer modes, this is a shooter that should not be overlooked.

It is one of the most fascinating games you’ll play this year, or any other, a high-profile game that still dares to go against the grain despite its ever growing popularity.

It is, if there was any doubt, a thoroughly barmy escapade. There is the sense of the game’s designers being told to go nuts in a relatively constricted space and see what sticks. Mario has always been a conduit for madcap invention but it has rarely been this scattergun. Not the plumber at his most focussed, perhaps, but arguably at his most fun. It is a welcome and fitting part of a marvelously manic package.

No video game released this Christmas runs contrary to prevailing fashion as hard or fast as Dark Souls. And no video game is quite so exciting or exhilarating.

Despite the grim set-up, The Ballad Of Gay Tony is an altogether more upbeat affair than The Lost And Damned. The location is far more glamorous as most of the DLC's action forsakes Liberty City's dour ghettos and docile suburbs for the glitzy island of Algonquin (or Manhattan to you).

Is it a Fortnite killer? Probably not. But as battle royales continue to be de rigeur, the challenge is to offer fascinating twists on the template. In that objective, it is looking like mission complete. [First-Look review]

It's a startlingly relevant piece of work, marred by the most benign and unnecessary of flaws. But in this age of scripted rollercoasters and linear bug hunts, the thinking man's freedom of Deus Ex provides a fabulous example of interactive entertainment, if not quite the revolution the title promises.

What Harmonix have crafted here is a quite exceptional piece of work, raising the bar for single band releases to almost unreachable heights. It’s a gorgeous, reverential and respectful celebration of The Beatles. It is an event that transcends video games, it’s The Beatles finally stepping into the digital world.

Tonally it is all over the place, never seeming quite sure what type of game it wants to be and audience it wants to court. At times it as sweet, warm and sharply enjoyable as any family film. May and Cody’s jibes at each other swerve from affectionate to cutting in a believable and often touching way as they pick at the rifts in their relationship. You may even start to root for them, until the game swerves into a task involving the excruciatingly drawn-out murder of a toy elephant to make their daughter cry.

One of the most important games I've ever played.

Extraordinarily good.

Battlefield 1 is a fantastic game. If you want a shooter that replicates the epic scale of two armies at war, or one that prioritises tactical thought over twitchy trigger fingers, this is the FPS for you.

On the surface, Horizon seems like a jumble of influences but, just like the murderous machina wandering its lands, the game is far more than its component parts, delivering a gripping story, satisfying combat, and the most gorgeous video game environments I’ve ever seen. Horizon confidently carves out an identity of its own in an overpopulated genre.

The Last of Us is irrefutably one of the best games of the PS3 era but it's beginning to feel of its time – and beneath its gorgeous next-gen glow-up, Part 1 is still, essentially, the same game. Which wouldn't be a problem at all were it not for that troublesome next-gen asking price.

There is so much more I want to say about What Remains of Edith Finch. So many thoughts I have about every single character, every single lovingly crafted room in the dusty, abandoned halls of the Finch house. Every single feeling it evoked in me that I didn’t expect to feel, and every thought I have about being made to feel these things so strongly after such a long time.

Immortality certainly gives you that leeway for your own interpretation and enough compelling mystery that its puzzle can get under your skin and spill out of the game itself. There are already some fascinating readings of the game out there and much of the fun will come in discussion and dissection. I still don’t think I have a perfect handle on what it all means, despite reaching the game’s ‘conclusion’, but I have some ideas. What I do know is that this is a brilliantly clever, disturbing and singular piece of work.

Modern Warfare 3 is a shining example of refinement and improvement. It's familiar, sure, but here familiarity doesn't breed contempt, just respect and reward for those who've dedicated so much time to the series. And for new players, it's the perfect starting point, more accommodating and encompassing than ever...A game which is undoubtedly going to be played for a long, long time to come, and deservedly so.