There’s no great revolution here and it occasionally lacks for visual variety and challenge, but Horizon 2 earns its stripes with a breezy determination to simply show you a ruddy good time.

The fact a project of this thundering size gets finished at all – let alone once every 12 months – is of course a minor miracle of hard work and management, but it can only be lauded for greatness if that's what it's reaching for. FIFA 14 seems content with better rather than best.

This is a game unlike any other. Incomparable, yet instantly accessible. The best Nintendo games have a marvelous knack of building the perfect worlds for the perfect heroes and this is the foundation on which Luigi's Mansion is built. Cracking.

If you’re a veteran player, after a jolting transition this is the best the game has ever been. If you’re new - this is the best thing available to play on console. Let’s pretend it’s always been this good.

Returnal is a punishing game which revels in the brutality of its challenge – and given the randomness baked in to the roguelike conceit, it doesn’t always feel like a fair one. Extreme difficulty spikes abound and ultimately twitch-like reflexes will only get you so far; the success or otherwise of any given run can often depend on which weapon types, buff-bestowing artefacts or consumables appear early on. I managed to blitz through one of the game's six biomes, boss-fight and all, at the first attempt thanks to a fortuitous combination of auto-healing augmentations and a launcher blessed with homing ammunition. Conversely, soldiering on with a sub-optimal build can be a dispiriting struggle.

Frippery aside, Forza Motorsport 7 is an exceptional, exhilarating and absurdly polished racing game. It may lack the depth of some of its more serious competition, but it finally feels comfortable in its framework as a more accessible and energetic simulation.

Football Manager 2019 is the most compelling and involving upgrade of the game since, for my money, the superb FM14. While some old niggles remain --press interaction still needs its proper overhaul, for instance-- its commitment to openness and accessibility has not come at the cost of its extraordinary depth. Quite the opposite. We go again.

It's a wonderful little game but it will eat your life. Don't say I didn't warn you.

CD Projekt Red's long-awaited follow-up to The Witcher 3 is brilliant, fascinating and engrossing but bears the scars of a tough development. [Review in Progress]

Generations refines and perfects the Monster Hunter formula, and presents us with comfortably the best title in the series' history.

The criminally short solo-player campaign... can be beaten in around five to six hours. However, for all its shocking brevity, the campaign’s story is utterly engrossing; it may be completely preposterous, but the story hits harder and resonates more than those of previous Splinter Cell titles.

It’s testament to Codemasters’ calibre as a developer that they have so successfully revitalised a sport that’d been forgotten in games.

Small cavils aside, though, Ni No Kuni is a heartfelt ode to the kind of gaming experience that's in danger of vanishing altogether from the landscape. It would take a hard heart indeed not to get lost in some part of this ravishing exercise in escapism.

Make no bones about it, this is Rocky retold in digital form. But however familiar the punches, it's how they are thrown that makes the difference between victory and defeat. Champion executes its game-plan with a skilful touch, weaving the enjoyable yarn around a deep and tactical boxing sim.

"Committed" sums up Super Street Fighter IV 3D rather well. Ok, so it's yet another update of a two year old game, and there's no way it could ever be the definitive version, but it's a conversion built with such skill and pride it's hard not to fall for it all over again.

You will rarely find a game that offers such phenomenal value for money, even at full price I would wholeheartedly recommend it. It's an exciting reinvention for a heroine whose light has unfortunately faded in recent years; an exciting parade of action, puzzling and exploration elegantly crafted with fresh direction, all while retaining that familiar Tomb Raider ethos.

Respawn's Star Wars sequel builds on its promising predecessor, even if it suffers from the same lack of focus.

There were no doubts that Doom would play fast, look stunning, or be gory; the surprise is that Doom is as relevant, smart and self-aware as it is; merging old ideas with new ones; injecting its near-flawless shooter mechanics into a campaign that’s impeccably refined, hilariously dumb and fiendishly moreish.

The game's chief appeal really is wrapped up in Alec Mason's capacity for devastation and whether or not the endless opportunities to cause widespread mayhem (albeit in a good cause) are worth slogging through some of the game's drawbacks is down to the appetite for destruction of each individual player. Those who demand in-depth plots, revolutionary gameplay and a twist around every corner won't have much use for Red Faction: Guerrilla. But if you enjoy blowing things up, this well may be one of the best video games ever made.

In its exhilarating mix of chaos and control, Rocket League is as good a multiplayer game as any this year.

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.

By turns exciting, disturbing and maniacally enjoyable, Hotline Miami is a true pleasure. Whether it’s a guity one or not is on your conscience.

A remarkable experience.

This is a thrilling, charismatic, feel-good racer. They are the definitions that matter.

Origins can’t entirely shake some of those Assassin’s Creed foibles, it can still be buggy and a little bloated, but it also retains much of what made the series popular in the first place. A fascinating historical setting, fleet-footed action and intrigue aplenty.

Football Manager requires a certain level of commitment. If you can make that commitment, I can see that there's a rewarding experience to be had but I don't think I can do it. Almost two decades after I started playing, I'm more comfortable with Fifa and with the lighter iPhone version of Football Manager. But a whole new generation of students are about to get their minds blown.

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.

While there are off-field problems that go beyond unavoidable licensing issues; on the pitch, PES remains peerless.