It isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and a couple of levels and challenges see Sonic slipping into some of his bad habits, but largely this is an enjoyable, breezily compelling platformer that captures some of that old magic that made us all fall in love with Sonic 20 years ago.

Most importantly, everything about The Witcher’s design, from combat to writing to world-building is so tight, so beautifully handled that it’s easy to forget the graphical short-comings of the Switch version.

I’m genuinely surprised with how much I adore Watch Dogs 2’s world. Its satire works because it is always punching up, never down. As such, Watch Dogs 2 feels like it’s making a statement. Rudyard Kipling once said, “San Francisco has only one drawback – ’tis hard to leave.” While Watch Dogs 2 isn’t as faultless as Kipling’s vision of Northern California, you’ll still want to spend tens of hours wandering this virtual recreation of the famous city and on into the Bay Area beyond.

Head and robot gameplay styles mesh together in a fluid, intuitive way, and the gorgeous colourful space stations and melodramatic sci-fi synth soundtrack makes this sci-fi romp an enjoyable, surprisingly sincere tribute to the wobbly sets of old.

It’s an ardently old-school video game, big on simple, challenging fun and wonderfully overblown, colourful caricatures. A gorgeous, gleeful tribute to how video games used to be.

The game’s greatest strength is avoiding the pitfalls of the first; removing frustrating boss fights and lessening the amount of forced stealth sections. It also manages to sustains its variety for a long time – you will fight similar enemies and you will see patterns in how it deals outs its frights, but the interesting setup and constant design flair begs to be seen as you tiptoe through its suspenseful world.

Nintendo's 20-year-old tactical war simulator is like video-game chess - difficult to learn but satisfying to master.

In an age of downloadable content and add-ons, of game updates and expansions through online changes, it's just disappointing to see the game not support players who have already played Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon's story in any way other than a few small changes. For those players, it really is the definition of the oft-used review phrase "just keep at it, and eventually it gets really good."

A great little racer with some excellent track design and a pretty unique feel to its racing. It's just a shame it's a tiny bit too punishing in places, with a multiplayer that doesn't quite match up to its single player.

EA's return to the course is a surprisingly understated and supremely accomplished golf sim.

In an age of downloadable content and add-ons, of game updates and expansions through online changes, it's just disappointing to see the game not support players who have already played Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon's story in any way other than a few small changes. For those players, it really is the definition of the oft-used review phrase "just keep at it, and eventually it gets really good."

There's a great deal of content here for the money, and a set of high-level weapon unlocks, combined with challenges to complete on every mission, should keep you coming back to the single-player or co-op games as to the online versus modes. Dismal story aside, this is a solid, professional, deeply enjoyable product. Like the Ghosts themselves, it's so good at what it does that you run the real risk of not noticing how superbly it's doing it.

With Motion Plus control proving a roaring success, Tiger Woods 10 is comfortably the most realistic golf sim out there. At times, it feels like this is precisely what the Motion Plus peripheral was made for and is a stunning demonstration of its potential. And for many sporting types, this will finally be the game that they bought a Wii for in the first place.

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

At its best it’s a cinematic, bombastic and brilliant video game jam-packed with outstanding moments that culminate in a wonderfully thrilling finale. The thread that ties it all together occasionally frays under pressure from the games its forerunner brought to bear, but never enough to stop Resident Evil 5 being an exceptional piece of interactive entertainment.

The Monster Hunter series continues to be brilliant but a little impenetrable, despite efforts to remedy that very issue. How much you’ll get out of the game really depends on what you’re willing to put in - if you’re short on spare time or patience, maybe give it a miss. But if you like the sound of really learning a game for once instead of just drifting through it, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate is essential.

But it's the first title in years to rekindle a passion I had for the series,the one I had back when I were a lad and Pro Evolution Soccer ruled the football landscape with an iron fist and cheeky grin. Now it's finally back on track.

Splatoon looks and feels wonderful; it’s a satisfying, immediate, hugely entertaining and almost entirely original brand of shooter. Some players might hanker after more substantial nourishment, but the snack-sized morsels of action that Splatoon offers are absolutely bursting with flavour.

For a game built around the shallow need for incremental improvements, there is a surprising amount of depth when you dig into character and gear statistic tweaking, too, which only makes the tight squad action of the minute-to-minute gameplay even stronger.

But that focus is what makes Siege’s multiplayer so good. In a year with a glut of good competitive first-person shooters –the sci-fi fizz of Halo 5 and Star Wars Battlefront or bombastic ordnance of Battlefield Hardline and Call of Duty: Black Ops III- Rainbow Six Siege’s smart, sharp tactical nous marks it as one of the best.

Veteran developers Insomniac have taken advantage of the PS5’s capabilities to create a sumptuous spread, combining rich, Hollywood-grade CG environments and character models with liberal screenfuls of retina-scorching special effects. Playing the opening tutorial level feels like stepping into an animated movie – a sensation rarely dissipates over the dozen-or-so hours of Rift Apart’s amiable campaign.

For those that have played through The New Order and are keen for more of its beefy action, this delivers around 7 hours of it for a decent price. I’d argue The Old Blood also makes a satisfying starter to The New Order’s more substantial meal if you haven’t yet had a taste. A well-priced piece of downloadable content that works equally well on either side of the main game? Clever.

This enhanced edition is certainly the best version, with visual vibrancy and a small handful of extras just about justifying its existence. But perhaps not the extra outlay. Playing any version of Tomb Raider is no decision at all. Splashing out on this or picking up the original for a third of the price is a trickier choice.

Outside the novelty factor of its genuinely innovative tech, there's nothing especially memorable about Skylanders, but it undoubtedly fired the imagination of my little one, and I found it a perfectly pleasant time-killer.

Forza takes its racing and cars very seriously --with painstaking attention to torque, road conditions and more tuning options than you can shake a gearstick at-- but its raison d’etre is unbridled, uncomplicated driving joy. There is a bewildering amount of stuff that populates the map: traditional races, cross-country sprints, off-road adventures, speed traps, jumps, multiplayer challenges, weekly events. You can barely drive a few yards without something to take part in or smash through. It is bewildering at first and can feel unstructured and scattergun, particularly when the game is throwing XP and rewards at you with so much abandon it's hard to keep track of it all.

A lovingly-crafted update that can happily sit alongside Ocarina of Time 3D as a textbook example of how older games can benefit from a modern makeover.

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 a fascinating, if flawed game and this Switch version isn’t a rush job either. It runs well on the console (even if it’s so big you will need an extra SD card) and takes advantage of some its unique features. Playing LA Noire on the go in handheld mode is tempting enough, but it also brings in motion controls for investigation when playing at home.