Grand Theft Auto V is the pinnacle of open-world video game design and a colossal feat of technical engineering. It takes a template laid down by its predecessors and expands upon it, improving on and streamlining some of its rougher aspects. It doesn’t break out of that template and can be brash, nasty and nihilistic. But for all its more unsavoury aspects, this is a game built with skilled mechanical expertise and creative artistry.

It is dense yet lean; its maps bursting with distraction but without an inch of it wasted. It is classical yet modern; drawing on the heritage of its own illustrious series while openly embracing more recent gaming trends. It is challenging yet welcoming; giving you the choice to ease yourself in or take on some of the game’s most fearsome creatures...These are just some of the reasons why, after several dozen hours of play and despite not yet seeing its quest to completion, I am convinced that it is one of the very finest video games ever made.

This is a powerhouse of a video game, one of the finest, built by people at the top of their game and under intense pressure, lest we forget. As it is, they remind us of what games can be, creating a majestic sense of place and time and allowing you to play your role in the way only this medium allows. So, if you’ll excuse me, I have another train to, er, ‘catch’.

The pleasure of Super Mario Odyssey comes in the constant promise of something new. It is, in many ways, the greatest digital holiday you will ever take. An idea that Nintendo is very much aware of with the ever expanding wardrobe of travelling outfits, detailed maps for each Kingdom laid out like travel brochures and souvenirs that you can buy up with stage-specific coins. The variety, invention and sheer generosity on each trip is bewildering, an affirmation that Nintendo in this kind of exuberant form are absolutely peerless. A trip to savour. And not a second wasted.

Among Thieves is not a reinvention of the genre, more a definition. A sumptuous adventure that enthrals from start to finish, a cast that you'll fall in love with and a tale that's better scripted, directed and paced than most Hollywood blockbusters. It is a testament to the extraordinary talent at Naughty Dog and a glorious celebration of what video games can be when they play to their enviable strengths.

The only thing that shocked us more was the fact that we instantly wanted to play it again from the beginning. With Mass Effect 2, BioWare have created an astonishing video game which is likely to entrance casual and hard-core players alike. The only requirement one needs to enjoy Mass Effect 2 is an inclination to become lost in its dark and wondrous universe. Oh, and perhaps a week off work.

Here, exploration is everything. Elden Ring is an RPG but one which elevates role playing to the point of vérité. You are as much the stranger in a strange land as your avatar; basic controls and some mechanics are explained in what passes for the game's tutorial, but that’s about it. There’s no quest log, no icon-studded mini-map, no on-screen overlays or bread crumb trail telling you what to do next, or even where to go. Everything else must be learned, either decoded from oblique item descriptions in-game or gleaned from invaluable internet communities. Death is not so much a setback to be avoided as a necessary staging post on the path to enlightenment. It may sound daunting in theory but in practice it’s exhilarating. Every inch of progress in Elden Ring feels earned, and is thus infinitely more rewarding for it.

I felt like a hero at every moment, whether I was saving the princess or exploring hidden passageways or helping rediscover the lost recipe for that aforementioned cheese. But I felt like a hero not because the game told me I was but because it showed me. It showed me that my wacky ideas for building silly motorcars were clever and fun. It showed me that with a bit of bravery I could beat a swarm of enemies with nothing but sticks and stones. It showed me that I could dive off a flying island into the unknown and find my way.

It would be disingenuous to suggest that The Last of Us is immune from blockbuster video game excess --the total number of kills at the final stats page will still run into the many hundreds-- but it’s one of the few games to try and make some kind of sense of it without compromising its quality of action...In that, and so many other things, The Last of Us is a triumph.

That the action in The Last of Us stays contextual to its narrative and characters is no mean feat either, no cognitive dissonance here, and the lines between the game and its story are usually non-existent. And it is a fabulous story, riffing on Cormac McCarthy and other bleak post-apocalyptic fiction but keeping its own identity through its characters.

An awe-inspiring game. The gameplay and structure may be beginning to show their age a little, but the storytelling, characters and world-building is on a par with the best the medium has to offer. It's a sprawling and engrossing experience, epic in scope and size and offering a gigantic amount of playing time. With their latest open-world game, Rockstar have produced nothing less than the finest recreation of the Wild West on a console, and one of the best video games of this year.

It's a work of masterful craft, mechanically constructed with military precision, artistically wrapped in a tremendous story and environment. Most impressively, its achievements feel effortless.

Modern Warfare 2 crosses into the must-have category of video games effortlessly. It offers an unmatched shooter experience, a compelling story mode, a slick package of mini missions and a multiplayer which is pretty much unparalleled in depth.

Despite the non-numerical title suggesting a complete do-over, God of War is thrillingly different. This is more redemption than reinvention, though there is plenty of that too, as Sony Santa Monica levy the weight of Kratos’ past in one of the most gorgeous, spectacular and impactful blockbusters of the generation.

A wonderful, startlingly complete package tailored for the single player. In these days of multiplayer crowbarred into any old game, it's a relief, a bold statement of intent that Rocksteady have created such a supremely focused but hugely expansive video game. It's a brave, committed, confident piece of work.

Modern sensibilities may be shocked by the lack of checkpointing, but it is also crucial in creating the sense of tension and danger that ripples throughout Tallon IV...Few games can do that too. Maybe the closest touchstone in that regard --though they are very different games-- is From Software’s oeuvre. The success of which can only be a boon for Prime’s ethereal brilliance and a good sign for the upcoming and long-awaited Metroid Prime 4.

Any gripes with the action are washed away when the narrative flexes it considerable muscle. It’s a fabulous piece of storytelling, thick with foreshadowing to a gut-punch of a finale. Most importantly, like BioShock before it, Infinite could only work as a video game, finessing the art of player agency and interaction. Proof positive that with the right talent and drive, games can plough their own narrative furrow. And excel at it.

God of War: Ragnarok manages to wrangle the best of blockbuster gaming under its muscular control. Spectacle. Excitement. Empowerment. And, well, we all know how that feels, don’t we?

Modern Warfare 2 crosses into the must-have category of video games effortlessly. It offers an unmatched shooter experience, a compelling story mode, a slick package of mini missions and a multiplayer which is pretty much unparalleled in depth.

Last of Us Part II might even surpass the achievements of its predecessor. For while it inevitably lacks that first game’s shock of the new, it instead trades on the player’s familiarity with its characters and their backstories to take them somewhere equally unexpected. And while it may lose its focus a little in the penultimate reels, Last of Us II eventually lands an emotional punch that will be felt long after the credits roll.

Chinatown Wars isn’t a case of squeezing GTA onto the DS but crafting it around a console that, while not having the power of its home console brethren, has its own uniquely interesting strengths.

One of the most exciting titles available. It is, in short, a game any sort of player – casual or hard-core – will take a shine to.

Half-life 3 this ain’t, then. But Alyx might actually be something better: an awe-inspiring amalgamation of atmospherics and immersion which does for VR gaming what its forebears did for the first person shooter genre all those years ago. And while it’s a shame the steep price of entry will prevent a significant number of fans from experiencing its majesty, those who do will likely emerge from this most sensational form of self-isolation with their view of the world altered forever.

It really is a fantastic game. That thrill of hitting the top of the flagpole is still there after all these years, Mario and co leap about at the top of their game, it's colourful, friendly, joyful, and the most fun I've had with a platform game since Super Mario Galaxy 2.

For anyone else interested in or already on board with RTS games, Starcraft II isn't just an amazing, it's required reading.

A brilliant touch is the option to turn on a feature that allows Live/PSN players to challenge you even when you’re playing the singleplayer modes. In this era of home entertainment, it’s the closest you can get to someone coming up to challenging you in an arcade. The competition is likely to be ferocious and the fight for online supremacy is likely to continue for many, many years.

Minecraft is by far one of the most fascinating and progressive games ever made, both in terms of its leanings towards procedural generation and emergent gameplay, and the way it has been so openly developed. In an era where the development of most games is a closely-guarded, PR-managed secret, millions were invited to buy and play Minecraft years before it was even finished.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Fallout 3 is how effortlessly it combines so many gameplay mechanics, storylines, characters, expansive environments and complex in-game intricacies into one fluid package.