AIt hits all of the usual story beats and it will scratch an itch for JRPG obsessives, but there’s an absolute lack of substance. There’s no discernable creativity, flair, or ingenuity in any part of it. It doesn’t want to either reinvent the wheel or even add a lick of polish to it. It is a game which exists and functions as it was meant to; a JRPG as by-the-numbers as they come, I just wish the developers had been brave enough to take a few more risks.

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.

While the notion of ‘maybe you are the Little Nightmares after all’ is hardly revolutionary, it is executed with enough odious style to be effective and affecting. A level of skill in horror-making that runs through Little Nightmares’ brisk descent into darkness.

The Medium, perhaps aptly, is an interesting game of “nearly there”. It is creepy but not frightening, intriguing but not wholly engaging, clever without capitalising on it. This translates to its story, which I never lost interest in but neither was I completely hooked. The Medium goes to some dark places, touching on a slew of heavy ideas like mourning, PTSD and child abuse. It doesn’t drop the ball on these, per se, but neither does it feel equipped or committed enough to do them justice.

A fine and fitting send-off for gaming’s slickest, most inventive thriller.

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.

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]

A game that is both more accessible to newcomers and even deeper for old hands. Most importantly it continues to improve in its storytelling and humanity, providing a richer escape to fantasy football at a time we need it the most.

Playing Viking detective was not something I expected to do during Valhalla, but it is a game that --while following much of its traditional template-- is capable of surprise.

In keeping with the period aesthetic, Black Ops Cold War feels like a throwback in all senses of the word. It’s unlikely to be remembered as a Call of Duty classic but throw in the multiplayer mayhem of Zombies too and there’s enough here to help keep the lockdown blues at bay. Which, frankly, is the most any of us can ask for right now.

Dirt 5 is not a complicated game. And while racing purists may want a game with more meat on its bones, that is to its credit. It is almost old-school in its focus on delivering a breathless parade of rough-and-ready racing. And if you have a next-gen console to show off its extra bells and whistles, then all the better.

It’s a convincing facsimile, which makes trying to save it from Albion and its assorted cronies a more compelling task. And Legion’s big gimmick is that you can play as, well, anyone. Construction workers, lawyers, YouTube stars, retired cage fighters, Anarchists, football hooligans. All are served up by Ubisoft’s smart procedurally-generated trick, each with their own look, background and sometimes even voting record.

Even better are the super charming vignettes depicting scenes from classic games acted out by Astro Bots in fancy dress scattered throughout the game’s levels. It’s a wonderfully self indulgent cocktail of celebration and fan service more reminiscent of Nintendo than Sony - and all the more delightful for it.

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.

The atmosphere is, in a word, anxious - and it’s impossible not to internalize it. Particularly when faced with Quick-Time Events (QTE) which, more often than not, lead to a horrifying death.

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.

For now, though, FIFA 21 plays a very good game and it's clear the devs have been paying attention to criticism. Headers appear to be effective once more and off the ball movement has seemingly been rebuilt from the ground up, with two new mechanics attempting to address the deficiencies of team-mate AI. The first lets you manually direct runs with a flick of the right stick. The other allows you to take direct control of a runner by pressing in both sticks at once and then timing the return pass as normal. It’s tricky to master and feels a bit like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time but does introduce a welcome set of skill-dependent attacking options.

There’s around eight different forms of in-game currency alone, and enough upgrades and modifiers to give even Euclid a headache trying to track all the variables. However once you fall under Hades’ spell after a couple of runs the near limitless combinations of character builds becomes bewitching.

Much of what new players might see could come across as cliche for 3D platformers, but only because would-be challengers plundered Mario's ideas for their own mascot-driven adventures.

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

Extraordinarily good.

The result is a game spread too thin, with a bulging selection of modes to play but none of which entirely nail their raison d'etre. In itself this feels an unwinnable decision for EA to make; bringing in new modes to innovate takes time away from developing other areas that the fans want bringing up to date. Something has to give. And perhaps this year that something has just been too much.

The offshoot is that there are likely to be one or two sections that might rub players the wrong way. But it is exactly that manic energy that makes the return of Battletoads such a welcome treat.

No doubt there is a lot more that could be done with a mixed martial arts game and, as a biennial release, you wonder if UFC 4 could have moved the needle a bit further on for the genre. Perhaps EA could do with a new contender to keep it on its toes, not so much undisputed as unchallenged. But for all its faults, where it matters most - in the octagon- UFC is a genuine thrill.

The most notable downsides to the game are its technical wobbles, with the camera jolting out of place, the odd audio glitch and rare instances of item hotspots not appearing and requiring a restart. These are a shame -and one hopes eminently fixable in upcoming patches- but are not enough to take the shine off a smart, funny and handsome slice of classic adventuring with a modern sensibility.

The result is a handsome, clever and genuinely funny game that is likely to confound expectations, for better or worse. Veterans expecting a return to classic RPG Paper Mario may be disappointed and not everyone will buy into the puzzle elements. But those who take to its charms will find a game that folds in both smarts and heart.

Sucker Punch's PS4 tribute to Akira Kurosawa is gorgeous to behold but its sparse open-world and bloated mechanics has it falling short.

It’s still decent fun, though; which is the game in a nutshell. Disintegration teems with potential and it would certainly be interested to see its ideas expanded upon. But if this fun, flawed first attempt can find enough traction for the team to have another crack remains to be seen. I rather hope it does.