Despite my problems with LawBreakers, at the end of the day, the most important thing I can say about this game is that it is fun. Very, very fun. When I open the game, join a match and start playing, I have an amazing time. The raw energy behind the movement, the weight behind the weapons, the satisfaction of landing hits and bouncing off walls. It all comes together to create a unique, memorable FPS experience.

Iron Crypticle is a fantastic rogue-lite update of some of the seminal arcade experiences of my youth, and provides a rewarding challenge even at its easiest setting. Coupled with the compulsive delights of competitive high score tables and randomised dungeons, I can see myself returning to it for a long time to come. It isn’t the revolution of the genre that something like Nex Machina is, but it refines its influences into a hugely enjoyable game, and as such comes highly recommended.

I really, really, wanted to love The Long Dark, but a myriad of poor design choices and bugs teamed with a complete lack of instruction made it one of the most frustrating games I have ever played.

Tough, expansive, and boasting a surprisingly mature narrative, Sine Mora EX is a remaster done right. Offering native 4K visuals – if you’ve got the right kit – tons of content and rock-solid gameplay, side-scrolling shooters simply don’t get much better than this.

Batman: The Enemy Within opens with a fantastic episode, turning the world of Batman on its head once more with new foes and new allies that you’ll have to work with. It drags Bruce and Batman further down into the murky grey area that he inhabits, keeping players constantly guessing as to whether or not they’re doing the right thing and bringing relationships new and old into the foreground.

I did like going back through the four games on offer with Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 overall. The features included are exactly the same as the first Legacy Collection and the way saving works now makes for a fairer challenge that doesn’t make things too easy. It’s just a shame the enhanced version of Mega Man 8 wasn’t used and Mega Man & Bass was not included, as it gives the impression Capcom’s heart wasn’t quite in it. It’s a decent collection, but plays things far too safe.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a profound sensual experience that’s unmissable. The way it highlights psychosis and incorporates it isn’t just a part of the aesthetic, but it also makes for fascinating gameplay. This is a phenomenal achievement for the discussion of mental health that we’ll be talking about for years to come.

While there’s nothing particularly poor about Songs and Shadows’ story or battle system, the way they come together leaves an unwelcome void in between. When playing, it’s hard not to compare it to bigger, better games like Baldur’s Gate or more recent RPGs like Pillars of Eternity and Divinity. Masquerada just doesn’t have the same level of rewarding complexity or seamlessness, bogged down by constant stopping and starting.

As special as it was ten years ago, Patapon Remastered is a glorious example of when art, music and gameplay coalesce into something far more intoxicating than its sum parts would have you expect.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Graceful Explosion Machine, and if you enjoy chasing high scores then it will provide you with a decent challenge. For the the rest of us, it’s a dinky little shooter that you can complete in a couple of hours and will forget about in half that time.

The truth is, even if the servers were packed, it wouldn’t do much to save this shooter. Developer Bigbox VR has some interesting ideas though these are bogged down by mediocrity at every corner. You may be able to squeeze a few minutes of fun from Smashbox Arena, but beyond that it’s an incredibly hard sell.

As a story, Children of Zodiarcs is a little lacking, but if you don’t mind some grinding the mix of combat, card and dice system is a delight. Although some characters are less useful than others, the fights are enough to pull you through if a tactical RPG is what you are looking for.

It seems overly simplistic to conclude by saying that Dark Arcana: The Carnival is a hidden object game that will appeal to fans of the genre. There is nothing here to really draw in new players and I remain perplexed at its conversion to consoles. Given the regular releases of Artifex Mundi titles, there must be an audience for them and this title will presumably be well received by these players. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no hidden depth here and its predictable nature left me underwhelmed.

Overcooked and the Nintendo Switch are really a perfect match of frantic co-op cooking and a games console that’s all about taking games on the go and sharing them with people. Right now it’s difficult to wholeheartedly recommend this version though, given the widely reported frame rate issues. Here’s hoping they can cook up a fix sooner rather than later.

While a fun and interesting take on the genre, Shadow Tactics will prove a little too demanding for some. Although self-contained, levels are surprisingly big, each crammed with an array of moving clockwork pieces. With some stretching past the half-hour mark, it can be an overwhelming and sometimes exhausting game to play. Still, you’d be hard pressed to find a stealth game as satisfying or rewarding.

Tacoma has some great characterisation and is a very different breed of science fiction, but my enjoyment was sapped by one key mistake in how the story was told. It also has issues with loading and can be somewhat bland to look at, but looking around you, the environmental storytelling is top-notch. By the end, I’d become invested in these characters, but not necessarily their plight.

Namco Museum is only really worth purchasing if you either have an unhealthy obsession with at least three of Namco’s arcade classics, or want an immensely fun party game and don’t care too much about the price or extras. It’s great to see that they won’t be forgotten, but aside from Sky Kid there were no games that I hadn’t already played that I liked. Namco Museum is certainly well put together and presented, but the selection of games just aren’t completely enticing.

Super Cloudbuilt is a stunningly well realised game. It’s fun and frantic, yet the player is always in control. How much you enjoy this game will really depend on how much of a glutton for punishment you are. Cloudbuilt is frustratingly hard, but those with the patience and skill to persevere will find a rich and rewarding title with a great deal of replayability, returning to each level to find the optimal routes and looking like a boss whilst doing so.

Challenge fiends may still have a good time with DeadCore, although in its current state I would be reluctant to recommend the console port over the PC version – if you have one. Originally a project by a fledgling group of five young French developers, DeadCore shows some promise as a platforming first title: the basic mechanics are generally good and fun to use. It’s a shame the game is entirely let down by poor controls and sometimes cheap challenge design, both of which are at odds with the game’s speedrunning ethos.

Unboxed: Newbie’s Adventure will be a pleasant surprise for many 3D platforming fans. Although fairly unassuming, it offers a simplistic, lighthearted approach to the genre with hours of fun to be had.

I wasn’t expecting to like Miitopia as much as I did, but it certainly had me hooked until the end. It’s deceptively long despite its rather basic premise and while the first two thirds are somewhat restrictive, the final third is when the game really comes into its own and shows off its true potential with compelling mechanics that are surprisingly deep. Miitopia is an odd duck for sure, but one that is very hard to put down once the hooks are in.

Archangel is a game that shows a lot of promise from Skydance Interactive. There’s flaws with checkpoints and lip syncing, but the game’s presentation on the whole is great and none of that matters when you’re piloting the mech. You feel incredibly powerful as you easily brush aside smaller tanks and drones, while battling with larger enemies feel like a proper fight.

Short and succinct, there’s nothing about Theseus I strongly disliked. That said, beyond the occasional picturesque moment, there isn’t a lot here worth shouting about either. It succeeds in bringing a brutal slice of mythology to life, but lacks the depth or impact of similar action adventure games, putting too much emphasis on style and presentation.

Much like Chibi Robo! Zip Lash was a bit of a flop in converting a primarily 3D franchise into 2D, Hey! Pikmin makes errors of its own. While the antics of the Pikmin seen in the levels are adorable and the game is visually pleasing, I just couldn’t get over the way the Pikmin behaved when I was playing. It’s otherwise a rather bland and forgettable adventure that Pikmin fans can quite easily skip.

Once you get the hang of Tiny Trax, it’s a fantastic little racer that demands you learn the tracks, perfect every corner, and know exactly when to boost in order to win. Some people might stall while getting over the initial hump of learning the handling, others when contemplating the amount of content in the game, but get past that and you’ll find a slot-racer for the VR generation.

The first impressions of Aven Colony are great, as you build your first colony, finding your way on this alien world. It doesn’t take too long before you start to see the limitations, whether by design or by mistake, leaving this as a city builder that’s easy to pick up and play, but one that could do with a little more depth.

Cars 3: Driven to Win is a fun and eclectic racer, and one that boasts plenty of content that’ll keep fans of the films happy for many hours, especially younger gamers who may well overlook some of the flaws. It’s a shame then that the game’s poor performance, lack of polish and often unfair difficulty level make it that much harder to recommend to anyone else.

A crafty base concept and careful execution make Superhot one of the most intriguing games to come from the recent class of indie-developed shooters. Its bizarre setting and puzzle-like approach are refreshingly original and hopefully something the team will now expand upon following Superhot’s early success.

Supergiant Games continue to burn brightly as an independent studio, with Pyre being their latest imaginative and fantastical adventure. It casts aside many of the trappings of an action RPG from Bastion and Transistor in favour of something more akin to a real time tactical game, wrapping its fast paced and often fraught battles up in a world and cast of characters that gradually draw you into its cyclical tale.

Valkyria Revolution’s biggest crime is that it is utterly dull. The tonal changes to the narrative, and to the combat system, are completely pointless, and not only do a disservice to the Valkyria name, they render it meaningless. Such are the differences between the two titles I don’t understand why they bothered to sully the series’ fantastic reputation with this release.

Superhot VR should be the ultimate power fantasy. Being able to juggle four pistols, firing each one off while dodging a hail of bullets is just one of the many stunning set pieces I’ve relished in. However, when one cog in the machine gets caught, that absolute immersion slips away. If optimised better and with slightly reworked levels, this would be a PlayStation VR essential. As it stands, Superhot VR is still good though too inconsistent.

Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles is a beautiful canvas that needs more detail to make it a masterpiece. Gemea is an enchanting location and the majority of systems in the game function well, but the magic hook is missing. The story isn’t engrossing and the quests just blend into each other for the most part, as do the characters that give them. Gemea is magical, the content not so much.

While Fantastic Contraption encourages you to be creative, it immediately boxes you in at the same time with a limited number of solutions and even fewer tools. Its novelty wears off far too soon, resulting in something as shaky as its player-made creations. [Tested with PSVR]

A fairly straightforward sequel to one of the Wii U's best games, Splatoon 2's unique take on the online multiplayer shooter is as fresh as ever on Switch. Nintendo still have one foot in the past with online functionality, stubbornly sticking to their (paint) guns when they should be learning from others, but these flaws are easily covered up once you get into a game. At its heart, Splatoon 2 is a second helping of one of the most inventive shooters of the last decade.

Fallen Legion has a wealth of great ideas, but ultimately crumbles under its ambitions. A fun combat system helps form a strong core, but one that ultimately doesn’t hold together for very long. The saving grace here is the beautiful artwork and smooth animations, which are complimented by some great music. Unfortunately, it’s hard to recommend the game on those traits alone; Fallen Legion is interesting, and promising, but rarely enjoyable.

While I eventually enjoyed Aporia: Beyond the Valley, the moments where bugs and glitches appeared took me right out of the experience. It’s a shame too, as the story is well told despite uttering no words at all, the premise is genuinely interesting, and the puzzles – when they work as intended – are a joy to solve. It’s certainly one to wait on for now while they tidy up all the bugs and glitches.

It doesn’t even matter that the gameplay here is so good and delightfully complex. Pox Nora on PlayStation 4 is a failure in execution rather than concept; an excellent card and strategy game that few will likely stick with because of the frankly unacceptable technical issues. Even frame rate issues could be overlooked, but parts of the UI failing part way through matches rendering them unplayable and the usual F2P always online syndrome casts a dark shadow over the rest of the game. Maybe just play it on PC instead.

It’s a shame that some of the new gameplay elements don’t quite fit together, but on the whole, Season Two is off to a solid start that will likely hook those who enjoyed the original.

Anyone who is a turn based strategy game fan should be checking out Antihero, which deserves to find an audience so that its multiplayer base can flourish. This is a game that is easy to learn with a campaign that teaches you all the basics, but it can then throw a number of challenging scenarios at you. Antihero is a game that offers something a little different in the strategy genre, that’s easy to learn before throwing some challenging scenarios at you, and is genuinely fun to play.

It’s perhaps stepping on Super Bomberman R’s toes at a fraction of the price, but Flip Wars scratches that multiplayer itch and is an absolute blast to play locally. There are currently some kinks to iron out, particularly with online matchmaking to fully use all the player slots, but with updates a possibility it’s certainly one to keep an eye on to see how things develop.

Though I remember having a huge amount of fun with XII when it came out, it’s always been Final Fantasy X that was ‘my’ Final Fantasy game growing up. However, having replayed them both again in remastered form, it’s clearly XII which comes away the winner. A wonderful remaster with welcome enhancements, it’s remarkable just how fresh, fun and involving Final Fantasy XII feels over a decade later, with elements that still feel modern in a franchise well known for hanging onto the past.

Cleaning up someone else’s mess has never been this much fun, and that’s saying something when said mess includes pieces of evidence, corpses and more than a little bit of blood spatter. Serial Cleaner is easy to recommend as a quirky and fun stealth ’em up with a somewhat macabre sense of humour.

For around £6.29 or your regional equivalent, Kirby’s Blowout Blast is a surprisingly packed game for the price. Sure it won’t take long to blitz through the five worlds that first time, but the real appeal is in trying to get as high a score as possible and achieve those ranks. If you’re just looking for a short game that’s fun with a slightly novel concept for the platform, then Kirby’s Blowout Blast is certainly a better proposition than the free-to-play Team Kirby Clash Deluxe.

Through the stylishly muted visuals and the trappings of a Communist state on the brink of collapse, Black The Fall challenges you to escape its series of perilous puzzles in a bid for freedom from oppression. Though it will live in the shadows of its critically acclaimed peers and has a few rough edges, Black The Fall is a great addition to the puzzle platformer genre.

Monolith succeeds in being an accessible yet challenging entry to the rogue-lite genre. Whilst fulfilling all the generic expectations, it remains the right side of punishing and always manages to be fun to play. It is more tightly focused than the likes of Binding of Isaac and Enter the Gungeon which makes it the perfect entry-level choice, and as much as I enjoy those games, I now have a score to settle with that Daemon. This time, it’ll be different. I hope.

Mages of Mystralia is a cracking game. It successfully captures the feel of 16 bit adventures and combines them with a fantastic spellcrafting system and the sidequests and character development of modern action RPGs. It isn’t the longest game and some may find the price a little steep given how cheap so many PC games are, but it definitely deserves to do well and I would highly recommend picking it up, even if you wait until a sale discount.

There are some great ideas in Perception, but the execution is somewhat lacking. Wandering around a haunted house with no vision should be a tense, methodical, creepy experience, but this game has a sprint button. You are given a lot of help to navigate and solve puzzles because if you did not have your sight and were trapped in a mansion with moving walls and keys to find you would be utterly helpless. This means the whole premise to the game quickly becomes pointless, which is a real shame.

Other games in the PlayLink series look to do far more interesting things with your mobile phone, but as far as a proof of concept goes, That’s You! certainly makes the case for the system, even if it’s not as convenient as it could be. If you have PlayStation Plus, it’s worth downloading both the game and the app to see for yourself how it all works, and while I personally felt this one doesn’t have the legs to hold interest beyond a couple of games, the technology behind it shows promise.

It’s not a taxing game by any means, but the asynchronous flow and bold unusual will rub against common multiplayer mindset.

Fans of the genre will definitely find their fix here. God Wars may not push the envelope though adheres to what can make tactical RPGs so deep and rewarding. With a little more care given to the story, friendly AI, and graphics, this could easily have been a much-needed triumph for Kadokawa Games.

Mixing the old with the new, it’s clear that Codemasters have tried to bring Micro Machines up to date in World Series. While there’s plenty of charm to the classic racing and elimination mode, I feel they could have gone even further with the ideas in Battle mode and the variety of vehicles and weapons that it contains, bringing these back to the classic modes.

The release of Stormblood only cements what some players have known for a very long time; Final Fantasy XIV is a phenomenal MMORPG. The structural changes to combat and PvP, as well as the two new classes, introduce plenty for both veterans and newcomers to sink their teeth into, while the emotionally charged central campaign is easily amongst the best the franchise has offered in years.

As far as remakes go, you can’t get any better than this. Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy is exactly how fans envisioned it - an unadulterated celebration of a PlayStation pioneer. With such a weight on their shoulders, Vicarious Visions have pulled it off with such diligence, infused with a streak of their own creativity. Then there’s Naughty Dog original efforts, of course. Even those only acquainted with Uncharted and The Last of Us can appreciate how the studio first made its name, and the journey from Crash Bandicoot to Warped is one of continued innovation. Some two decades later, it’s great to see that some things never change.

Chess Ultra is one of the best chess games available at the moment, but is let down by the blurriness in the VR portion of the game that puts some strain on the eyes. Aside from this shortcoming, Chess Ultra is basically the complete package for chess fans, and for those who would like to get into chess due to featuring the in depth tutorials and guides that educate about one of the world’s oldest games.

If you’re serious about PlayStation VR and love first person shooters, Arizona Sunshine is a no-brainer. Mowing down mobs of the undead is immensely satisfying with a great spread of weapons and plenty of opportunities to have some fun. The campaign is well-paced, supplying small but welcome diversions to break up the action with little morsels of story here and there.

Ancient Amuletor is actually fairly close to being a hidden gem for PlayStation VR owners, with fun gameplay across four characters and motion controls that work rather well, but there’s simply not enough levels at launch and only vague promises of more in the future. As they add more worlds and characters, TiGames can hopefully make this shine.

The Golf Club 2 improves on the original in every way, and most importantly it plays a fantastic game of golf. It’s a shame then that there are still some technical hiccups, as they do take some of the sheen away from it, but I don’t doubt that HB Studios will continue to improve on what has clearly been a labour of love, and one which shows that sports game development isn’t solely in the realms of the biggest publishers.

It takes a little while to reach its best, but Danger Zone takes the classic Crash Mode from the Burnout series, distils it and then finds ways to push it to new, even more ridiculous heights. Crash Mode is back, and despite a few flaws, it ends up being as morbidly compelling as ever.

Ever Oasis is a decent game for a younger audience to get into, but it doesn’t do a lot that’s completely new. It blends the adventuring with town management nicely and is a well made game, but at the same time there’s nothing that really thrilled me while playing it. It’s a shame really, as there’s nothing necessarily wrong with Ever Oasis, there’s just nothing particularly special either.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Extended Edition is a good action RPG that is a welcome addition to the PS4, but is held back by some uninspiring loot, uneven difficulty and the decision to release the trilogy one game at a time. This version does include all of the enhancements from the Final Cut, but it’s difficult to recommend buying this alone when the full trilogy is so often discounted on PC. Given the likely future releases, I fully expect this to appear on PS+ fairly soon. So unless you have completely rinsed Diablo 3, and are bored of Alienation but desperate for more loot, I’d stake clear of this until the full trilogy is released.

While it has its flaws, there’s a uniqueness to Get Even we rarely see in video games today. Right away, The Farm 51 demonstrates its desire to be different, crossing between genres and actually taking a gamble. While it doesn’t always pay off, we’re still left with something both intriguing, experimental and, at times, thought provoking.

MotoGP 17 could be seen as a last hurrah for Milestone’s ageing game engine, but even with new modes and technical improvements, it feels more like they’re treading water while waiting to revitalise the series next year with Unreal Engine 4. Get it if you absolutely must have 1080p60 MotoGP, but otherwise, there’s something better on the horizon.

Sadly, a rather major flaw in Drifting Lands’ level design really brings down a game that is mostly well crafted. Looting has all the well-thought out tropes that similar games have in spades. It’s just a shame that each level is essentially a miniature horde mode rather than featuring proper level design, and that the number of levels could have been cut drastically to make for a more coherent experience. These hang-ups sadly prevent me from recommending Drifting Lands for diehard fans of the genre, but it’s otherwise an alright effort.

Nex Machina is the pinnacle of all things Housemarque, with concepts and ideas that have been refined over many games in their purest form. That’s both its strength and its weakness, as there is nothing you haven’t seen before in one of their previous games. If you are a fan of the Finnish developer’s game, this is still an essential purchase, but if you’re a newcomer, this is the best place to join the party.

Whilst Spellspire is not a bad attempt at a word game, adding in the interesting layer of dungeon crawling gameplay on top, but it seems somewhat ill-suited to consoles. The central typing mechanic of the PC version is lost and the clumsiness of navigating an onscreen keyboard causes frustration.

Despite the promising names behind the title, Dark Rose Valkyrie stumbles over its own ambitions. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the parts of the game that were the responsibility of the Tales series veterans, the art and the writing, were the most successful, but where other collaborations have been able to balance each party’s strengths an diminish their weaknesses, that’s not the case here.

Bringing motion controls back with a bang, ARMS can feel surprisingly retro, yet it also fits in perfectly with Nintendo’s modern twist on gaming and the Switch. ARMS exhibits Nintendo’s flair for game design to its fullest, confidently taking a well-known genre and injecting it with colour and character to craft something that’s inimitably their own.

The Town of Light isn’t a game you play for fun. There’s nothing enjoyable about the true face of mental illness nor the fear and isolation it engenders. Instead of aiming to reward players with a sense of enjoyment, LKA.it strives to help them empathise with the character of Renée and the unspeakable horrors she’s forced to endure. There’s a sobering, meaningful story to be witnessed and while its delivery is imperfect, The Town of Light still makes for one of the most thought-provoking games of this year.

Dirt Rally was just a glimpse of what was yet to come, with Dirt 4 bringing this long running series back with not just rallying, but more full-on wheel to wheel action alongside it. In going for a more focused style of game and a more demure attitude, it’s lost some of Dirt 3’s hyperactivity and fun, but with a limitless supply of new stages to send you car hurtling along, Dirt 4 is a rallying game for the ages.

Wipeout Omega Collection pulls together some of the series’ most recent highlights and uses the power of the PlayStation 4 Pro to keep the franchise on the technological bleeding edge – and it does so in spectacular fashion. This feels like far more than a tentative step towards a fully-fledged new entry, proving that as long as there’s PlayStation, there should be Wipeout.

I wanted to like Lock’s Quest. For a fan of strategy, RPG, and puzzles Lock’s Quest could have been one of those titles that brought the three together properly. Nine years ago on the DS, it probably did it fairly well, but this port has a number of issues that could do with addressing. The camera and lack of explanation for your abilities are the most glaring ones, and once you settle into a tactical groove early on, things soon become dull. Lock’s Quest is a game that had potential, but it feels squandered.

Tekken 7 is a phenomenal fighting game experience and one I’d highly recommend. It’s by no means perfect, as the game is not without a few technical issues online, some long loading times, and minor continuity errors, yet as far as most people will be concerned, it delivers a stunning, up-to-date fighting game experience from one of the masters of arcade fighting games. A solid return to form.

The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker is an extremely polished text adventure that you absolutely must experience. Its characters can invoke a deep curiosity that only tunnelling down that rabbit hole will ever satisfy, and the multiple endings and randomly selected elements help flesh a game in a genre that’s usually a “one and done” affair.

A colourful and silly VR shooting gallery, Dick Wilde is simply let down by being too difficult. Stick with it and, over time, you might start to see some progress. But those players wanting to kick back, throw on their headset, and have a shoot up in virtual reality may want to reconsider.

As far as debut projects go, Tokyo 42 is a great game with a fascinating sense of style and a confident swagger, let down by a handful of little things. Controlling how to shoot takes some getting used to and that sharp increase in difficulty was unwelcome to say the least, yet I had a fantastic time sneaking around and assassinating targets however I wished. A great effort.

Playing Star Trek: Bridge Crew is every Trek fan’s dream, giving you the opportunity to sit on the bridge of a Federation starship. It’s a great co-op game for VR, but takes a few direct hits when played with AI and when you think about the balance between roles and the mission structure. Even so, with the Trek license lending this game an awful lot of atmosphere and the paucity of must-have VR games right now, this is still a near essential buy.

Vanquish does have its problems, but very few of them are tied to the PC port, which incidentally makes this version the best one by default. It’s B-movie nonsense at its best, with a science fiction setting, and very cool action sequences. It could definitely do with a bit more variety in enemies at times and it’s a little on the short side, but it’s still a great romp seven years later.

While Way of the Hado feels tacked on and ultimately a pointless gimmick, this is still a great version of Street Fighter II and currently the best way to experience the classic game on today’s hardware. The additions to the main game are minor at best for the astonishing price tag, with Evil Ryu and Violent Ken just being amped up clones of existing fighters, but it still plays like the classic arcade fighter. Just don’t expect anything revolutionary.

Good games make headlines and bad games will also generate column inches, the one thing you don’t want you game to be is average, but sadly that is what Demon’s Crystals is. It plays perfectly well and is free from problems and bugs, but it’s totally forgettable without a speck of originality. At just £3.99, it’s a good price for a few hours entertainment if you have some friends on the couch to play with.

Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 is an fantastic game, there’s no doubt about that.

Tequila Works’ efforts these past few years have delivered a game that’s full of beguiling charm and beauty, one that can stand up to many of the comparisons with some of the most fondly remembered games of the last decade. It doesn’t always meet those high standards, but Rime has been well worth the wait.

Whilst I loved the meditations on life and identity, the game never really felt polished enough to avoid detracting from the overall experience. It is by no means a bad game, but ends up as perhaps the very epitome of average.

Even, if for some reason, you happen to take a liking towards VR Karts, it’s not worth £34.99 of anyone’s money and exposes the imaginary premium that studios are putting on games simply because it says VR in the title. It’s such a sour point to end on, but even if it were priced accordingly, VR Karts rarely peaks above mediocrity.

While there’s a distinct appeal to Steel Division: Normandy 44, this is a game that caters to a particular niche audience of hardcore strategy fans. Its depiction of the Second World War focuses on realism, with a reliance on ambushes and weight of fire in infantry combat and a surprising fragility to the tanks, but this difficult to master game won’t be for everyone. There’s some clever ideas in the shifting front lines, the fog of war and Battlegroups, but there’s problems with the presentation and some elements that feel unbalanced.

The combat system remains completely untouched since Samurai Warriors 4 and for all its minor tweaks and nuances, time’s running out for this ageing brand of battlefield action. Even long-time fans will agree that, after being pulled in just about every direction, the series desperately needs to move on. No pressure, then, Dynasty Warriors 9.

Injustice 2 has built upon the original in every way and then added a whole host of content on top, setting a new standard for fighting games.

Shadow Warrior 2 stands on its own as a frenzied yet fresh blending of genres that can easily enthral groups of players for hours at a time. For lone wolves, the looting and shooting will be slightly less appealing. This, and a few smaller hitches, hold the game back from greatness, though die-hard fans of the genre will certainly get their fill.

Skylar & Plux does an exceptional job at giving us a beautiful 3D platformer with truly fun platforming sections, delightful puzzling elements and one-liners that had me laughing. The problem with the game is that it needs a bit more polish.

NBA Playgrounds gets so much of the setup right, often reawakening the spirit of the NBA Jam series, but it fumbles some of the finer details with needless complications and lacklustre AI. As a solo experience there are much better ways to spend your money, but when it comes to multiplayer NBA Playgrounds is so very nearly shooting nothing but net.

As with PaRappa, LocoRoco hasn’t been idly slapped together – there’s a thoughtfulness and diligence there, preserving the original look and feel of the game in a way modern audiences can now appreciate.

With Farpoint, Impulse Gear set out to achieve a goal: to create a traditional first person shooter that works in virtual reality. In that respect, the game is a major success. Although not as fully-featured as its non-VR contemporaries, it captures those essential elements and makes them work in a space that doesn’t require overt tracks of handrails. The joy of cranking headshots and feeling like a real-life space marine is a novelty, but one that will eventually wear off. When it does, Farpoint becomes less remarkable, though its immersive Aim controller gunplay definitely gives it the edge over every other shooter currently available for PlayStation VR.

Akiba’s Beat is a bad game, but it’s an even worse sequel. So many aspects of the previous game, Akiba’s Trip, are abandoned or watered down in this title, from the downgraded graphics, to the lack of customization, the poor characters, and more. Akiba’s Beat abandons it’s roots, instead trying so desperately to fill shoes far too big for it. Like the Chinese knockoff Transformers toys in my local deli, Akiba’s Beat attempts to emulate many big franchise without the budget, skill, or style of any of them.

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia manages the remarkable trick of remaking one of the oldest entries in the series, and making it feel fresh. The major differences from the other 3DS games may take some getting used to, but long time fans will relish the return of some purity to the tactical action, while this is easily the best-told story the series has ever seen.

Bugs and a weak narrative aside, The Surge is a much more confident take on the emerging Soul-like gameplay style. It takes the known tropes of being challenging and having progression dependent on learning attack patterns while adjusting your play style to accommodate, but it also has some fresh ideas that not only make perfect sense, but could shape future games. It’s nice to see a developer give a gameplay style a second shot and Deck13 have almost nailed it here.

Butcher is a game that will mainly appeal to those who like hardcore shooters, where one wrong move can cost you progress. For others, that style of play could prove frustrating, especially when testing your platforming skills. Though it’s built around the idea of being a relentless killing machine, that doesn’t really feel fully realised with most enemies on a par with you when it comes to dealing damage. Butcher shows potential, but it doesn’t reach it in its short campaign.

Writing over our memories of the Prey that preceded it, Arkane Studios’ game is something new and yet strikingly familiar. There’s a great deal of kinship to the likes of Bioshock, Half-Life and other classic games, but it’s also broader and more expansive in what it tries to do. Regardless of its flaws and similarities, Prey manages to be an enthralling science fiction adventure.

It feels somewhat churlish being so negative about what is in many ways a professionally put together indie game. Many of my complaints could be patched out – although the graphics would need a severe overhaul to prevent the distractions – and it may well be that ‘masocore’ fans will click with the controls but, unfortunately, for me they were an insurmountable barrier to my enjoyment of the game. Super Meat Boy keeps the crown for now.

I really tried with Strafe, spending a good six hours with it and getting only as far as the fourth level before dying. I liked the overall tone, and the gunplay is solid fun, but really this is one of the more punishing Rogue-Lites out there, with a high skill ceiling that sets you right back to the beginning once you die without any meaningful progression unless you somehow find the key to a teleporter. A lot to admire, but for most it’ll seem utterly impenetrable.