Ultimately, that’s why Super Mega Baseball succeeds. It doesn’t sweat the superfluous stuff. It has great teams, good difficulty scaling, approachable gameplay and a phenomenally addictive rendition of pitching and hitting.

A spit-shined re-release of one of the most ambitious games of last generation is nothing to be flip about, especially with just how polished this version feels.

For better or worse, The Evil Within is essentially Mikami’s survival horror greatest hits.

If you are a Hatsune Miku fan… well, you already bought this game. If you’re a fan of rhythm games in general, this is one of the best around and very much worth recommending.

Alien: Isolation is a triumph and one of my favourite horror games ever. That it features such an iconic antagonist is the cherry on top of a delightfully terrifying cake.

Although it’s DLC, Dragonfall is an improvement on the base game, Shadowrun Returns, in every aspect. The campaign is superior, the narrative more engaging, the characters well fleshed out and the quests more compelling.

To take a game that was supposedly complete and yet seamlessly expand it in such a way is laudable, and overall, this is a bravura performance.

While not as revolutionary as Mario 64 or Galaxy, 3D World manages to feel simultaneously fresh and nostalgic in a way the New Super Mario Bros. series never quite realized.

Though the mystery of what happened in Mount Massive was already discovered, developer Red Barrels has shown that there are plenty of new horrors that can be built, even more grotesque than then those left behind.

Mario Kart 8 is the end result of years of refinement. It zeroes in on exactly what we want from Nintendo.

This is still a thrilling shooter with a refreshing fondness for its old school roots, but it’s the characters, storytelling and the horrifying themes it explores – ambitions that far exceed anyone’s expectations – that makes it such a memorable experience.

In the end, though, what really carries The Stick of Truth along is its innocence, something that may surprise people who have read the stories about Euro censorship but is unlikely to come as a shock to fans of the show itself, which has always offset its raunchiness with an odd sweetness. This is, simply put, pleasant to play.

The flag bearer for a new generation of shooters, finally giving players a different way to shoot the living hell out of each other and doing so in the most enjoyable way imaginable. The shortage of content might be a tough sell for some, but if you’ve grown tired of this current shooter rut then Titanfall is the perfect game to make you fall in love with the genre all over again.

With a little patience and practice these challenges can be overcome, and that’s what makes Calculords a wonderful strategy game for all but the most ‘mathophobic’ players.

There’s an adherence to old design tropes throughout much of Broken Age, but there’s also a yearning to find a way to tell this fun story.

It is ART, god damn it. And it’s wonderful.

It successfully mixes elements from its own genre and simple but addictive endless runners.

Fans of Telltale’s knack for coming up with impactful character interaction will find Faith to be up to snuff and find plenty of excuses to replay while choosing a different approach.

Each choice feels incredibly meaningful because it affects everything.

It’s difficult to imagine Assassin’s Creed ever leaving the sea behind.

If you’re a lapsed player this is a perfect reason to return; Enemy Within significantly improves a game that was pretty damn excellent to begin with.

Changes both big and small across the board make Pokémon X and Y the most polished Pokémon game to date.

For the first time in a long time, Pokémon has taken a real step towards pushing the series forward.

Very little of what Football Manager 2014 adds to the series is radically new. Aside from the simplified tactics system, most changes are small, refining the user experience rather than dramatically changing the way you play. That said, these minor changes are impressively numerous and universally welcome, and they come together to make this the best, most addictive (only) management simulation available.

It’s just a terrific experience, somehow managing to gratify with choices that seemingly mean nothing, achieving this feat with a phenomenal central performance, expert writing and ceaseless creativity.

It achieves everything one could ask from a pilot and on the strength of its setup, Telltale have room to execute what’s looking to be yet another genre defining adventure.

Part of what makes the game so generally appealing is that, for the most part, it drops the nagging feeling of “good for an open world game."...Grand Theft Auto V is a good shooter and a good driving game with responsive character control. While some of the extras might be spread a little thin, there are no compromises with these central mechanics, which is a feat for a game of this breadth.

It’s an overly tough cookie to initially crack into, but like Tetris, it’s a game with a simple base interaction made compelling through intelligently constructed sub-systems.