Its story amounts to little more than misfired jokes about an obnoxious perv trying to look up as many skirts as possible.

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.

There’s a lack of tension and attachment to these characters. You feel like you’re watching rather than playing and contributing to a piece of interactive fiction, dampening the effect of even its most affecting moments.

The sort of game for which the journalistic cliché “hidden gem” was invented.

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.

It’s simply a repetitive Skinner Box but without any sugar pellets along the way to an anticlimactic conclusion.

It’s a game full of hits and misses, whether it’s the boorish comedy, uneven pacing or erratic level design, but its combat hits more often than not, simple as it may be.

Rain’s emotional potency is progressively diluted by tiresome design, but there’s no one particular grievance that completely ruins the experience.

Really, the whole experience makes for an apt coming-of-age parable: a childlike wonder of space supplanted by the disappointing realisation of its cruel, unforgiving brutality.

It is a game that imitates what works from its console big brothers and does enough to also stand out on its own.

Grasshopper has made one of their more mechanically satisfying titles, but to enjoy it you have to put up with all of the other muck. You’ll have to choose whether Killer is Dead is the loveless romance for you.

For some, it may be enough to simply have a new Nascar experience, but as a game, it’s not going to hold an appeal for anyone beyond those who simply want a straightforward replication of the sport.

It isn’t as nerve-shreddingly terrifying as its predecessor, but A Machine for Pigs purveys a different kind of horror, revelling in the power of suggestion rather than the substance of real threat.

Clash in the Clouds is a decent enough diversion until the main event, Burial at Sea, eventually arrives. For as long as the leaderboards and museum can keep you entertained, there’s nothing inherently wrong with what Clash in the Clouds is offering.

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.

This reckless, half-cocked release is not just insulting to the thousands of gamers who’ll pay full price to receive an inferior product that others will buy cut-price a few months down the line when it’s finally been chopped and changed into a playable state, but detrimental and damaging to a team of developers who clearly have a real passion and love for the games they create.

So much of it is so immensely charming, loveable and inventive that it’s hard to stay mad for too long. You just always feel hamstrung in your ability to extract the full potential out of a conceivably phenomenal game. You want to love it, you do love it, but not its whole, and that’s incredibly disheartening.

Play it for the laid back narrative and faithful recreation of 1970s rural Japan, not for a deep monster-battling system or a well-told story.

Blacklist isn’t a revolution for the Splinter Cell series but a refinement of everything that came before, enticing new players and welcoming back those who enjoyed all of Sam’s previous escapades.

Lights off and headphones on is a must. Allow yourself to fall deep in Red Barrels’ asylum and the reward is a frightening descent into the bowels of man’s search for greatness. The sound design is exceptional – even more so when considering this is a lower budget production – and the weight of the world is tight.

Guncraft is addictive and ambitious. Exato has achieved a real feat in utilising Minecraft’s template in such innovative ways. The potential for creativity and its pure gameplay should make Guncraft a hub of imagination once it becomes more populated and utilised.

Despite Paradox’s best efforts, it’s still not a game that everyone will be able to love, but for those that can, it’s a juggernaut of a title that will keep them occupied for the duration of the Hundred Years War.

There’s a good game here and it’s certainly the contemporary title 2K was looking for, but it’s Firaxis’ “outdated” effort that comes out on top if you want a modern taste of XCOM.

Maybe it’s worth checking out for the average ’90s Gamer and a new generation but the original remains the primary experience.

Even if it is at times too orderly and directed, Shelter remains admirably blunt in its emulation of life throughout its short, two hour length.

It might lack the brisk sense of mystery that propelled the first half of Daud’s story, but it ends on a far more satisfying and conclusive note that both expands upon the possibilities of the universe and sheds new light onto the events of the main game.

Beatbuddy has style and charm in abundance, but lacks the mechanics to be truly enjoyable.