At its core, Joe Danger has intensely enjoyable gameplay, that can sometimes be held back by superfluous elements. If Hello Games had focused solely on crazy stunts, it could’ve found a stronger identity.

The Knife of Dunwall can be finished quickly, in a couple of hours, but this isn’t how Dishonored is intended to be experienced. Players who take their time and thoroughly investigate each location will find over six hours of enchanting gameplay to sink their blade into.

Its animation, voice acting and polished presentation are exemplary, and fans of anime should find much to appreciate in the storytelling.

The story provides a nice backdrop for the exploration, and your party members feel like actual humans and not disposable toy soldiers.

The game is rewarding, colourful and has enough accoutrements (including, in true RPG fashion, optional bosses) to draw you back for multiple play sessions. Locked within it, though, are the seeds of a much more complex, far more satisfying experience, one that the developers might well consider pursuing in the future.

It does show a couple original ideas, but they’re never fully executed, and it’s full of small, annoying bugs that sour the experience.

As with all the best expansions, The Old Gods doesn’t just give you more of the same. Instead it takes an excellent core system, and adds a set of rules and changes that give you drastically different ways to play.

It’s going to need to become more than a sum of its parts if it wants to compete in this modern gaming era though.

As an ARPG it’s average at best, but its MMO trappings only compound the frustration.

It’s clear that Insomniac have more work to do and with a bit more finesse and a personal approach, there’s enough potential to get this right. For now, there are far worse options for a co-op third person shooter and few better ones.

What it inherits from the original are often its greatest strengths. It’s the inconsistencies that do it harm. They’re so close to something truly special here, and I’m confident that 4A Games’ next will be something to behold.

It’s a shame there isn’t some sort of message integrated in the game, because as it is now, it seems unambitious. A plot of some sort would have helped here.

For a budget price, Gunslinger provides a hugely entertaining experience, distilling the dime-novel heroics of the pulp Western and an excellent, satisfying combat system into one immensely likeable package. Bravo.

It may not be the best possible way to play Terraria, but taken on its own merits the Xbox version is still a triumph.

Being a NetherRealm Studios production, it has a tendency to flirt with the superfluous, but there’s tasty meat to be found in the core combat even if not all of its mechanics mesh perfectly together.

Impossible Road’s fundamentals are so crisply constructed, so itchingly compelling that its lack of iteration doesn’t completely sour the experience.

If you played Resident Evil: Revelations on the 3DS these new features probably aren’t enough to make you want to pick it up again, and they shouldn’t be. This is a game meant for new players, especially those disillusioned with the series’ recent direction.

At first glance the lack of direction appears to be a weakness, but in actuality Legendary Heroes requires you to assist it, to give it the direction it needs.

It’s good and esoteric in an entirely worthwhile way.

Rather than just being a typical add-on, Blood Dragon exists more as a complimentary stand-alone experience to Far Cry 3’s tale of survival and savagery—it’s an insanely fun, ridiculous ode to the bygone era of games that got by on having great action gameplay and a title that sounded cool.

4A Games’ followup to the remarkable Metro 2033 doesn’t quite hit the high watermark of its predecessor. At times the story and experience feel too constricted and too safe in comparison, but 4A eventually hits the perfect balance of action and atmosphere.

Sceptics will have their own reasons for shaking their heads and walking away, but those who make the investment will find a rewarding experience, with oodles of depth, hours of playtime and, yes, an abundance of menus.

It’s definitely more fun than it has any right to be, but its lasting appeal is seriously questionable.

ACE has mostly succeeded in creating an interesting setting – but the joy of exploration is quickly tempered by the game’s reliance on fighting mechanics that are too simple, and too rough to be engaging.

With better pacing and a lot more balancing, Mars: War Logs could have been a fresh, satisfying take on BioWare’s proven formula. Its intriguing premise and characters eventually succumb to its broken systems, creating a fiction you’ll hope sooner to finish than completely understand.

Thomas Was Alone does a stellar job in doing what it sets out to achieve. It uses simplistic visuals and basic gameplay to convey a sense of wonder and tell a very personable, well written and well realised story of isolation and companionship.

The feeling is that Blood Dragon is a straight-to-VHS sequel that occasionally manages to top its blockbuster equivalent due in large part to a sharp wit and an enthusiastic execution on a popular nostalgia.

Some stealth games end up solely being about moving from one shadow to another, but Monaco has a good balance between fast paced action and careful planning. That’s what makes it successful in the end, despite its – at times – confusing and cluttered visuals.