Despite the exotic setting, there’s still a pervasive sense of familiarity about Primal. Liberating outposts, saving allies from enemy attacks, swinging on grappling hooks, going on hallucinogenic drug trips, hunting specific critters to unlock upgrades, gathering plants to make ability-boosting concoctions... Hell, Far Cry 4 had us riding elephants and commanding a tiger to shred enemies, so even those experiences aren’t entirely fresh here. Sometimes Primal feels like a brilliant 10-hour Far Cry spinoff that got stretched out into a 25-hour, full-priced game.

Despite its widely-spaced checkpoints and ad deluge, Pyro Jump Rescue is an engaging little action game that's guaranteed to make you say "Aw, one more time" when you screw up.

I think die-hard Halo fans will love Halo 5: Guardians, as it’s a game made almost exclusively with them in mind. The rest of us might find ourselves a little lost, a bit let down and wistful for an old horizon that once reached for the heavens.

Until Dawn goes off the rails a bit in its final third act, when it trades creepy psychological horror for something more tangible but also more ridiculous. But it’s a weirdly compelling story that does a great job of making you, the player, feel invested in how the tale unfolds and how many of these kids make it out alive. It’s like an adults-only Scooby-Doo mystery with blood, swearing and sphincter-clenching scares.

Fury Road was a big, expensive, risky film that paid off because of the irrepressible will and talent of its director, George Miller. In video game form, Mad Max lacks that same kind of originality and danger. It’s familiar and formulaic, competent but rarely exceptional. This Max could have used a little more madness.

A new face and name certainly brings a sense of freshness to Rory McIlroy PGA Tour, but the novelty isn’t enough to make up for the lack of content. While there’s a decent game of golf here, it won’t be occupying the top of the leaderboard any time soon.

Massive Chalice’s personality and ingenuity ultimately win out over its shortcomings, and it’s certainly worth a try for strategy fans who don’t want anything too ponderous or serious. But its cup does not, as they say, runneth over.

The lack of a chat feature just ends up making Splatoon a game that rewards smart teamwork but doesn’t give players tools to communicate.

The Old Blood is just OK. It’s a great deal for the price – as a $25 digital download via the PlayStation Store, the Xbox Games Store and Steam, it’s a rarity in an era when 25 bucks might get you a couple map packs’ worth of downloadable content – but I’ve discovered there’s such a thing as too old-school.

Simply put, if you’re playing with a friend who’s sitting beside you on the couch – the campaign has no online co-op – you’ll likely love Revelations 2. If you’re stuck relying on the mostly-useless AI, you’re in for a far more frustrating experience.

Like the dusty old Monopoly board buried in the back of your closet, Mario Party 10 offers familiar, predictable enjoyment, although the fun factor really boils down to who you’re playing with more than the game itself.

We need more game developers and publishers willing to gamble on made-from-scratch worlds and ideas, but The Order: 1886 feels like it might have fared better as a film, graphic novel or TV series. As a game, there’s just not enough propping up this shining suit of armour.

Advanced Warfare brings some new elements to the experience that make it stand out, but some of these changes only serve to remind us how rigid the Call of Duty box is, and how unwilling the franchise is to think outside it.

Perhaps fearing their game would be too short, development studio The Creative Assembly have artificially stretched Alien: Isolation’s length far beyond necessity or logic. From the endless backtracking to and fro across the Sevastopol to alien-free sections that have Amanda dealing with difficult-to-kill rogue androids, the game’s pace ebbs too low too often.

The Lego games have shown that kid-friendly games can have a fantastic creative spark, but Disney appears to err on the side of safety.

But this invigorating combat and intriguing enemy hierarchy system exist in an empty-feeling world, and not even the lovingly written lore in the game’s appendices can inject much personality into Mordor.

It has strengths. It has weaknesses. And whether or not it burrows its way into your own psyche depends on your tolerance for familiarity, that breeder of contempt, that warm blanket of comfort.

For its vibrant visual design, wonderful music and sheer whimsical weirdness, Hohokum is well worth experiencing. But at times it seems to be meandering back and forth between a video game and a piece of interactive art, unsure of which world it belongs to.

Despite this game’s gleaming high-definition sheen, there’s little doubt this granddaddy of the karting genre is beginning to show its age.

Despite the solid core golf mechanics and snappy visuals, Mario Golf World Tour feels a bit scatterbrained, which is surprising given Camelot’s pedigree with Nintendo sports titles.

Trials Fusion, the latest title in the series, offers the same experience as previous entries – great for fans, but it all feels a little too familiar for those who have already spent many hours racing, crashing and restarting in previous Trials games.

The game allows for user-created mods, and downloading new levels and tweaks might give this kid some extra legs. But I suspect most players will have a few hours of fun and then file this game away as an occasional novelty to pull out when they’re especially bored, drunk or just need to give their goat a good thrashing. That’s not a euphemism. Probably.

Ground Zeroes probably won’t alienate fans of the series, and in terms of giving players a taste of what to expect in the as-yet-undated Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, it delivers. But between its poor value proposition and its jarring darkness, it’s not likely to make Snake and company any new friends.

What’s odd about The Stick of Truth is that for all its irreverent humour, it’s a strangely conventional role-playing game, with combat styled after the turn-based battles that have been around since the original Final Fantasy days. Once the novelty of the South Park wrapping wears off, it spends more time obeying gaming clichés than parodying them.

It’s the game world’s attention to detail that makes Thief’s frequent immersion-shattering moments that much more jarring, from A.I. characters who zone out or repeat the same dialogue over and over (yes, guy on the street, you’ve mentioned your favourite whorehouse literally 20 times now) to the fact Garrett can pocket dozens of golden candelabras but can’t carry more than one empty bottle.

While the more-than-the-kitchen-sink approach to customization and content provides plenty to do, it’s clear that until the entire combat system is overhauled, gamers won’t be able to create art on the canvas.

I almost feel like Ryse wants to be the Xbox One’s Gears of War – a new intellectual property by a studio known for visually stunning games, and a title that can perhaps kick off a franchise. But Ryse is too shallow, too simple and too familiar to be anything more than a fleeting bit of fun.

COD players, myself included, will still play Ghosts for the sake of having 20 or so new maps to play on over the course of the year, but in a franchise that’s the same year after year with slight changes, it’s reasonable to expect things to materially improve, not to take even a small step backwards.

In fact, here’s a handy metaphor for Killzone: Shadow Fall’s ending: Imagine finishing a meal in a restaurant, and then for dessert having the chef drop his pants and take a huge, steaming turd on your plate. I don’t care how good dinner was – and in this case, it wasn’t anything to call the Michelin Guide folks about – but when the very last thing you’re served is easily the worst part of the entire experience, it can’t help but leave a lingering bad taste.

While it’s clear Traveller’s Tales has some kinks to work out as it ambitiously continues to tackle the open-world genre, there’s no doubt it knows how to craft a title that lovingly honours whatever the subject matter is.

I love games that experiment with a unique visual and emotional palette. But compared to amazing PlayStation indies like Journey and The Unfinished Swan, Rain is just a passing shower that fails to soak through to the skin.

The Wonderful 101 is a game that requires patience, skill, a willingness to learn and an almost Zen-like ability to overlook its shortcomings. But if you can get there - if you can make peace with this game, and enjoy it for what it does right instead of the things it does wrong - it really can be something wonderful.

I feel bad for saying this, but Mercenary makes me excited for Sony's recently announced PS Vita TV peripheral, which will allow many Vita games to be played on your big screen TV using a standard PlayStation 3 DualShock controller.

But it's entertaining and engaging throughout, and lovingly faithful to the source material. And that, chummer, is good enough for me.

Gamers who love a good challenge are bound to be satisfied with this collection of levels. Anyone else - whether they're as casual as it comes or even longtime fans of the series - may not be so enamoured with the spike in difficulty and lack of originality.

For its art style, deceptively dark vibe and experimental approach, Don’t Starve is certainly worth a look. But for every playthrough that leads to eye-opening adventure, there will be another that’s a bit of a tedious slog. It won’t leave you hungry, but it may not fill you up.

The Chase Begins might have too many imperfections to be the standout masterwork its console big brother was, and given the choice, you should play that one rather than this one. But it’s still worth picking up and playing, especially if you love Lego, have younger children who need something to keep them busy in the car, or generally lean towards cute rather than blood-soaked.

The Army of Two games have always been overshadowed by Call of Duty and Gears of War and the other shooter juggernauts, but they had unique co-op gameplay elements and a goofy charm that set them apart. Both of these things are mostly missing in The Devil’s Cartel, and that’s a damn shame.

It’s not that the Spartan warrior’s step has lost its spring – it’s as lively and bloody as ever. The exhaustion comes from familiarity, that bitter breeder of contempt. Aside from a few rough patches, Ascension is a reasonably competent God of War game. But it’s undermined by an unshakable sense of déjà vu.

The Assassin’s Creed formula of fighting and parkour is starting to get old, even with the ability to climb trees now. Maybe it’s the repetitiveness of the series, or maybe it’s just less interesting to toss crates of tea into the harbour than to hunt and kill corrupt bishops.

It adds that element of strategizing, especially in online play, where a player can knock out all three of their opponents in fell swoop. Plus, much to my amazement, a character I had no experience using won me my first online match – thank you, Jak.

If you're a fan of battling bots, Hawken is definitely worth checking out, and you should certainly have some free, fleeting fun with it right off the bat. But as the game lumbers towards an official release, I really hope they dial down the mechanized money magnets.

Seduce Me might be a way to ease us into the notion that sex in games isn’t necessarily harmful. But next time, it wouldn’t hurt if it was a little more fun, too.

Is it so weird that I’d rather pay $5 up front for a game based on fun, addictive core design principles than a “freemium” game that ends up feeling like an interactive advertisement for bundles of coins or gems or Smurfberries or whatever the currency of the moment is?

As an experimental bit of game design full of intriguing puzzles that defy earthly geometry, Antichamber is a success. Yet given a choice, I’d much rather spend my time with a more conventional first-person puzzler like Portal 2, Quantum Conundrum or Q.U.B.E. Maybe Antichamber is a little too clever for its own good. Or maybe I’m just dumb.

Rising is a great game that needed more time and effort to achieve perfection.

Clear Vision 2 almost feels unfinished. The large city map and hugely expanded stock of rifles available suggest you’re in for a much longer experience this time around, but it all ends with a weirdly shoehorned-in first-person shootout, after which the plot is tied up and credits roll.