I may have done a lot of nitpicking, but Birthright is still undeniably a solid Fire Emblem entry.

Wrath of the White Witch combines the innocence of an anime feature film with a well-known “get up and try again” attitude. The game is light-handed with its morals, and not overly melodramatic in its story. It exists as a perfect balance between two drastically different forms of storytelling: a film and role-playing game.

It's a throwback to the good old days of gaming, when fun mattered more than anything.

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.

This is a smashing return to form for one of Nintendo’s most popular franchises, endlessly energetic and electrifying.

It may not be deep, nor entirely original, but it’s ridiculously fun.

With a deluge of big-budget, high-profile games on the horizon, it might be easy to overlook a quiet, unusual game like Papers, Please. But don't do that, comrade. The consequences would be dire.

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.

I’m impressed by how well The Coalition has remained faithful to the core of Gears of War while putting their own mark on the series. A memorable single-player experience blended with a robust suite of co-op and competitive multiplayer options, Gears of War 4 is a surprisingly great return to a franchise I thought I could live without...Genre-defining? Not quite. Maybe that will come with Gears 5. Or Gears 6. That’s the thing about a Fenix – they always rise again.

Unlike the previous downloadable content, though, Citadel seems designed very much as a send-off for the Mass Effect crew, a final chapter that shoots mainly for the heart with some collateral damage to the funnybone.

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.

As with food, video games are all about the freshness of the ingredients and the care taken in preparation and presentation. And when everything is just right, the result can be something like Guacamelee!

While I’m not sure any game will replace my nostalgic, rose-coloured memories of the original Deus Ex, Mankind Divided is a small but satisfying step forward for the franchise, offering tons of player freedom in a dark, dangerous and intricately detailed future.

The game is a slow burn, and you have to work hard for virtually everything you earn, but the payoff is almost always worth it. This is one of the most uncompromising games to come out in years, but it’s reason alone for “hardcore” RPG fans to consider getting a Wii U if they haven’t already.

Then I scanned the mental checklist of requirements for a 5 out of 5 score: high quality game without serious flaw? Check. One of the very best games available for the 3DS? Check. Does it use 3D to the game’s benefit? In general yes and at times, hell yes. Can a player turn off the 3D and still get a complete experience? Yup. Do I stay awake too late, miss busses, and burn food in the toaster oven because I’m so absorbed by it, and can’t put it down? Yes, yes and yes.

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.

While there are certainly some issues holding MLB 14: The Show back from being a classic in the sport game genre, there’s far more good than bad. The attention to detail, the plethora of content and the rock-solid gameplay make up for any problems.

This clever time-warping feature transforms the game from a twitchy shooter into a series of strategic, almost puzzle-like set pieces.

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.

In addition to the excellent musical score from Jackson’s trilogy playing while you smash stone as Gimli or conjure blocks as Gandalf, LEGO LOTR is the first of the LEGO games to use the voices and acting from the films.

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.

Despite its problems, The Last Guardian is an incredible piece of imaginative world-building. As a game, it mostly succeeds. As something we’ve been anticipating for nine years… well, that might be too tall an obstacle for even a giant flying dog to get over.

It often works, but there are points in the game where taking the stealthy route is so difficult or tedious that success feels like a punishment rather than a reward, as well as moments when players are forced to put the guns away and rely on trial and error to suss out the proper path through an environment, no matter how itchy their trigger fingers may be...Still, Blacklist is a polished, confident and frequently thrilling shot in the arm for a franchise that was in danger of being left behind with gamers’ shifting tastes.

The puzzles, while never exactly difficult, are for the most part clever and satisfying. But just as Vella finds a way to confront the maiden-eating monster, and just as Shay starts to unravel the truth behind his space-faring daycare, and just as we start to see how these two wildly different worlds might be connected… boom, the first act comes to an abrupt end.

By setting most of the game inside a virtual Steelport, developer Volition had free rein to come up with new and ridiculous gameplay mechanics, and the addition of superpowers lends Saints Row IV a distinct Crackdown vibe. Who needs to jack a car when you can run faster than anything on wheels?

But aside from the solid and deep fighting game mechanics, my biggest kick came simply from taking control of these familiar heroes and villains and seeing how their unique and iconic abilities had been translated into game form.

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.