Ubisoft Annecy has crafted a gorgeous-looking winter sports game with a strong foundation of exploration, enjoyable gameplay and a feast of events to unlock. What it hasn’t done is create a pathway through that game that will keep you playing through to the end. Despite the variety of events and sports the action and scenery grows repetitive, while some minor issues keep on cropping up. The result is a game that’s close to brilliance, but not quite close enough.

As a short, enjoyable romp that can be shared with friends either locally or online, Little Hope is worth the price of admission. The title's move to more accessible gameplay ensures that it can be enjoyed by a wider audience without issue, and the visual prowess of its characters is second to none. In both scares and narrative however, Little Hope doesn't come close to matching the same heights reached by Until Dawn, meaning that true horror lovers should probably look elsewhere.

Bizarre and interesting; perhaps the quintessential Adult Swim-published game in that respect, but ultimately this one is merely just a decent game that may be guilty of thinking being strange is the same as being funny. Pool Panic shows promise but is more surface than feeling. It’s great it exists, however, if only to prove that, yes, sometimes games are just plain weird, and it’s okay to embrace that.

Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 is a well-balanced, smart compilation of games that is aimed solely at those that are hoping for a warm trip down memory lane.

If you’re a more casual fan of the series then this is only the fourth-best Assassin’s Creed on current-gen hardware, and there are other, stronger open-world games around if you just want more of this kind of thing. It’s great to see Rogue return looking so good, but it seems destined to remain a side-story, not a classic chapter in the saga.

The addition of PSVR is gimmicky, but fun, with VR shining in cabin-based games like this one, was re-jigged to be. The rest of the game despite showing its age heavily in places manages to feel a fresh experience, as surprisingly nothing has really come out in all this time that comes close to how slickly agile aerial mech combat feels here.

Doom VFR has a few control issues and won’t take you long to get through once, but if you’re a Doom fan with a compatible VR headset, it’s one of the best experiences around. iD has bought Doom to VR without compromising the action or the hellspawn-slaying, nerve-wracking pace that makes Doom Doom, and a tiny bit of nausea here and there is a small price to pay. Do yourself a favour: Bring it on.

Without the bugs, The Bard’s Tale IV is okay at best. With them, it’s perhaps best to preserve your nostalgia and play the HD remaster of The Bard’s Tale I to III instead.

Far Cry New Dawn is a worthy entry to the shooter franchise, but it’ll feel too familiar to fans, and not different enough to those who have been put off by the game’s most recent entries. It’s competently made, with flecks of dark humour and some great action sequences, but aside from a few interesting new mechanics and a fascinating new setting, Far Cry New Dawn is wider than it is deep, the kiss of death for shooter fans currently being swamped with new content.

Days Gone has a couple of fantastic ideas, including the blockbuster horde battles that offer some of the most heart-pounding zombie spectacles I’ve seen yet. Unfortunately, these fantastic moments are fleeting, with generic missions, a messy story, and a plague of technical bugs holding back Days Gone from becoming a zombie-slaying classic.

Hitman’s fourth episode retains the foundations that have made IO’s assassination simulator an utter success, but it does come out the other side as the poorest offering so far.

PSVR is screaming out for another big-hitter to give early adopters something to dive into, but its short and uneventful campaign, weak design and dull visuals mean it won't live long in the memory. We can only hope that future VR shooters take full advantage of the excellent Aim Controller.

Get Even refuses to be pigeon-holed at any point, and though some people won't be able keep up with the madness, for those that can it's an entirely unique experience. Bandai Namco may just have the most interesting game of 2017 here, and a potential huge cult hit.

Batman’s third episode from season two does enough to keep the overall story ticking over, but a crowded narrative and confusing relationships mean this is the low point so far. Episode four will have to do much better.

Ultimately, Transference weaves an effective, but grim tale of one man’s descent into the madness and the horrific fate that he has sealed for his family. The puzzles aren’t particularly challenging, but their difficulty works well within the pacing of the story, engaging your brain enough without dragging the story to a halt.

The Painted World of Ariendel has a bleak beauty that’s begging to be explored, but it’s all over far too quickly.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Remastered is a welcome return for what many consider to be the franchises' finest honest hour. It builds upon the bombastic campaign with luscious new graphics and a selection of small changes that help make it more appealing than ever.

An enjoyable, simple arcade-style space combat game that's equal parts a great tech demo for your expensive new toy, and one that gains genuine gameplay benefits from VR...Unfortunately, a lack of maps and modes means it's hard to wholeheartedly recommend at its high price. This, coupled with some fairly mercenary microtransactions, take the sheen off an otherwise excellent PSVR launch title.

The Medium is an enjoyable survival horror that's held back by a lacklustre narrative and a signature mechanic that never reaches its full potential…Even with Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka's score ringing across its twisted soviet world, Bloober Team's latest project pales in comparison to the legends that came before it.

Not Tonight proves that the Papers Please formula can work in a less soviet setting, but the experience is slightly diminished by the transplant. Yet it’s eccentricities remain endearing, with characters, landscapes and a haunting sound of muffled music that will be rambling around my skull for a little while yet.

While combat is improved over its predecessors it pales compared to rivals in the genre thanks to braindead AI. Facial animations are laughable at times and have a negative impact on the good voice acting. Bugs and performance issues only hamper this further. Andromeda is a good game and I’ve enjoyed my time with it. However, for those who’ve been waiting five years for another Mass Effect adventure, I don’t think it will be good enough.

The Sinking City is a near-miss, and a unique foray into surivival horror. It doesn’t coddle you, and it certainly doesn’t do any hand-holding, which makes it a unique detective outing let down in its execution by a number of tiny flaws. A sequel that focuses on making cases less humdrum, and cuts back on the combat, could be a hell of an offering for devout fans of the detective genre. The game isn’t bad, but it’s hard to care about what you’re doing when many cases in The Sinking City are so banal.

The fundamental gameplay isn’t deep or rewarding enough for me to stick around and explore many of the planets the game has to offer. With such basic combat and inventory management, it quickly wears thin and you’ll feel like you’re dragging yourself from system to system in search of Atlas.

Detective Pikachu ranks as one of the most interesting Pokémon spin-offs we’ve seen in years, and does an wonderful job of offering a fresh perspective on a world we’ve become almost uncomfortably familiar with in recent years. The lack of any real challenge is an issue – and one that seasoned gamers might find hard to stomach – but while it lasts, Detective Pikachu is quality entertainment that’s well written, brilliantly presented and sets the scene nicely for the upcoming Hollywood movie.

Layers of Fear 2 is an enjoyable horror adventure, but rarely does anything new with the genre. I’ve seen it all before, and given the excellence of Bloober Team’s last project, this feels like a step backward in terms of both ambition and quality.

With the advent of its final release, H1Z1 demonstrates a level of thoughtfulness in its design that reflects how closely its developers have listened to players. Whether it’s enough to draw those crowds back to Daybreak and the progenitor of battle royale games is a different story, but H1Z1 deserves a lot of credit for the strides it’s taken towards polishing an inherently rough and ready genre.

Although Resident Evil: Revelations remains a great game in its own right, it’s hard to recommend this HD (HD-er?) version to even staunch loyalists of Capcom’s fright fest, especially if they picked up the home console release in the last hardware generation. The exception would be those who really loved Raid, as the new Chaos mode might prove reason enough to revisit. Instead, this is probably best suited to those who’ve never played Revelations before, or who came to Resident Evil off the back of Resi 7 and are curious about the series’ history. Even if you fall into that camp, unless you’re a one format gamer, holding out for the Switch release seems wise.

A ruined, post-apocalyptic anime future could have made for a fantastic game, but it falters at every genre it attempts to ape. Code Vein is clearly attempting to spin a lot of plates. But unless you’re into playing a great character creator with a bad Dark Souls clone attached to it, we’d say steer clear.

Hitman: Episode 5 strips everything right back in order to focus on stealth, stealth and more stealth, but this shift is exactly what the series needed. Another triumph.

Fe definitely owes a conceptual debt to the likes of Ori and the Blind Forest, and in places feels as twee as earlier EA indie effort Unravel, but this is more than original enough to stand on its own merits. The mind-warping use of colour and its near-spectral environments sometimes work against Fe’s best interests, but persist and you’ll uncover a truly special world.

As a remastered collection, there isn’t really a lot to say about the older games. They’ve been visually improved a little bit to fall in line with what you’d expect from a PS4 or Xbox One offering, but overall there are still some performance issues and, to be fair, the gameplay hasn’t particularly aged well. When you get to the more recent games, this collection is a good excuse for fans that missed out on Ultimate Ninja 4 or Road to Boruto to get way more bang for their buck. If you’re new to Naruto, it’s also a fantastic way of exploring the series’ rich history because – like a lot of classic anime – by the time you get into it, there’s certainly a lot to catch up on.

Far Cry 3 still offers damn good time, and the Classic Edition is a great way to revisit Ubisoft’s influential classic or dive into it with fresh eyes. The tried-and-tested formula has advanced in recent years, leaving some aspects of Far Cry 3 to feel aged and inconsiderate, which could be too high a hurdle for newcomers to overcome.

Project Cars 3, at least on the base console versions, isn’t quite the polished sequel we were hoping for, but despite its foibles – and there are many – it’s entertaining. The racing can be fun, finding that niche of being accessible and competitive.

There were times during my playthrough of Mario Golf: Super Rush where I really got into the fun of golf, analysing the details of a course and fist-bumping the air when a shot went exactly like I planned it. But these moments were bogged down by a lack of content and a truly disappointing single-player campaign. Super Rush might appeal to some, but for the majority of Switch owners, I’d recommend skipping Mario’s latest trip to the links.

Vampyr might not be what many wanted after Life Is Strange, but it’s still an enjoyable – well, as enjoyable as its grim nature allows – game nonetheless.

It’s a painful reminder that we have it and had it so much better, even if the remaster seems to be far more prone to crashing than the original. Games like Horizon Zero Dawn, Mad Max, and even Bad Company 2 do almost everything better than Red Faction ever could.

Grow Up takes everything that made Grow Home so entertaining and adds to it accordingly, but the predictability of any sequel means it falls a little flatter than before.

Despite being rough around the edges, Blair Witch is a survival horror delight that will no doubt enrapture fans of the long-running franchise. It stays faithful to what makes the mythos so enticing while pushing it into some unpredictable new directions. Certain mechanics do feel clumsy and don't always hit the mark, with controls on console feeling rather unwieldy when combined with inconsistent performance. But with Bullet by my side, I wasn't alone in the Black Hills Forest, and it's a journey I'll happily take again.

The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan is a solid beginning to what I hope becomes a memorable selection of virtual horror outings. The setting here didn't do much for me if I'm perfectly honest, but the memorable characters, razor sharp pacing and well-placed scares make it excellent fun with a few friends by your side.

The usual Wolfenstein brilliance is here, and MachineGames have shown they’ve got a great handle on splattering fascists. They should be commended for being bold enough to take big risks here, and several of those risks have paid off, while those that haven’t only served to make the game a great deal weirder...Games as a medium would be better if risks like this were taken with more beloved games. It’s unlikely, with how expensive the whole AAA development scene is, but this is a glittering example of what can happen, despite its flaws.

Kingdom: Come Deliverance is a good RPG that ignores fantasy for a more realistic edge. That does make it wonderfully quaint, but also means it can be a little dull, too.

It’s equal parts frustration and exhilaration, awesome when you’re winning, aggravating when a moment’s lapse leads to ignominious defeat. Yet the forward-thinking mission design and the pace and balance of the gameplay means it’s still weirdly addictive and absorbing. It’s no longer the best of its kind, but this is one historical artefact that’s still worth playing here and now.

Isle of Armor is an enjoyable expansion to Pokemon Sword and Shield and brings the franchise one step closer to embracing a cohesive open-world, but it isn’t enough to detract from an experience that is far too brief for its own good.

Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star is a competently crafted hack ‘n’ slasher that suffers from the same issues of repetition as its contemporaries. While making attempts at customization and depth, the core combat never rises to the challenge to match it. For hardcore fans, there are oodles of playable characters and plotlines waiting to be discovered. For others, there are better games out there.

These don’t stop Rifter being a standout game, not only in aesthetics but in the feel of motion. When the flips, jumps and grapples all come together, there’s a rush of adrenaline. And it’s all raised by that bouncing soundtrack and disco visual style. Precision platforming is currently hot and Rifter will easily step into the shoes left behind by Meat Boy and Celeste.

Slime Rancher is an enjoyable foray into virtual ranching, yet fails to provide enough meaningful depth beyond its adorable visual identity.

Knack 2 is a pleasant surprise that improves upon the majority of its predecessor’s faults. It still lacks in genuine creativity and new ideas, but Japan Studio has crafted a confident platformer that acts as a whimsical spark in the PS4’s exclusive catalogue.

It’s packed with the studio’s trademark charm and humour, while providing endless opportunities for adventure. A touch more accessibility for solo players would be nice, as would more varied matchmaking for crews, but this is a game that’s set to evolve over time. A real treasure.

Hey! Pikmin takes the series’ foundations, strips them right back and offers up an experience in which a younger audience will delight. Enjoyable stuff.

With a charming campaign, dynamic score and pleasing graphics, this 2020 instalment is a worthwhile purchase for fans of the series looking for more Olympic fun. Yet, given the fluidity of the focused sports games already available on the Switch, and the brilliance of those on previous Nintendo systems, it pales in comparison and becomes a hard sell unless you particularly enjoy the mini-game structure – or want a game that will keep a sports-mad family busy this holiday season.

I wouldn’t recommend Iron Rain over Earth Defense Force 5, since it fails to deliver the distilled, charming experience I adore from the Sandlot series. That said, it makes some welcome advancements to the formula, with deep customisation features and plenty of loadouts to mess around with. It’s just a shame technical problems are so pronounced, even on the enhanced console. But, for fans of the series, this is worth a gander.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX is an excellent remake which improves upon the original duo of games in myriad ways, yet still remains woefully underbaked when it comes to meaningful mechanics with enough depth to keep you going. As a roguelite dungeon crawler for young players it's really impressive, but genre purists might be let down. Beyond that, this is yet another delightful game which works a treat on Nintendo Switch.

Sure, the lack of a showcase mode is disappointing, but the pros far outweigh the cons. 2K17 gets it right in the most important area, and that’s between the ropes.

Rehydrated is a welcome return for a licensed platforming great. It's wonderfully faithful to the original release while ensuring it has the visual fidelity to stand alongside modern adventures in the genre. While I would have loved an expansion of its levels and a more robust multiplayer offering, this is a remake I believe is essential for platforming fans.

Danger Zone 2 is a great love letter to the Burnout we all know and love, even if it does fall short in many areas that stops it from truly getting to the same level.

Gundam Versus is, without doubt, a unique fighting experience, one that actually proves to be a lot of fun. Naturally, fans of the series will get the most out of it, but anyone with a soft spot for the genre could find themselves pleasantly surprised.

Miyazaki also describes his latest work as “a quiet game for VR”, and again it’s an appropriate view. There are none of the scares or action you’d find in a Souls game. Instead it’s a game about sedate exploration and creeping chills. Not all of the experiments or ideas pay off, but the ones that do make for an absorbing ghost story with just the right amount of weirdness for fans of the creator. Despite being marred by clunky controls this is one of the best games available for PSVR owners.

Black Forest Games' remake of Destroy All Humans is a worthwhile adventure for fans of the series and those who grew up with Crypto's antics on the PS2 and Xbox. However, you'll need to make peace with its outdated gameplay mechanics alongside tired dialogue and story beats, many of which feature a number of offensive stereotypes.

Yooka-Laylee is a nostalgic old-school adventure, but it’s too retro for its own good. Frustrating game mechanics, annoying boss fights and the complete lack of guidance become infuriating as the game progresses...Hopefully, in Yooka-Laylee 2, Playtonic finds a balance between new and old – because it’s quite clear the magic isn't lost; it just needs a few new tricks.

Now the game’s on PS4, it risks being slightly misunderstood by a mass audience. It’s always been an acquired taste, but it’s universally mesmerising.

Serious Sam 4 repackages, rather than reimagines the iconic shooter’s core mechanics in a way that will amuse fans of the original games. Sadly, a lack of innovation and outdated sense of hmour will undoubtedly put off newcomers.

Punching, stomping and walking my way through a Star Fox-esque metropolis and destroying everything in my path for the high score, I couldn’t help being massively underwhelmed by the game itself. It’s an incredibly simple smash-’em-up where you simply have to destroy every building to earn a multiplier and bigger score. Lifting your arms in the air will make your bot fly, crouching turns it into a tank, and lifting your legs up and down makes it walk, while punching, naturally, punches. It felt like a mini-game from the ill-fated Star Fox Zero, and once the level was over, I had no desire to play it again. I hope the full game offers more for buyers than what there is here. You do get Garage mode again in this kit, though.

All in all, Battlefield 2042 has been a real labour of love for me. The initial launch was remarkably underbaked, but I can’t deny the enjoyment that comes from firing a rocket launcher into a tornado. This may not be the best FPS multiplayer game available, and there are still plenty of issues that need ironing out, but there are occasionally some thrilling moments that you won’t be able to experience in the likes of Call of Duty or Fortinte. It remains frustrating having to pay full price for a multiplayer game, but if you’re already a fan of the franchise and don’t mind missing out on the campaign, you’ll likely enjoy yourself here. The nostalgic aspect of Portal mode will also draw fans in, and of course, the 4K graphics make it very pretty game, even if it has its cracks.

Outlast 2 takes its original idea and builds on it very well to create a sequel that’s straight up terrifying. A must for those who love nothing more than feeling the fear.

A nice return for the series as it continues to be as light and easy as before. The perfect next step for families who love Mojang’s absurdly successful creation.

My Hero One’s Justice is a competent brawler that makes effective use of its source material to craft something fans will most likely adore.

It’s a game of magnificent vistas and embarrassing glitches, epic ambitions and humdrum work. The world is vast and beautiful, yet filled with dumb animals and even dumber enemies. While never less than absorbing, it can be hideously annoying too.

As far as smartphone ‘uplifts’ to consoles go, Aces of the Luftwaffe: Squadron is one of the better I’ve seen. It isn’t going to challenge shmup fans, but it does gain some points for at least trying to do something original with the formula.

Unless you're a hardcore lover of the original MediEvil, I can find little reason to recommend this remake when there are numerous superior platformers available on PS4. Heck, even Knack manages to produce a more compelling experience than this, surpassing the brittle bones of Sir Daniel Fortesque in almost every department. As someone who was equally enthralled and terrified by the original duo of games, this is an unfortunate disappointment.

Despite The Spectrum Retreat’s minor issues and its inability to merge its two halves together, it’s impossible not to recommend given the quality of each of those halves. A unique and innovative puzzle mechanic is introduced and taken seemingly to its limits, while a crushingly human tale of loss plays out alongside it.

The sense of satisfaction Cities: Skylines delivers, from gradually layering a city until it becomes a behemoth of urban design, finds a good home on Nintendo’s portable. The speed of activating the Switch works well for brief forays into neighbourhood management and policy adjustments. It’s only a pity that performance issues betray the difficulty of squeezing a complex PC game into a handheld console, and that the game itself can sometimes feel a tad humourless.

Batman’s second episode in season two — known as The Pact — takes The Dark Knight and continues to refine him in a very unique way. If the whole series can pay off this story, it’ll be very good indeed.

Gravel is fun enough as an arcade off-road racer, but it feels like it was designed to compete with the hits of five or six years ago, not the racers of today. While there’s something likeable about its no-nonsense, rough-and-tumble action, it lacks the poise, power and polish of a mud-flinging, tyre-spinning champ.

The Lego Ninjago Movie Videogame is a fun platformer that expands on the established formula with an enjoyable combat system. Unfortunately, performance issues and lacklustre level design hold it back from greatness.

Marvel’s Avengers has proven to be a pleasant surprise, even if its live service identity arguably hinders the true potential of its world, story and characters. Engaging combat and rewarding progression have established a solid foundation for Crystal Dynamics to build upon with new heroes and scenarios in the months and years to come.

Shining Resonance Refrain plays it safe to an extreme. Little about it pushes the genre forward and nearly every part of the game is a bit too familiar, or done far better elsewhere. This is one for when you’re desperate for a new JRPG fix and that’s it.

Dreamfall Chapters stays true to the adventure genre it embraced in 1999, but sticking to the same approach in 2017 means it feels a little past its prime.

Shenmue 3 would have been well received in 2003, but we’re 18 years on from the last entry and Shenmue hasn’t budged an inch. If you weld your nostalgia goggles to your face, you’ll be able to slog through the story, but it really is a chore. Poor game design and a complete lack of innovation are the killers, but even the continuation of the story is a meagre offering thanks to ludicrous levels of padding.

Rage 2 is one of the year’s most disappointing titles. However, the shooting is some of the best this generation when you’ve finally dedicated enough time to unlock different abilities and poured a couple of upgrades into one of the best shotguns in gaming. Unfortunately, the middle chapter is full to the brim with busywork that taints the entire experience. At one stage, I was spending 10 minutes driving for a five minute firefight before getting back in a car for another 10 minute drive and a stilted vehicular combat section. Shooter fans deserve better.

A flawed experience, yet boasts such as a commendable level of creativity amidst its restrictions that I was unusually smitten with it. The combat is repetitive, the visuals are sub-par and, sadly, there isn’t a lot of depth to many of its mechanics. However, the razor-sharp writing and sheer dedication to its universe allow Suda51 and Grasshopper Manufacture to craft one of Nintendo Switch’s most unique titles yet. I’m not sure I could wholeheartedly recommend it to the average player, but hardcore fans should certainly sign up.

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT is a Final Fantasy fan’s dream, with oodles of playable characters presented across a truly beautiful variety of stages. Its fast, frantic battle system makes it easy to pick up and play, but also difficult to master once you delve into the inner workings of each hero. Unfortunately, it’s held back by a distinct lack of modes and progression options beyond a ludicrous number of cosmetic goodies.

It’s no disaster, but State of Mind delivers only disappointingly forgettable returns on some significant pre-release promise.

What Miitopia lacks in actual game it makes up for in how weird and wonderful it is. If you’re easily charmed by Nintendo, this will eat you up and spit you out.

This is a great exercise experience for Nintendo Switch that makes excellent use of its motion controls, although the game doesn't introduce quite enough changes to stand out from its predecessor.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 is a great game spoiled by a terrible business model. DICE and EA are going to be under a huge amount of pressure not just to tweak, but completely overhaul the metagame or face an even bigger fan backlash than they have already. Underneath the terrible progression system, cheap payouts and more-than-gentle hand in the back towards paying for loot crates is the same excellent core, now across so much more content with the promise of more free maps and heroes to come.

WWE 2K18 is a great wrestling game with a crazy amount of depth that feels a bit too similar to 2K17 to really hit new highs. If you love the franchise, however, this will rock your world.

There’s no question about it: if you want to play The Sims 4, the PC is still the best way to play it – and given that its PC system requirements are fairly low that’s what we’d recommend. Get used to the console controls and it’s still a fascinating town-building game/life sim/virtual soap, but one with a few too many bugs for comfort. If EA cleans those up we’ll raise the score another notch, but right now The Sims 4 console versions could still use a little work.

There are some great ideas in here, some funny characters and plenty of scope for Lego lunacy and mayhem, but the quest stuff doesn’t drive you forwards as it does in Dragon Quest: Builders, while the real, in-depth construction is hard going.

The AI can be annoying, and not everyone will get the game’s approach, but if you engage with the game’s strong social angle, there’s a great racer in here to enjoy.

It’s a shame that it feels unfinished and that mechanics like being unable to decide where your character initially drops at the beginning of matches does detract from the experience here, but there’s still a lot of fun to be had for fans of the genre.

Familiar territory but with better graphics, plus a few nice-to-have but non-essential extras...My biggest concern are the controls, since the Switch clearly isn't built for fighting games. The Switch Pro controller is an effective fix, but it's expensive. If you don't already have one and invest in one just for this game, you're looking at £95 – which is quite steep for a game that's nearly 30 years old. This is no reflection on the game itself, however. I had a blast.

As a game for chilling out on the sofa with a handful of friends or the family, Hidden Agenda is pretty cool. Yet there’s a lot about the mechanics, the story, the situations and the characters that seems wilfully, crazily dumb. For £20 for a few hours of fun it’s well worth a try, but this feels like an interesting concept that needs some work before it all comes good.

Kingdom Hearts 3 Re:Mind is an excellent expansion on the existing RPG, building upon the original ending in some fascinatingly unexpected ways. However, it's one that only hardcore fans will truly benefit from, otherwise you'll be lost in an endless deluge of complicated character motivations and frankly silly plot developments.

An improvement on the original, and with far more variety on offer, but State of Decay 2 suffers from repetitive combat and poor player communication throughout. Fans of survival sims will likely appreciate the greater attention to detail and increased demands when it comes to sustaining your communities, but for more casual players the constant need to find dozens of items or resources just to keep everything ticking over will just annoy, the longer you go on.

Code of Princess EX is a bit of a mixed bag for. It looks great, never missing a beat no matter how action-packed things get, and it’s certainly very accessible. And it’s fun – for a time. It simply isn’t a game that will stay with you for any length of time. It’s more a palate cleanser between meatier fare, or for those times you want to relive your youth with some Streets of Rage-style bashing.

For the first few hours Bleeding Edge is an absolute blast to play and well worth a look if you have Xbox Game Pass. But there's not enough depth to make it last long-term, at the moment.

The Outer Worlds on Nintendo Switch is a passable iteration of Obsidian Entertainment's excellent RPG, but arguably makes too many sacrifices to allow for a comfortable transition to the portable platform.

As DONTNOD’s first self-published game, the effort that’s gone into Twin Mirror’s world building should be commended. Between the added gameplay elements introduced by The Double and Sam’s Mind Palace, not to mention the colourful cast of characters living in Basswood, Twin Mirror had my attention from the get-go, but its short length prevents it from delivering an emotional journey comparable with anything the studio has done before.