Dirt 5 isn’t the next-gen technical showcase you were probably hoping for, but its excellent off-road tracks are an absolute delight to race on while superb modes such as Arcade, Playgrounds and Online/Offline multiplayer provide enough gas in the tank for numerous revisits.

Despite a handful of issues that have arisen with the port to Nintendo’s console, Dragon Ball FighterZ remains one of the best of the current fighting games. It’s certainly one of the most fun, is amazing to watch and is far and away the best, most perfect use of the Dragon Ball license.

As far as local multiplayer games go on the current consoles, Super Mega Baseball 2 is a great option. If you’ve got Xbox Live Gold, then you can grab the game for free as part of the May lineup. Even if you’re not a huge fan of the sport, it’s well worth checking out.

Return of the Obra Dinn is a bleak ditty but offers solid meat for puzzle fans to get their teeth into, with a similar love of paperwork and information cataloging that won fans for Pope’s previous title, Papers Please.

Paper Mario: The Origami King is a hilarious new entry into the series, chock-a-block with memorable oddball moments and side-splitting quips from the fantastic cast of Mushroom Kingdom characters. The puzzle-centric combat is disappointingly one-dimensional and lacks any sort of challenge to please seasoned RPG gamers, but there's enough variety here to keep you engaged until the credits roll thanks to various platforming and Zelda-esque dungeon sections.

UFC 4 is an enjoyable trip into the world of mixed-martial arts which makes some ample improvements to the formula when compared to previous entries. While it can still feel underbaked and bland in certain areas, such as the career mode, it has been refined with a stellar onboarding experience that makes it super accessible to newcomers.

Game Freak has pulled a Hannah Montana and found the best of both worlds here, solidifiying an experience that embraces newcomers without forgetting the hardcore that will be itching to dive in. Acting as what is essentially a remake of Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow prevents this from being truly groundbreaking, but the foundations established here spell an exciting future for Pokémon on Switch.

Alan Wake Remastered does a decent job of updating Remedy’s classic survival horror to look like a current generation game. The only minor quibble I have is that, given its focus on light vs dark, Ray Tracing is an odd omission. This, plus its stellar writing, which has aged surprisingly well make it a great game for any player yet to experience Alan Wake.

Game Freak has pulled a Hannah Montana and found the best of both worlds here, solidifiying an experience that embraces newcomers without forgetting the hardcore that will be itching to dive in. Acting as what is essentially a remake of Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow prevents this from being truly groundbreaking, but the foundations established here spell an exciting future for Pokémon on Switch.

Battlefield 5 is a good game, but not a great one. The multiplayer can be great fun when you find the right server, and the single player shines a light on parts of World War 2 that aren’t in the public consciousness. However, the stripped back multiplayer and several of the same old problems mean that I’m wishing that this particularly war had perhaps changed a little more.

Fans of classic brawlers really can't go wrong with Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game – Complete Edition. It's gorgeous, satisfying to play, and has a positively banging soundtrack from pop/rock band Anamanaguchi that stands the test of time wonderfully.

It doesn’t advance the formula in many meaningful ways, but refines things we’ve come to love while enhancing them with fun and unexpected additions. The localisation is bound to be a polarising aspect for many, but after a small teething period, I found it to be a charming alternative to the original vision.

If you’re looking for a theme park management game with a business perspective, Planet Coaster might leave you wanting. However, if you’re coming from the creative angle it’s hard to imagine a richer package. Not only is it a joy to build and refine your rides and coasters, see people love them and design your perfect park, but the levels of detail in the theming, customisation and animatronics take the theme park sim to a whole new level.

Ghost of Tsushima is an excellent open-world adventure from Sucker Punch Productions which adds some innovative ideas to a fairly stagnant genre. The game's depiction of the time period is generic and inoffensive, but that doesn't prevent it from being a stunning visual showcase and a worthwhile swan song for the PS4.

It’s not quite the sum of its many parts, the combat in particular begins to feel like a chore, but otherwise Ever Oasis is a real diamond in the rough late in the life of the Nintendo 3DS.

While the game suffers from a lack of 3D, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is still tons of fun to play, keeping younger gamers entertained with its accessible gameplay whilst older players will find tons of collectables and an exciting multiplayer mode to keep them occupied.

Streets of Rage 4 is an enchanting retro surprise, bursting onto the scene and overcoming many of the justified grievances fans might have with reviving such an esteemed property. The combat is fierce, the music is banging and its sense of style is simply marvellous.

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.

For all the visual enhancements and lusher vegetation, this Special Edition can’t disguise the areas where Skyrim has dated. Other games have built on the foundations Bethesda laid. What was once jaw-dropping now seems merely remarkable.

FIFA 23 is a modest final hurrah for one of the most iconic game series of all time. It feels like EA Sports is saving the big advances for its EA Sports FC replacement coming next year, with FIFA 23 only offering marginal flourishes of something great and a lot of repetition. On the pitch, the game of football is good – better in many ways than FIFA 22. Animations are smooth and varied, there’s more free-flowing action and more variety in player types. Yet, everything else feels half-baked. Career mode is, to put it mildly, awful and Ultimate Team remains a cash grab that’s only for those willing to put far too much into it. The commentary is equally terrible, and while the larger focus on the women’s game is great, it‘s too limited.

Like most US-centric sports games NHL has a reputation as an acquired taste, but really it shouldn’t be. It’s a thrilling, accessible sim of a thrilling, accessible sport, with the varied online and offline modes you’d expect from an EA Sports game, plus a real slap shot to the back of the net in the form of Threes. Bring on the Frostbite engine and an equivalent to FIFA’s Journey mode, and EA might have a classic sports game on its hands. As it is, it’s still absorbing and a lot of fun.

Horizon Forbidden West is a superb sequel, adding even more robot monsters to slay while introducing a deep crafting and upgrade system that creates a rewarding Monster Hunter-style gameplay loop. Platforming still feels clunky and there are a few annoying technical issues at launch, but this is still one of the best first-party games to arrive on PS5 yet.

If PixelJunk Monsters is one of the all-time-great tower defence games – if not the greatest – then Monsters 2 is the tower defence evolved. It’s a seriously beautiful-looking game, and Q-Games has found ingenious ways to make the translation to 3D work for, and not against, the gameplay. And it achieves all this without losing the heart and soul of the original.

Stage creation without a stylus can be a little clumsy on the Switch, and there isn’t quite as much creative freedom as there is with other game makers such as LittleBigPlanet, but this is still easily the best Mario Maker yet and an excellent entry point for the series thanks to the new story mode. Of course, success depends on the productivity of the online community, but Nintendo looks to have provided all the necessary tools and features for this sequel to reach its skyscraper potential.

Watch Dogs 2 is no great leap forward, but it sees the series headed in the right direction with more colour, more flair and a real sense of fun. The action’s solid and the mission design much less generic, while Ubisoft Montreal has given you a great set of tools and the freedom to use them as you will. If the original Watch Dogs was a mean-looking hound, all bark, no bite, the sequel’s a more playful pooch that’s all about having a good time – and it’s all the better for it.

Although the game has some quirks and bugs that I feel should get patches – and may well do – it’s still fun to play. The AI is frustratingly good at being better than you, and it’s that challenge that has kept me coming back for more. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have robots to punch with other robots.

Overcooked 2 provides just enough new ideas and content to serve up a delightful second helping. The charming visuals and low-key humour serve to counterbalance the devilish co-operative challenges on offer.

It's heartbreaking that Avicii isn't around to experience a project that he had so much passion for come to fruition, but he'd be proud of what's been accomplished here. It harkens back to rhythm gaming greats while scorching ahead on a path of its own, and for a good cause to boot.