Modern Warfare 2’s campaign is a cocktail of modern mechanics, updated characters, and callbacks to classic missions and villains. By the end of it, the campaign ends up saying little of substance. And though that is certainly true of its predecessor, it at least had the gall to try. Despite that, it’s Call of Duty’s most interesting campaign on a purely mechanical level, and bodes well for a future beyond annualised six-hour campaigns. There are far greater heights this could reach if it was allowed to exist as a new STALKER or Fallout – and I hope we get some form of that from Infinity Ward. [Campaign Review = 80]

Before the Storm elevates Life is Strange and compensates for some of its failings. Imperfect as it may be, I consider it absolutely essential to a full understanding of Life is Strange – whatever your own personal reading of it may actually be – and the series as a whole to be one of the highlights of my entire gaming life.

Promise Mascot Agency’s a good time. Uniquely charming enough that it doesn’t fall into the trap of being as dry as Michi’s ideal Saturday night, but with enough rough edges that it’d need to work on itself a bit before it could run for mayor of whichever cursed town all of the truly great games inhabit.

Back 4 Blood takes an old-school approach where it makes sense, and modernises where it doesn’t. It’s heartening to be engaged by a game purely for its gameplay and variety, and not to pad out a progress bar somewhere.

If there’s one thing Expeditions and its terrifying muddy siblings will teach you, it’s that eventually overcoming the perils of picturesque, but unyielding nature through sheer relentlessness will never stop feeling rewarding.

I hope it isn’t lost amongst the PS5’s bigger, noisier releases, as it’s something different and uplifting. It’s rare to find such tension and threat in a game that’s also so peaceful, but Giant Squid has managed it. In truth we could all do with a bit of light in our lives at the moment.

In the end, Still Wakes the Deep is worth the six or seven hours it takes to blast through the story. It’s not scary as such, but it’s tense as hell, and there’s a poignance here that shines brightly through the veneer of soot, and gloop, and toxic masculinity What this game is really about, just like that bronze monument in Eyemouth, is the widows and bairns left behind.

Chimera Squad is an XCOM game with its own identity. But in carving that identity, in adding characters, it loses some of its own character. It hopes to create a more engaging story, but the story it creates is nowhere near as memorable as the ones we create for ourselves when everything turns to shit. Still, XCOM: Chimera Squad is perhaps the best value proposition I’ve seen in video games for a long time. It’s well worth the modest price, it’ll last you a long weekend, and it still delivers some of the best turn-based strategy around. I just wish it had been brave enough to let us live with our mistakes.

As it stands on release, the best parts of Crimson Desert are buried deep under layers of absurdity.

Solar Ash deserves props for its world design, the fluidity of movement when you're in the groove, and the sense of scale on display, so it's somewhat painful to be down on it to the degree I am. It's not far from being a bit special, the kind of indie gem that everyone has to play, but it's unfortunately just not quite there. There's still a great deal of fun to be had here, and your mileage with the mechanics might be better, but for me Solar Ash is so focused on delivering flow, it forgot that you don't want to go on the same walk every day.

Game Builder Garage seems to want to showcase just what it’s like to make a game, albeit in a simpler way. It’s sometimes challenging to the point of being headache-inducing. It is unrelentingly complicated. When it clicks, however, it’s fun, magical, and incredibly rewarding.

The presentational and balance problems ultimately don’t take too much from Bravely Default 2. There’s a brilliant game here, with heart, smarts, and an admirable adoration for the classics of the genre. Its charm cannot be denied – and it provides a helpful cushion against those uneven and rough edges. With that said, to embrace a cliché – this is absolutely one for fans of the genre, who want a difficult, system-driven RPG – and aren’t as worried about the visual presentation.

The only thing malfunctioning around here is the economics of game production. And from that struggle, under circumstances that echo those of the original movie’s troubled production, a brilliant piece of work emerges, that somehow nails every part of the brief and finally proves that Robocop can inspire worthy sequels. And if it didn't look a bit ropey sometimes, I doubt it would feel like Robocop: a stop-motion ED-209 falling down some stairs is goofy as hell, after all, but none of the CGI perfect ED-209s in the 2014 remake ever did anything goofy, and it was crap. So. Y'know.

Mirage represents Ubisoft at its best; fuelling historical intrigue with tight, uncomplicated gameplay systems that make puzzles out of environments, that breadcrumb you to fantastic treasures, that sucker punch you out of your false sense of security whenever you get too comfortable. The game comes undone under the pressure of combat, but that’s OK, because the options it gives you to tiptoe around it feel superb in the hands. Assassin’s Creed is a helix, representing Ubisoft’s future and its legacy, and Mirage is at the intersection of both – proving it’s possible for Ubisoft to deliver something focused and fantastic, even without that new-fangled RPG finish.

The cliche with EA Sports games is that they’re always an iterative step. But, outside of the mid-console generation graphical similarity, there’s a lot that EA Sports FC 25 does which isn’t iterative. The big changes brought about by FC IQ, Cranium and Rush make for an interesting gameplay refresh which gives new impetus to both competitive online modes and long-underserved offline careers.

The first episode of The Walking Dead’s final season is an excellent start, but that’s usually the case. It’s always been the middle episodes that Telltale’s weaker seasons have struggled with.

FIFA 23 is still utterly engrossing, wildly frustrating, uncannily realistic and very silly. It’s endlessly playable but, just like real football, the search for the perfect blueprint goes on.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is full of heart and soul. It’s also got some great ideas. Conversely, many of those ideas feel like they struggle to get out of first gear - and those that do find it harder still to make it to third. Sometimes the cleverest ideas are undermined by other systems or decisions. Simultaneously feeling polished to within an inch of its life in places and utterly half-baked in others, it’s as baffling as it is engaging; as frustrating as it is fascinating.

Dying Light 2 is messy and uneven. It’s also unique, exhilarating, and just plain fun to play, with one of the best settings in recent memory – despite the nagging feeling that the game could, and should, be more than what it is. Techland has made great strides forward with the sequel, but it’s clear the future of Dying Light can’t be just about making a bigger city to climb around in. The sequel has given the series some good breadth – now it just needs some proper depth.

Twelve Minutes ultimately presents a compelling, thrilling experience that feels more than worth the price of entry. It has interesting things to say through its looping core conceit, and it’ll tease your brain more than a few times - sometimes genuinely, sometimes through slightly cheap requirements to progress. I also admit I was less of a fan of where the story went in its later stages - but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t hooked. The journey matters more than the destination, after all - and a gripping journey this is.

Much of what you can experience in Rise of the Ronin has been done better elsewhere. Team Ninja picked the wrong edges to smooth off. Rather than go down the Elden Ring road of allowing freedom of exploration and discovery to balance out the challenge of combat, Rise of the Ronin instead takes a step backwards to the era of rigid open-world games that put players on treadmills, and train them to expect rewards when the bell rings. It's a disappointing change of stance from Team Ninja, and one that could leave them open to an unfortunately mortal blow.

WarioWare: Get It Together is unabashedly Nintendo, fulfilling its mission statement to the letter with alarming precision, but also not rocking the boat very much at all. The game’s one big change - controlling a cast of characters - didn’t turn out to be that big of a deal after all. The result is a wonderfully infectious game to play alone - while it lasts - but the true value of the package will be in playing it with others.

Wild Hearts often feels like a game that doesn’t want to be played. It’s fussy, it’s janky, and it constantly trips itself up. An erratic gameplay loop, an absolute bastard of a camera, and some ill-conceived weapon gimmicks prevent Koei Tecmo and EA’s experimental hunting joint from ever really succeeding where its genre rivals have. It’s ironic that building is such a core part of this game: if this is the start of a series, Omega Force has laid down some important groundwork, but it needs to do make some serious structural revisions from the foundations up if it ever wants to look eye-to-eye with Capcom’s imposing juggernaut.

Watch Dogs fans and more die-hard anarchists among you might enjoy it more, but between the short storylines, underwhelming tech and mission types and the general “everything is on fire” vibe, it just doesn’t rate highly for me.

Overall, there’s still plenty of fun to be had in NBA 2K25, and I’d still argue it does enough to maintain the series’ place as a market leader - especially now PC’s finally on the next-gen version. However, there are just enough hangups that I don’t think it’s a slam dunk in terms of being a positive step forward, even if you definitely can’t label it just a retread of last year’s game.

Even if Game Pass wasn’t a factor, it would still be worth buying for just how cool it makes you feel, how good it looks in motion – and best of all: how it allows both of those feelings to be accessible to most players.

Murder on Eridanos feels like The Outer Worlds at its best. Roleplay, diverging quest lines, and carefully balanced absurdity have always been at the heart of the game, and this DLC feels like a freer exploration of that core concept. Without having to juggle the high-stakes of the main story across an extended run-time and multiple planets, there’s more leeway to knit a larger cast of more interconnected characters together for a more engaging mystery.

EAFC 24 might go about achieving its goals in a slightly different way to the FIFA series, but it lands at the same end result. The same tempting sticker book collect-a-thon and absorbing gameplay carousel makes EAFC 24 a virtual footballing platform that demands your attention and is difficult to put down. Emulating the signature moves of your sporting heroes with box-office Playstyles is a highlight, but there will always be questions about whether the mechanic can stand up to the test of millions of players probing for overpowered exploits.