Lively combat and engrossing social clubs keep you busy, but it’s the much-improved detective story that elevates Lost Judgment above the original.

Like its 3DS predecessor, Pocket Card Jockey takes a delightfully silly premise and uses it to create an oddly engaging and highly engrossing puzzle game. Its repetitive nature makes it a one-trick pony, but if it's a trick you click with it's difficult to put down.

Charming yet challenging, Paper Trail is a beautifully designed game that will have you perplexed by its page-folding puzzles. A generous hint system ensures players won't get so stuck that they get frustrated, while collecting all the origami is a task that will likely turn even the most ardent puzzle fan's brain to pulp.

Nintendo has delivered a joyous compilation of three platforming classics, but it's difficult not to feel like it could have been even more.

There’s very little in Invector that you haven’t seen before, but that doesn’t mean any of its elements are unwelcome. Instead, Hello There Games has cherry-picked the more enjoyable elements from a number of different music games and brought them all together for a game that may consist of second-hand ideas but will have you up all night with that elusive ‘one more song’ feeling regardless.

A Plague Tale: Requiem is a sometimes compelling adventure weighed down by poor technical performance, and simple, frustrating and repetitive gameplay.

A bloated, showy post-apocalyptic melodrama that makes a meal of some engrossing mechanics and themes.

Mortal Kombat 11 is so close to being the best all-round fighting game package, but falls just short due to an aggressive need for currency grinding to unlock content.

All this enthusing notwithstanding, we're not sure Control is Remedy's finest action game – that accolade probably still goes to Max Payne - but it is perhaps Remedy's best-written and staged game.

Little Nightmares 2 is a cautiously expansive sequel which expertly paces its shocks and creepy atmosphere. The detail and weight of its locations are unnervingly believable, while its monsters are hellishly otherworldly. Exciting, brutal and darkly humorous, we just wish it gave us more reason to stay longer.

Jamboree is one of the best Mario Party games to date, due to the sheer number of modes available and their general high quality. It still hasn't managed to shake some of the core issues of the series (especially when it comes to balancing the game for younger and less experienced players) but judged against previous entries it stands out as a top offering.

Raccoin is a deeply dangerous game. Full of personality, deep, addictive gameplay, and a great visual style, it's a game I'll revisit for years. Some early game resistiveness doesn't dampen an experience that sits comfortably alongside Balatro and Vampire Survivors.

CrossWorlds is a brilliant karting game with satisfying handling, a fun portal mechanic and useful customisation options. Its weapons aren't as punchy as we'd like and it's unclear how it's going to keep players' attention long-term but it's a genuine, more traditional alternative to Mario Kart now that Nintendo's pointed its series in new direction.

A polished package of classic and modern games the entire family will enjoy.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard feels like BioWare playing it too safe. While it nails what it does best, like the excellent cast and interpersonal relationships, from a gameplay perspective it feels out of date.

Ace Attorney Investigations Collection is a solid way to round off the series' remasters on modern platforms. The point-and-click style exploration gives the game a slightly different feel to the rest of the series but both games are still legnthy, engaging affairs with plenty of fun twists and enjoyable dialogue.

Oblivion's importance to the history of not only RPGs, but modern video games, can't be undersold. It's a game that deserves to be enjoyed by a modern audience, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered is a great way to do that. Issues with the game that were slightly annoying in 2006 are maddening in 2025 and may turn off new players, but for millennials who still talk about The Dark Brotherhood, it's a lovely nostalgia trip through one of gaming's best RPGs.

Ninja Gaiden 4 is a balls-to-the-wall action game with a relentless pace and an almost comedic level of gory combat. It's very much a one-trick pony, however, and as thoroughly entertaining as fighting waves of enemies is, its tendency to recycle assets near the end of the game means it can start to overstay its welcome if you don't take it upon yourself to use the wide variety of optional moves available to you.

It feels like TT knows that this is very likely its last chance to do this series justice, and it's not only done that, it's created what is the very best Lego game, and frankly, one of the best Star Wars games that has ever been made.

While Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores is more Horizon mechanically, narratively it's the strongest story told in the series with excellent new characters and vital plot developments that set the stage for Horizon 3.

Another fantastic retro compilation from Digital Eclipse that celebrates the golden era of TMNT games with the level of respect they deserve. Newcomers may find a couple of the games haven't aged too well, though, and while there's a huge gallery it doesn't provide as much narrative as we'd have liked.

Assassin's Creed Shadows finally takes the main series to Japan, and does so in some style. With excellent gameplay, a compelling narrative and a massive, beautiful world to explore, it is so much better than many expected it to be. Even if it's not the game that saves Ubisoft, it did exactly what it needed to, bringing confidence back to one of modern gaming's biggest and most troubled franchises.

Borderlands 4 is a great RPG shooter with rewarding, engrossing gameplay. Some of the set dressing, like the bland new characters and pointless grappling hook, take the shine off, but the sheer amount of fun we've had with the game can't be overlooked. Borderlands 4 reminds us exactly why we were such big fans of the original two games, and falls on its sword in learning the mistakes of 3.

Sifu is a master of hand-to-hand combat, injecting its kung-fu showdowns with exhilarating fluidity, tactical depth and cinematic scale. Its structure is harder to fully embrace, though, as it demands a lot of repetitious dedication to even reach the final stages. At times that feels needlessly punishing, but the thrill of the fight should help pull you through.

Berserk Boy is a great modern take on Mega Man style gameplay and one of the better recent attempts to bring the 16-bit era into the 2020s. Its story is lacking somewhat but it's got it where it matters, with solid platforming and satisfying combat.

Despite the tumultuous landscape of live-service games around it, Marathon firmly carves its own place in the extraction shooter genre with an unmatched presentation and breakneck rhythm.

While even an excellent remaster such as this can’t make Skyward Sword a perfect Zelda game, this is such a drastically improved version of one of the most overlooked entries in the series, that Switch owners simply mustn’t overlook a second time around.

F1 22 is the best game in the series, but not by a distance. The improved handling and supercar challenges are cancelled out by the lack of a story mode and the superfluous new F1 Life mode, making for a game that gives as much as it takes away.