The combination of all these elements have certainly made this the most playable Civilization game to date.

A step back and a leap forward. As a gateway drug for those reluctant to embrace Mario in three dimensions, Super Mario 3D Land should be a huge success.

The streamlined, pin-point accurate controls set a new precedent for first-person games on the Wii, and the game itself will keep you busy for more than a few weekends with its excellent achievement-like reward system and lengthy quest that easily took us 20 hours to collect every item, scan every object and obtain the best ending.

This long standing series makes an outrageously good current gen debut. The size and scope of the environments, and the monsters in them, is awe inspiring, making Monster Hunter: World a true (lizard) king of games.

You’ll need knowledge, skill, and a smidge of spider-sense. Friends to learn with are a must, and don’t be deceived by the lack of a pricetag: Dota 2 will cost you hundreds of hours.

There's plenty to see and do, then, and I managed to whittle away 100 hours quite easily. But this isn't the transformative revival of the MMO genre that some were expecting, with many of the quests falling into the same pitfalls of repetition that often blights the genre. ArenaNet's efforts to encourage discovery and exploration are rewarded, and their efforts to streamline the genre help Guild Wars 2 raise the MMO bar ever so slightly.

After a few races it'll have you hooked like the very best MMOs and you won't be able to remove it from your disc tray. With a sublime racing model, superb AI, tons of content, brilliantly simple car upgrades and tuning, an unbelievable paint shop tool and all the online options you can imagine, Forza 2 is the premier Xbox 360 racer and the new king of the genre.

Definitely an improvement on its predecessor. The additions from last year have been worked on and sit far more comfortably this time. Developed physicality and complete unpredictability mature proceedings on the pitch.

The controls are effortless, the game has a zany indie personality (which has the quiet decency to bugger off when the actual game starts playing) and the electro-dystopia backdrops are fun to hurtle past at a few thousand miles an hour.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is the work of a studio at the height of its powers – beautiful, cruel, and moving.

Online play does pose a few more problems; not just technically, but simply in being able to find a race. Unless you're already involved with an online racing community, you'll probably struggle to find people on open servers to race wheel-to-wheel with.

If you've been waiting for the ultimate version of GTA 4, then this is it, providing you can put up with a fair amount of hassle to get the game running well and all the services you need to sign up to in order to play the game in the first place.

Osmos is still a fantastic little title, one of a rare breed of games that can be described as meditative.

It's wonderfully colourful and completely unique, and it should provide the usual hundreds of hours of gameplay for the hardcore. Those worrying about a retrograde step being taken for the series shouldn't have done so - it's a classic, no question.

Empire is without doubt or reservation the best Total War yet and is a game of unmatched scope and ambition, with its uniquely compulsive blend of turn-based strategy and real-time tactics.

Stand-out moments ensure it never feels average, and the quantity of stuff to do puts Origins to shame.

The new tracks are excellent, but it's the game modes that offer the real value for money here - they're so good it's no surprise Sony Liverpool was keen to get them into gamers' hands in an expansion rather than having to wait until the release of a completely new game.

On paper, this sequel reads much the same as the original. But it's not - it's a vastly superior game with a sharper focus, better quests and more enjoyable blasting. Borderlands 2 is a gamer's game, so if you like shooting things, levelling up and exploring every cubby hole across a massive, varied world - if you love games, basically - then it's definitely for you.

While Dragon Quest VIII is content to leave the furthering of the RPG to other games, it does a brilliant job of bringing the past into the modern era by coupling old-fashioned gameplay with some beautiful art design.

This is a top-drawer iDevice game that feels perfectly at home on Apple's touch screen, tilt-enabled handhelds. At just £2.99 it's an absolute steal.

The game feels perfectly designed for a handheld thanks to its time and mission structure, meaning you can speed through a loop in just a few hours on your journeys. Majora’s Mask is brilliant, and disappointingly still the most innovative Zelda game ever released.

With a main game mode that spans 50 levels, numerous unlockable modes that extend the lifespan significantly, stupidly addictive gameplay and fun-infused presentation, you'd be a fool to pass up Plants Vs Zombies.

Infinite Wealth honours its dying dragon and rising star with a Hawaiian platter of side stories, memoirs, and dynamic combat.

Even the most modern, pretentious, sensationalist piece of art can't hope to rival Rez's bold blend of craftsmanship, fun, interaction and sensory tantalisation. While art hangs on the walls in plain white rooms, Rez is out in the playground and at the front of the rave, and you're obliged to join it.

Demon's Souls is a pitch-perfect example of how great risk can make the rewards taste all the sweeter.

It's a game that makes you think about what you're doing. It hasn't perfected the RPG, and in truth isn't close to doing so, but it's a massive step in the right direction and a beautiful game to boot.

It's an exercise in perfecting what you've already got working; you're not going to find much in the way of completely new material, but this is a superior game to its predecessor and a solid bridge to the next entry in the series.

A top-quality shooter with oodles of style.