As much as Hitman III was a pleasure to play, it left me longing for the mood of the old games—for that European concoction of sirens and splashing rain, drenched in Jesper Kyd’s cold scores. I’m as excited as anyone for Project 007, but I wonder how long we will be left looking for 47—a wraith in a red tie, who has proven elusive enough to slip IO’s grasp.

There's a lot to like about Syndicate's mechanics and recoil-rich gunplay, and your cache of cybernetic powers elevates the game above most rote corridor shooters. But Syndicate doesn't know what it wants to be at its core, and its dry protagonist blasts through hyper-violent environments with no motivation or desire.

Beijing 2008 isn't doing anything all that new, but there's just something undeniably addictive about going for high scores and fastest times. If you've got an urge to twiddle an analogue stick faster than any human knew was possible you can do a lot worse.

A decent adventure game with lots of ropey bits. Just like the last one, and the one before it.

The blurring is the biggest offender, causing the backgrounds to lose all detail, and the wake left by each car looks considerably worse than in the 360 version.

Unlimited may once again frustratingly fail to reach the potential of Scribblenauts’ terrific core conceit. But if any game this year makes my son and I laugh as much as this has over the past week or so, I’ll be absolutely delighted.

It’s a fine reason to return to State of Decay. If you’re okay with that rhythm, it’s a lot of fun to play soldiers at the end of the world.

Dawnguard is considerably better than most of Bethesda's recent Fallout 3 DLC, but you'll be sorely disappointed if you go in expecting to find Skyrim's version of Bloodmoon or The Shivering Isles.

The longer South Park: The Fractured But Whole went on, the less I laughed. Exploring the mountain town, however, is a delight, and the battles are a marked improvement on the original's combat.

It's addictive, well executed, has a degree of charm which is difficult to pin down and has a pulsing, electro soundtrack that'll leave you itching to hit the clubs.

Looking down the scope and holding your breath to line up that perfect shot in Sniper Elite 4 is exhilarating, as are the subsequent Kill Cams. It’s just a shame that the poorly delivered story and wooden characters get in the way.

But the harsh reality is that the excellent story is rather let down by the constricting control scheme.

It's an elegantly crafted thriller that stands out as an original, charming and beautiful adventure.

Overlord is an entertaining game that should keep you smiling for its duration, but certain control complexities and a distinct lack of evil keep it from being a truly great next-gen adventure.

Kane's Wrath's biggest problem, though, lies not with the controls but with the difficulty. It feels like it doesn't know what kind of gamer it's aimed at.

Oversights, like not being able to access downloaded GH:3 tracks, are baffling and the number of covers for non-Aerosmith tracks is disappointing. For die-hard GH and Aerosmith fans it's a no-brainer, but everyone else might want to save their money for World Tour.

This remake has been handled with an unusual level of respect and a commitment to the original, and the graphical overhaul strikes a happy balance between old and new.

Other games of its ilk may punch harder on their message, and the challenge here is all but non-existent. But RiME is a beautiful painting come to life, backed by an exceptional score that will make your journey across this island a joy.

The multiplayer support is a great example of local wireless multiplayer gaming done well, and if you've got friends with the game you'll have hours of entertainment ahead of you.

While this Switch re-release doesn't add as much as some may hope, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is still a delight.

I found it mightily upsetting to have something in my hands capable of such beauty, such triumphant gaming bliss, only to have that thing ultimately turn into disappointment and frustration. It's almost more upsetting than playing something that was never up to much in the first place.

Outside of multiplayer, the campaign is a po-faced, nonsensical rehash of greatest hits long past. Extinction (Left 4 Dead meets Zombies) is a lot of fun, and Squads feels like a well-marketed shell for Black Ops' Combat Training mode...Multiplayer is still the star then, but it's diminishing with every return, its addictiveness tempered by over-familiarity.

A funky, fun third-person hack and slash marred by some boring open world side-missions. It's no more simple, or complicated, than that.

A weighty Xbox Live Arcade game, even if you have to pay 800 Microsoft points for it. For those of you who downloaded the game in the first two days, you already know you've got yourself a bargain.

A sumptuous remaster, but the games themselves have aged badly.

The game's simplicity ends up working against it - both in the sense that it's somewhat lacking in content, and that there's really not that much to learn; after half a day's play you'll have more or less mastered everything the combat has to offer, with the exception of the elusive mechanics for reversing attacks. But despite these shortcomings, this is still the most fun WWE title that THQ has produced in quite some time.

An interesting phone-hacking game which draws from the player's real-world experiences to good effect.

It’s in the art direction of the Definitive Edition, led by Petr Motejzik, that you catch the developers’ obsessions: their love of long-coated ne’er do wells; of chrome shining through the wet; and of crime fiction, free of the emotional collateral and ruin of real crime.