Sustaining its paper-folding hook across reams of compelling 2D levels, Paper Trail is a pretty unique puzzling adventure, with endearing characters, an engaging fairy tale look, and a procession of smartly executed paper conundrums. This is some good sheet.

Nightdive has done its level best to make System Shock 2 sleek and fast, in the hope that a little of the revolutionary might leak out.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is probably one of the most impressive $40/£40 games I’ve ever played and puts a lot of full price games to shame. Thanks to some really unique battle systems and combat variety, Expedition 33 is a turn-based RPG to remember. It’s bloody gorgeous too! Oof!

Free from Kinect, Frontier has been able to deliver a game that revels in split-second timing and precise controls. The result is the studio’s best Xbox game in years that's a brilliantly fun coaster-racing, track-building, building destroying experience in its own right.

Alan Wake is a fantastic game, while Alan Wake Remastered remains just a great port. Yes, it loses something with the new shiny visuals and a few things have not withstood the test of time, but everything else is still fantastic. Especially that story!

A cult Saturn game comes alive, in a well presented blast of mech action.

While Battlefield 4’s next-gen outing offers something new and exciting in terms of multiplayer – 64-players – and in visuals – it looks fantastic and runs at 60 frames per second – the current gen version is more of the same, with no real evolution aside from a few instances of "levolution." A great game if you’re sticking around on current-gen for the foreseeable future, but worth waiting for if the next-gen of consoles is on your horizon.

A Short Hike is a wonderfully chill little game that can easily be finished in the space of an afternoon, combining clever traversal mechanics with a lo-fi visual style and a very relatable protagonist. If you’ve got a couple of hours to kill over a weekend, or after a stressful day of work, A Short Hike is an easy recommendation.

There's a reason EA singled out Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit for the remaster treatment – it's still great. Throw in all the DLC, all of the features the original had, and a litany of impressive visual enhancements, and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered is most definitely a racer worth returning to. And if it's your first time, well, lucky you.

A mighty fine bite-size Battlefield experience that takes a franchise synonymous with being a military shooter and establishes it in new territory. Battlefield Hardline is not as grand or epic as you’d perhaps expect a core Battlefield title to be, but it’s certainly a damn fine alternative.

Two Point Hospital is a most excellent return from the abyss for the ‘hospital simulator’, one that is wholesome, colourful, incredibly creative and a joy to behold. It does tend to get a little repetitive after a while, but up until that point you’re in for a real treat.

A relatively short side-story it may be, but Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name is a blistering chapter in Kiryu's journey, a Yakuza 6 epilogue that brilliantly tees up what's next, while delivering on the unadulterated fun and weirdness the series is celebrated for.

A remarkably lovely and unapologetically cosy story of life in vinyl retail, Wax Heads has heart to spare, a diverse soundtrack, an inviting art style, and a unique record-recommending gameplay hook. Groovy.

Cities: Skylines is a pretty damn good city building sim game for consoles. It’s got its problems and it’s incredibly limited in its scope, but if you’re looking to kill more than a few hours with one of the most therapeutic game in some time, this is it.

Like any collection of retro titles, however, much of the appeal lies in the innate nostalgia factor to players of a certain age, and on that front I'm not even sure I need to make a case for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection – it's immediately apparent that every one of the games included in Konami's comprehensive TMNT bundle is imbibed with 8- and 16-bit loveliness: the perfect way for NES, SNES, Game Boy, and Mega Drive/Genesis owners to time travel, and, furthermore, the perfect way for twelve-year-olds to play the Turtles' arcade highlights, without getting an angry letter sent home to their parents.

Move over KOF. Fatal Fury is back with a vengeance, and it's great. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is an attractive, immediate, and enjoyable fighting game with a lot going on. And, yet, it's easy to pick up and play, but tough to master, rewarding practice and perseverance. It's well worth putting in the time to get good.

As comprehensive as MotoGP 24 was, MotoGP25 outstrips last year's game with the addition of the Arcade Experience and three Race Off disciplines to master. New and returning features make this feel like a worthwhile update, and a must for all bike fans.

XCOM 2 is a great strategy game for the same reasons that Enemy Unknown/Enemy Within were, for the unique minute-to-minute gameplay, but as a sequel, this needed more innovation and less iteration.

Providing a complex and multi-layered experience, Section 8 is one of the better multiplayer titles currently available on the 360. With clan support, stat tracking, and more, hopefully this game will sell well and build up the sizable community needed to keep the battles large and epic. Despite some need for the weapon balance to be re-tuned, an undersized HUD, and poor tank controls, Section 8 is a blast, and worth checking out if you're into large-scale multiplayer battles.

The mechanics aren’t dumbed down - rather, they’re streamlined into something understandable and accessible without losing the depth that makes RTS games so damn satisfying to play.

Avowed is the perfect example of Obsidian doing what it does best. Choice and consequence runs deep through its veins, while the sheer variety of playstyles on offer is pretty damn impressive. While the lore and story won’t win any awards, Avowed is a great way to while away a good 30-hours or so.

Hypnotic, rewarding, and oddly relaxing despite its various demands, Little Rocket Lab is a fantastic cosy life sim that will unapologetically hoover up your time. And it looks utterly lovely.

Both an engaging mystery and a fine send off for Max and Chloe, Life is Strange: Reunion puts a nice cap on a saga that started life over a decade ago. The only question is, what comes next?

You can't go wrong picking up Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. While you might feel a little shorted on the single-player story for Dark Athena, your mood will soon improve when you realize that you can just boot up Butcher Bay and relive that experience.

There is a tone of playful improvisation to Ball x Pit – of pros in an experimental groove.

Beyond Words is never less than a pleasure, despite its plain visuals, and it keeps your attention with its delicious layering of mechanics.

Darwin’s Paradox is a stealthy Pixar cartoon, imbued with slapstick platforming.

A Satanic shooter that's as gratifying as Hell, DOOM pays due respect to its legacy with a game that delivers on everything that makes the series so great. You need DOOM in your life.