In the right circumstances, a good title should tell you everything you need to know.
Since time immemorial, the simple pleasures of scurrying through a hostile alien planet has been a trusty go-to for video games;
You may notice that this review of Football Manager 2020 is coming rather late.
There is nothing new or radical here. But as comforting popcorn gaming to indulge in while you wait for your trip to the pictures? Job done.
In the run-up to the release of this confident rework of Call of Duty:
The Legend of Zelda has always had its delightful idiosyncracies --aggressive chickens, sultry fairies, Tingle-- but 1993 Game Boy adventure Link's Awakening has always been one of the most curious.
In the annual football sim faceoff, fans of Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer have always hung their scarves on the idea that PES is far superior on the pitch than monied rival FIFA.
Of all the things I expected from Gears 5 --ear-splitting gunfire, chainsaws and alien heads popping like watermelons-- bursts of laughter were not on the list.
Sam Barlow's BAFTA-snaffling Her Story was a fabulously tight and taut whodunwhat as you pieced together the tale of a mysterious young woman from a jumbled collection of police interview clips.
Days Gone is a game that is, at once, both so close and so far from being what it could have been. There are certainly things here to enjoy and sufficiently pass the time. Those dusty roads of Oregon being the most prominent, but when that world is so empty and its inhabitants so vacant, it starts to become a real challenge to care.