Superhot could well turn out to be the year's most ingenious and influential shooter, transforming each taut action scene into both puzzle and wish-fulfilment spectacle. It's short and can feel proscriptive, with trial and error woven into its DNA, but it'll make your heart race, your adrenaline surge and your mind work a little harder. It's a bold, brief and brilliant blaster.
All the frenetic excitement of Garden Warfare, but with more characters, more maps, more modes and a ton more fun. Slow movement and some minor balance issues cramp the style, but if you're looking for an online shooter with more belly laughs than headshots give the zombie meatheads and violent veg a spin.
Far Cry: Primal could so easily have been a weak spin-off or a throwaway blast like Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, and it owes too much to the Far Cry formula to be described as a true original. Yet it builds a spectacular world, fills it with dynamic characters and gives you a role that feels meaningful and potent.
A spellbinding, effortlessly charming JRPG that freaks with the formula while respecting what makes the genre great. While some might find Bravely Second two twee or jokey to be taken seriously, others will find a smart, witty and surprisingly rich adventure, mixing old-school style with brilliant 3D graphics and a knowing, humorous tone. We'd warmly recommend it.
Dying Light with less parkour sounds like a disaster, but the rural setting and buggy racing add a whole new dimension to the zombie-slaying mayhem, along with a meaty new adventure. For £20 it's an absolute steal. The Following might not convince Dying Light's doubters, but it will please its fans. If you're not one of those already, this is all the excuse you need to give both campaigns a try.
XCOM 2's brand of tactical strategy might have its roots in the golden age of PC gaming, but its sights are set square on building a future. By limiting your reliance on safe, defensive play styles and pushing you to work quickly and attack, Firaxis has built one of the most tense, demanding and addictive strategy games ever, where every choice has repercussions and every soldier, every victory counts. If you buy it, clear your schedule: this one will keep you gripped for months.
Lego Marvel's Avengers a fine game played solo, but it's a fantastic family game, short on frustration, big on laughs and packed with stuff to think about, find and collect. Serious Marvel True Believers might miss the more varied roster and exotic locations of Lego Marvel Super Heroes, but the new game has it beaten for action, spectacle and humour. Throw in a cracking set of free-roaming locations to explore, and you have another storming superhero hit.
Final Fantasy Explorers isn't short on hooks or good ideas, but it's too repetitive and grindy an experience while lacking Monster Hunter's character and depth. Fans of the saga will love the chance to tackle favourite summons or dress their Avatar like the series' best-loved heroes, but for most players the allure will wear off all too soon.
Break it down and The Witness is nothing more than variations of the same simple maze puzzle, spread across a gorgeous island setting.
One of the best-loved games on PS Vita scrubs up well for the PS4, with an HD update that does justice to its vibrant anime steampunk style and fantastic art design. The Dual Shock 4 controls arguably improve on the original system, while the floating, rushing, Navi-bashing gameplay is undiminished by the move to the big screen. It's a little on the lightweight side but bolstered by the bundled DLC and budget price. Get it now, then get ready for the sequel.
This particular remaster doesn't quite do enough to boost the graphics, but the game underneath has lost nothing of its charm or heart. The simple controls and gentle difficulty curve make it very welcoming, but there's enough complexity and optional challenge to keep you interested long-term. This is a thoroughly rewarding remake – and one that leaves us hoping for a brand new game.
Oxenfree is short, at around four-to-five hours, but like Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, it's the perfect length for what it is. It's not exactly challenging, and if you're stuck it's usually because you failed to spot something obvious – just check your notes or the helpful in-game map. That will be enough to write it off for a certain audience of gamers; the ones who don't think that games should be about the story or dismiss Gone Home and Everybody's Gone as 'walking simulators' (in which case you might label this a 'talking sim'). But if you're happy to get caught up in a rich, fascinating piece of interactive fiction, Oxenfree will keep you hooked throughout your first playthrough – and thinking through at least one more.
If you're a Resident Evil fan or want to explore one of survival horror's less celebrated works, then this remaster is a treat. There are good reasons why Resident Evil 0 isn't remembered as fondly as Resident Evil, RE2 or RE4, but its survival horror gameplay still works on its own terms and there's plenty of fan service to enjoy. If you're just looking for a solid horror game, there's more life in this old corpse than you'd expect, even if it's not quite Resident Evil in its blood-curdling prime.
The second episode in the Chronicles spin-off series is as good-looking and well thought-out as the first, but marred by frustrating stealth and platform sections and flawed controls. While the visuals are impressive and the mechanics mostly solid, the level design will test your patience yet leave you oddly underwhelmed. Here's hoping the last part, Russia, brings some big improvements.
While it's free on PS Plus Hardware Rivals is worth a punt. It'll keep you busy for a couple of evenings even if it won't displace your favourite online games.
Amplitude hasn't got the high-profile tracks or acts to make it as a blockbuster music game, but it has got the gameplay chops, the visuals and the soundtrack to make it as hypnotic, score-attack arcade game. On that level it's still a little short on long-term appeal, but as accomplished and horribly addictive as anything Harmonix has produced.
It can be rough around the edges and it takes a while to gel, but once it does this is as gripping an RPG as Bethesda has ever produced. We'll handle disappointments like the lengthy loading times, poor facial animation and minor bugs because Fallout 4's world is so rich, strange and beautiful, and because the stories you can make in it are so compelling. Buy it, then dig in for the season.
Does this impact our verdict on Metal Gear Solid 5 overall? Not really.
If you're looking for a deep, skill-based, tactically-demanding shooter on the scale of Battlefield, Star Wars: Battlefront isn't it.
Fast Racing Neo never quite recaptures the glories of the WipEout series, but it's a fast, exciting and visually impressive attempt, complete with a phase-shifting, colour-matching twist. It is a frustrating game thanks to its retro-tinged design decisions, but if you yearn for the days of pounding soundtracks, trance-like focus and pulsing visuals, this is a real blast from the past.