Nobody could describe Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam Bros as an essential, but it's a fun, relaxed, thoroughly likable RPG that's as good for younger and more casual gamers as it is for Mario's more hardcore fans. It might not have much depth or complexity, but it has charm and personality to spare. If you're looking for a game to keep your 3DS busy over the holidays, this is it.
Meet The Phantom Pain's disposable, delinquent cousin, dedicated to the art of blowing things up as loudly and as frequently as possible. Just Cause 3 doesn't have the depth or richness of the year's big open-world blockbusters, but it has a fantastic set of toys, some great destructible environments and a physics engine designed for maximum carnage. More importantly, it seems hell-bent on making sure you have a blast while everything goes bang. You'll love it, feel slightly guilty about loving it, but keep on coming back for more.
A strange blend of sci-fi, action, MMO, Monster Hunter and JRPG, set on a dazzling, weirdly beautiful alien world. It's both a cliché and an understatement to say that Xenoblade Chronicles X won't be for everyone, and some elements of the game are strangely clumsy. Yet there's something about this game's relaxed, exploratory vibe that's oddly compulsive and – as Monster Hunter's proved – battling titanic beasties never gets old.
It looks great and plays very nicely, but Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash lacks the depth, the career modes and the content that make a great Mario sports game, and Nintendo's usual attention to detail isn't quite there. With a bargain basement £10 to £15 price tag it might be worth considering, but at £40? It's not even close.
Pro Evo is still struggling to match FIFA on match atmosphere, presentation, accessibility and commentary – all areas where Konami could and should be doing better. Yet it's a fantastic football game once you hit the pitch, with brilliant close-up graphics, superb animation, convincing ball physics and player interactions and a fantastic feel for the ebb and flow of the match.
GTA 5 can be depraved, amoral, sickeningly violent and childishly desperate to shock, yet it's also one of the richest and deepest games ever made, with an ambitious three-stranded storyline that holds so many disparate parts together.
It this is the end of the Arkham series, Rocksteady leaves it on a high note. This is an even bigger and more epic game than Arkham City, but one which luxuriates in the details and doesn't lose track of what makes the Dark Knight such a powerful protagonist. We could pick faults in the tedious Batmobile battling or the way the gameplay hasn't evolved, but that wouldn't do the game justice. Powerful, thrilling and ambitious, this is one of the best games on PS4 and Xbox One.
Stunning production values and superb graphics and music collide in a fascinating work of interactive science fiction. Some many be put off by the lack of real interactivity and the slow pace of the gameplay, but more will find the story as interesting and resonant as the way it's told. Is it a game? Who cares? It's a stunning experience, whatever you want to call it.
A cracking climax to the StarCraft 2 saga, Legacy of the Void combines the best ever StarCraft multiplayer experience with what's arguably the strongest of the three campaigns. If you played and loved Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Storm then you've probably bought this already and loving every minute. If you haven't, Legacy of the Void gives you all the more reason to give StarCraft 2 a try.
You can see the potential in Rodea's high-flying, swooping, soaring gameplay, but it's all squandered by the woeful visuals, poor design and terrible controls. The Wii U might be short of quality games this winter but you'd have to be pretty desperate to buy this.
How you feel about Black Ops 3 as a package will depend on what you're looking for in a shooter. If your focus is on competitive play, then this will be your favourite CoD of recent years. If you and your mates love to smash things up in co-op, Black Ops III gives you plenty of opportunity, so get stuck in. Yet it's hard to escape the nagging feeling that this would have been a better CoD had Treyarch focused less on the co-op and the extras, and a little more on delivering their best CoD campaign to date.
So, back to the original question: Halo 5 is definitely good, but is it great? Well, I'm tempted to err on the side of greatness.
Triforce Heroes is very likable. It's hard to say whether the game will hold up to endless repetition without the deep upgrade systems of a Destiny or hack-and-slash RPG, but it's a fantastic, fun co-op game in short bursts. It also has a multiplayer Colloseum mode where you can battle it out against friends or strangers, with different gadgets to fight with in each compact stage. It still feels, however, a little Zelda-lite, and you really have to ask yourself whether you'll be able to play the game with mates rather than a random pick-up group. If the answer's yes, then dive on in. If not, prepare to take the rough with the smooth.
That doesn't make Tales of Zestiria a bad JRPG. It has its dull passages and a tendency for endless exposition, but it's still brighter, more colourful and more immediately fun than any of the recent Final Fantasies, and it's arguably the best thing the genre has thrown up since Ni-No-Kuni. Like many JRPGs, it gets better the more time you put in, the more you understand its systems and the more you get to know and likes its characters. All the same, this is another solid entry in the Tales saga rather than the breakout hit you might have hoped for. It will chime well with the faithful, but it's unlikely to bring any new converts round.
While it has the same Dynasty Warriors meets… template as last year's disappointing Hyrule Warriors, Dragon Quest Heroes triumphs by making smarter use of the Dragon Quest franchise. Beneath the strategic brawling there are layers of RPG complexity, while above it rests a whole lot of Dragon Quest charm. It's a surprisingly irresistible combination that makes this a surprising little gem.
More than just a me-too Toys to Life game, Lego Dimensions is both a high-point for the genre and the best Lego game since Lego: Marvel Super Heroes. Be warned: the add-on packs will soon get irresistible and expensive, but the starter pack delivers enough fun to just about justify a rather jaw-dropping asking price.
While it's possible to be disappointed by the lack of new material, The Nathan Drake collection makes three of the PS3's finest games one of the best things you can buy for PS4. Bluepoint's upgrades drag the visuals straight into the next-gen era, while subtle improvements to the gameplay make the first Uncharted even stronger.
There's a lot of fun to be had in this year's Skylanders, with the new vehicle content being more than just another gimmick. The inventive platforming and a fantastic Mario Kart-style sub-game also help keep things feeling fresh. On the downside, it's also the most expensive Skylanders yet, requiring an investment of nearly £80 to get the most out of the game. On balance, the generous package and the cool toys make it all worthwhile, but prepare to empty your wallet during the year ahead.
FIFA has abandoned some of the fast, furious, end-to-end play of FIFA 15 in favour of a tighter, more believable defensive game, but if that saps out a little of the fun, there's compensation in the improved Career game mode and the more accessible Ultimate Team Draft mode. In fact, FIFA's problem isn't that it doesn't play a great game of football, but that this particular version might not be great enough. With Pro Evo looking incredibly strong this year, the more conservative, authenticity-focused FIFA seems a little less exciting than it is.
The Taken King isn't so much a Destiny expansion as a thorough reworking, building on the foundations laid by the version 2.0 update to make the endgame both more compelling and more accessible. The campaign itself is strong, varied and engaging, introducing a great new setting that should fuel quests and strikes for months to come. Come back Guardians, and bring your buddies with you - Bungie looks to have delivered the Destiny we've all been waiting for.