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.
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.
Does this impact our verdict on Metal Gear Solid 5 overall? Not really.
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.
Titanfall 2’s campaign is one of the best surprises of the autumn 2016 season; smart, superbly-paced and packed with action, it tramples over the likes of Halo 5 and Killzone: Shadow Fall, making this the new sci-fi shooter for CoD: Infinite Warfare to beat.
While it's reminiscent of Journey, The Wind Waker and Ico, RiME is so much more than a grab-bag of borrowed ideas. Combining art, craftsmanship, enigmatic storytelling and engaging gameplay, it does what the likes of Bound and ABZU couldn't: wrap a powerful experience inside a compelling game. I'm still working out whether RiME is a masterpiece and, if so, where it sits in the pantheon of greats – but one thing's for sure: if you love the games it's inspired by, you're going to love RiME as well.
Intense doesn't even cover it. Nex Machina is every bit as tough, exciting and absorbing as the eighties arcade classics that inspired it. There's something about its gameplay that seems perfectly honed and balanced, pulling you into ever-more-challenging scenarios and pushing you to make the grade.
Hellblade triumphs equally as action game, mythic quest and psychological character study, bringing together some amazing visuals, great performances and ingenious design. It's short-lived but perfectly paced with a blend of action and puzzles that grows in richness and complexity as the game goes on. While some might prefer Enslaved or the DMC reboot, I'd call it Ninja Theory's best work yet.
While it's reminiscent of Journey, The Wind Waker and Ico, RiME is so much more than a grab-bag of borrowed ideas.
Was Astro Bot Rescue Mission on your radar? No? Me neither, but you ought to put it on there right away. This is arguably PSVR's biggest must-have game experience and a phenomenally good VR platform game.
GTAIV shows the pretenders how it should be done, with an incredibly rich world, strong characters, great technology and a truly compelling story. Provided you can handle its skewed morality, it’s the year’s most essential video game.
Mario + Rabbids gives you the action and strategy of XCOM in a way that does justice both to Mario and to the Rabbid's kooky style. Ubi's big E3 surprise is an unmissable Switch game.
Be prepared for some huge irritations but buy The Last Guardian despite these. It's the kind of game you won't forget.
Buy it for the brilliant single-player, then stick around for the multiplayer and community content. You won't regret that you did.
In many ways Abzu looks and feels like a successor to Journey, but while there's mystery and beauty in its underwater world, it's rarely quite as engaging. The simple, predictable gameplay is one barrier, the abstract nature of the story another, creating an experience that's big on audio-visual power and artistry but short on the stuff that made Journey truly magical. However, it's worth playing for its epic high points, its unique atmosphere and the chill-out meditation, but don't expect to find perfection or a game of vast scale and depth.
You'll fall for Alienation's great twitch gameplay, but it's with its RPG-like elements that the hooks really sink in. Alienation has created something that's part twin-stick blaster, part sci-fi dungeon crawler, with all the looting, levelling and upgrading that implies. Limited locations and the repetitive shoot 'em up gameplay might make it a less enticing prospect a few weeks in, but right now it's impossible to resist.
As it is, the new combat and puzzle mechanics keep things fresh, while the lure of new stories set around The Force Awakens is hard to resist. Love the Lego games and The Force Awakens? You know what to do.
If you're a FIFA 17 fan, go ahead and buy it – you won't regret your purchase. Just be aware that, right now, EA's game can't match the standard of the new console footie king – PES 2017.
If you've already played and loved the three original titles plus their DLC then some mild visual upgrades and a handful of extras might not be enough to justify the purchase. If, however, you've never sunk into the haunting depths of Rapture, this is the time to sort it out.
The Old Blood doesn't bring much new to Wolfenstein in terms of gameplay, but it's a brilliant old-school shooter with a reasonably lengthy, fast-paced campaign at a budget price. If you played and loved The New Order than it's damn near essential, but even if you didn't it's well worth a blast. Killing Nazis and slaying zombies doesn't get much more entertaining.