Keza MacDonald
A branching thriller played out from different perspectives, including characters' histories, is clever though at times repetitive
It's been a while since a video game got us up and moving like this, and happily it's as entertaining as ever
Zelda-like adventure game starring an adorable fox recalls a pre-internet era when games felt like secret worlds
I don’t think I’ve seen half of what Forbidden West has to offer. It bored me sometimes with endless dialogue and exposition, but is equally generous with things to do and places to explore and creatures to unwisely provoke. Unlike many open-world games it is continually offering you something new, and a couple of the tools you acquire later in the game really open the whole place up. It’s got the spirit of a Metroid or Tomb Raider-style puzzle adventure on the scale of an Assassin’s Creed. And once again: by god, it is beautiful. I’ll happily endure 10 minutes of being lectured about terraforming, in exchange for marvelling at these sunken caves, forbidding plains and mechanical T-rexes.
Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy get a joint re-release reminding us of the greatness of these bombastic action adventures.
Take a supercar for a beach challenge or drive into the Mexican jungle in this racing game that's exactly as fun as its last version
This Star Wars-influenced action game about two furry aliens elevates the spectacle and fun to a new dimension
One of the brightest and cutest Mario games with a novel adventure as a side dish
This game made me feel like a swashbuckling stranger in a foreign land for a couple of evenings, and left me wanting more. What’s there is lean and sometimes exquisite, but there wasn’t time to fully explore the different weapons (or try on all those dapper hats) before Faraday’s adventure came to an end after around six hours. I could have spent twice as long exploring this beautiful and mysterious creation, but I’m grateful nonetheless for the journey I’ve had.
This free-with-the-console game is a ridiculously cute and charming tribute to 25 years of PlayStation history, games and hardware
I haven’t played a game as odd as Legion in a very long time. Unlike the glossy, beautiful, but samey open-worlds that have dominated the genre in the past few years, it is ambitious, imperfect and unashamedly weird. To me it’s a fascinating, flawed, well-intentioned experiment in what a game can have to say, and how it can say it, while still conforming to the established fun-first template of an open-world action game. London’s landmarks are all here, from the Tower to the Eye, but rather than reducing the city to a pretty backdrop for generic madcap violence, it lets you find your own fun – or even your own meaning – in what you do there.
This endearing game weaves a touching story of families and loss into a nostalgic odyssey through 80s seaside holidays
You play an Elizabethan astrologer-physician treating a bunch of hilarious hypochondriacs in this well put together game
Making the player the mainframe in this 2001-inspired sci-fi aboard a space station gone wrong is inspired
Journey back in time as an online detective policing a compelling parody of the nascent net, with dodgy graphics, tinny music and a host of weird websites to explore
Pure two-wheeled thrills drive this motorbike racing game, as you hurtle over spectacularly wild tracks around the world. Just avoid the acorns
You decide the fate of the denizens of Westeros in this Game of Thrones tie-in, which is, appropriately, a bloody riot
This often breathtaking game of serial assassination in 16th-century Japan is a treasure chest for players able to commit to learning its secrets
With the gameplay of Pokémon Go, this bright and beautiful update welcomes a new generation of trainers to a world of wholesome fun
Mega Drive graphics belie the brains behind this puzzle-filled 2D platformer in which you play a misfit mechanic dismantling a religious techno-dystopia