Far from being an unloved spin-off, Assassin's Creed Rogue has turned out to be one of the gaming highlights of the year. Forget Unity's troubles, this is the ultimate Assassin's experience of the year and should be snapped up immediately.
Never Alone manages to overcome its technical hiccups with an enchanting setting supported with a pair of adorable characters and some interesting cultural insights into the Iñupiat community. The basic puzzle/platforming gameplay is family-friendly and works even better when played in co-op.
The DC license lacks the star quality of its Marvel rival, but the refined elements of Lego Batman 3 ensure this is an improved sequel, despite the removal of an open world to explore. As ever though, this is best enjoyed in co-op if your sanity can take a bit of taunting from the camera.
So, 2014. Is this the year that the double-jump finally found its regular place in the first person shooter? It's certainly been the 'in thing' this year, as has a general boot up the arse of the FPS genre. How does COD stack up against Destiny and Titanfall though? Ignore the internet trolls, posers and haters, you can enjoy them all. In this reviewer's eyes though, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare has been the complete package. A star filled, explosion-packed blockbuster smash of a campaign mode with a set of stellar multiplayer modes where Kill Confirmed and the new ball-based sport, Uplink, are set to become new favourites. Both the campaign and multiplayer owe a huge debt to the exoskeleton, which has proven to be the ultimate catalyst in pushing Call of Duty back to the top this year. Your move, Far Cry 4.
The fact that DriveClub is still mostly a wreck for ALL of its online functions is frankly embarrassing and the lack of a large public beta was remarkably short-sighted. Once you've wrangled the handling model, there's a solid driving game underneath it all with fun tracks to tear down at terrifying speeds as you zoom through the incredibly detailed environments. But if the netcode isn't fixed soon, this'll be an abandoned rusty roadside wreck by Christmas.
A fantastic start for what we hope will become a fresh Tolkien franchise. There are some solid (if not borrowed) foundations and the Nemesis surpasses our expectations by providing a fresh experience to enemy design. Improvements next time should see a little more variety added to the combat brawls, but you're going to love taking advantage of an enemy's weaknesses from afar with the rich range of underhanded subterfuge tactics. Well played, Monolith.
Futurlabs have nailed two genres here with retro side-scrolling shoot em' ups and platforming thrown together to fantastic effect. Play the game at speed and you'll struggle to find a slicker experience on your PS4.
A slight stumble here and the The Wolf Among Us has beaten the Walking Dead Season 2 at its own game. Traditional gameplay is stripped down to the bare minimum in favour of choices. Some of these are fantastic in their unforgiving nature and the journey you'll take Clem on is full of drama and heart-break. The new cast are a miserable bunch of bickering bores though that will make you pine for the fallen friends of Season 1.
The Last Tinker is more for the younger gamers out there thanks to the simplified control scheme and almost obscenely bright and garish visual design. The automated platforming is supported by a robust combat system that allows for some quickfire tactical depth when choosing which powers to use on larger groups of enemies; although by the time you have them all the game is pretty much over.
Dodgy pricing aside, there's a lot to enjoy in this remake that is remarkably faithful to the original, while implementing new features that actively improve the experience. The game's as challenging as ever, but it's hard to resist trying to save every modoken from the clutches of the glukkons. Fingers crossed JAW are working on the second game already.
Despite those trademark Telltale technical glitches, The Wolf Among Us is an essential purchase and exceeds the studios' previous efforts in gameplay, visuals and voice acting. The impact of choices you make in interrogations, conversations and crime scene investigations will keep you hooked right until the end.
With a dull campaign that likes to stab you in the eye with difficulty spikes, the online team survival mode just about saves this latest tie-in effort from being a complete write-off. But you'll probably have to be a (slightly nuts) hardcore fan to pay full whack for it. It's ok, I don't think Michael Bay makes any money on this one.
A surprisingly active take on the sniper genre means you can't camp in one spot for long, but that turns out to be a good thing as you're forced to rethink your positions throughout a stage. Some dodgy mechanics for the close range weapons and online issues should have been fixed before launch, but the MP is being patched. Worth a shot for any sniping fans out there.
Valiant Hearts is a breakthrough title that attempts to show the gamer the impact the First World War had on regular people. Instead of being given a bag of guns, you're simply tasked with surviving by getting through each area so you can get the protagonists home. This is the game that proves war games don't have to be all about mowing down waves of enemies and the emphasis on the characters and atmosphere outshines the basic puzzling and item gathering.
Out of nowhere, MachineGames have turned up to the first-person-shooter party with the old man of the genre and given the likes of EA and Activision an absolute beating. Wolfenstein: The New Order is an early shout for FPS campaign of the year.
The procedurally generated stages and piped horror-movie tropes just don't work for Daylight even for one playthrough, never mind multiple visits. The frame-rate is choppy and the environments are dull rehashes of every haunted house gaming has dragged us through over the years. As a download, I can only delete it -I'd rather burn it.
An enjoyable indie platformer with some nostalgic adventuring thrown in for good measure. The humour gets old real quick, but the neat visuals make up for it in style.
There's a lack of ambition on show here with the graphics and the story, but the combat is the best seen in a Spider-Man game thanks to some snappy controls and a responsive counter-system. The web-swinging could have been better, but Spider-Man is still by far the best gaming character to get around New York with.
Child of Light proves that cheap downloadable RPGs can be done right after all. Visually enchanting and featuring a clever twist on classic turn-based combat, this puts many full-sized RPGs to shame. Even with painful rhyming dialogue and generic story, you'll find yourself hooked to the end.
I finished the episode with most of the hidden items under my belt in just over four hours, which in addition to the three hours of Episode 1, feels like a fair return for the season pass' asking price. The gameplay and AI feels stripped down, but this is all about tying up the loose ends. As we've come to expect with every Bioshock game, the final revelations are nothing short of breathtaking and every shot from last few minutes is framed so beautifully that you'll want it on your wall. Irrational Games, you will be missed.