Kevin Lynch
As a bloody swansong though, it’s the perfect send-off.
This is about as good as open-world driving gets.
Not since Valve’s The Orange Box collection has a game's singular price tag offered so much bang for your buck. Whether you're after a spruced-up trip down memory lane, or entering the series for the first time ahead of Halo 5's launch, the Master Chief Collection is a stunning, meticulously crafted deal.
Like chasing a bag of Haribo with a can of coke, playing Sunset Overdrive is like indulging in a sugar-binge high. If the brown muted tones of Gears of War came to define the Xbox 360, there's a good chance that the primary-coloured madness of Sunset Overdrive will become the poster child for the Xbox One.
A perfect example of what can happen when world design, story and game mechanics click harmoniously into place, Dishonored 2 is just as good as we’d hoped it would be. Dust off that sword, pull on that mask and slink into the shadows for this year’s stand-out sandbox adventure.
It’s a vast game that, some backtracking aside, could engross you with fresh ideas for dozens upon dozens of hours.
But hiccups and glitches however, in a game so generous in size and adventurous in ambition, are forgivable – for every minute of raised eyebrows at floating dogs or the spasming corpses of the long-dead, there are tens upon tens of wonder and excitement as you trek from one unbelievable wasteland landmark to the next.
But if for some reason you missed Dark Souls 2 first time around, or need a great reason to go back, this superlative edition is a nightmare worth having.
Carefully crafted and tuned to perfection, Inside may not last long but will live in your memory for a lifetime. You’d be a fool to miss it.
It’s a quality-over-quantity approach for Overwatch, and one that works superbly. Blizzard always has long-term plans for its properties, so it’ll be exciting to see how Overwatch eventually evolves, too.
But where Stardew Valley comes into its own is the way these characters slowly reveal themselves – carry out a task or quest for them and they’ll tell you a little more about themselves, before the stereotypical town goth or jock eventually blows you away with their depth.
Will there ever be a perfect Dead Rising game? Probably not, at this point. But to paraphrase Alan Partridge , zombies by their very nature are inconsistent. So be happy that this shambling series is still capable of raising a goofy smile.