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WWE 2K15 is a kick in the teeth, then. Graphically assured as it is, almost every other element of the 15-year-old series has been cut back, tampered with pointlessly or outright ruined. The series hasn't been good for a long time now, but this year is the first it's been actively bad. The wait for a great new WWE game continues .
Perhaps the problem is my own, and maybe I'm too content to morbidly tinker with my survivors to push them towards another miserable day. This War of Mine is a game whose simple message - that war is hell, and that we're all capable of being sucked into its moral depths - might be slightly compromised by its strengths as a game, but at least it's a message carried with a great deal more conviction than other, more bombastic portrayals of conflict. That, for certain, is something to be thankful for.
This lack of direction is an especially ironic failing for a character who was once defined by his single-minded forward momentum. The time is clearly long overdue for Sonic to take a well-earned rest, get his breath back and only return once Sega has worked out where he's supposed to be going. It pains me to say it, but Sonic Boom needs to be the last noise we hear from the blue hedgehog for a very long time.
Never Alone carries the sensibilities of its inspirations, and it feels and looks just as it should.
Without these problems, I'd have no hesitation in saying this is the best LittleBigPlanet game to date. The deeper integration of creative elements into the story is a big plus, as is the superior level design, and the new characters are very welcome, even if they're ultimately underused. But in its current state, it's hard to recommend without some serious caveats. Held together by Sellotape rather than superglue, LittleBigPlanet 3 is in constant danger of falling apart.
And yet beneath the mis-steps and the schmaltz, and beneath the dictatorial heft of the soundtrack - gorgeous and emotive, but laid on a little too heavily throughout - there's still that fascinating glimpse of a boy making the best of a lonely childhood. A boy in search of escape - escape from the empty world he's been granted and, perhaps, from the predictable narrative that's been imposed on it.
There's no question that Ardennes Assault is a worthwhile addition to the Company of Heroes war chest and one that rewards investment and exploration with a tactically satisfying campaign. That said, such is the obtuse nature of its presentation of key concepts and even basic controls that new recruits should deduct a whole mark from that number below.
This first bundle of DLC does a fantastic job of leaning on Nintendo's past, so it's just a slight shame that it hasn't learnt from one of Mario Kart 8's only failings and taken the opportunity to overhaul the somewhat limp Battle mode - which, in this instance, hasn't been touched at all. It's a small shame, too, that now Nintendo's folded all of its franchises together, the odds of a standalone F-Zero seem slimmer than ever. Still, it's hard to complain when the future of Mario Kart has been expanded so graciously, and now that one of 2014's best games has just been made that little bit better.
It's hard not to see the ways in which this could have been more ambitious, more innovative in the way it dusts off the past, but equally it's hard to blame Codemasters for simply giving Micro Machines fans exactly what they wanted, just how they remembered it. As a budget-priced reminder of simpler times, Toybox Turbos does everything it needed to, but sadly not much more. Here's hoping it leads to a genre revival - and a bolder sequel.
Far Cry 4 is well worth a visit, but it's more a backpacker's delight than a five-star island paradise.
It's a shame that such a much-loved series has come to this, but here we are. So to conclude, SingStar Ultimate Party gets one point for nice menu screens and one point for Carly Rae Jepsen. As for you, Sony, it's time to ring the French polishers.
An awful childhood gets a surprisingly arcadey revisit in this blistering action roguelike.
The true power of the Inquisition may be illusory, but that doesn't stop it being satisfying to wield while it lasts.
As the seventh major instalment in the series, though, not to mention the first designed for new console hardware, Assassin's Creed Unity feels like a missed opportunity. Going back to basics at this point may have resulted in a less substantial game than recent years have led us to expect, but it might have delivered a more satisfying one. As it is, mild improvements in traversal and combat are quickly overwhelmed by the creaking systems onto which they have been grafted. Revolutionary Paris is one of the most beautifully realised environments in a series that has had its fair share of them, but the game you play doesn't really do it justice.
FIFA and PES seem to have swapped shirts, with neither catering to the original audience they once set out to attract. Based on this year's offerings, though, it's PES that has the clearer direction of where it's headed. Perhaps most tellingly of all, PES 2015 is more satisfying in defeat than FIFA 15 is in victory.
Advanced Warfare isn't the game to answer those questions. Much like the soldiers that populate its fiction, what strengths it has come from the technology bolted to the surface while what's inside looks more fragile and vulnerable than ever.
Whatever else might be in included in the Master Chief Collection, that feeling is at the heart of the game: it is a remembrance of things past, and those things are not as they were. The Collection is an instantaneous embrace of past and present that combines gaming's powerful sense of nostalgia with its perpetual arms race of processing and graphical power. It is part of a growing appreciation of the past in a medium which until recently was resolutely forward-looking. Proust would bloody love it.
So, we're left with a game whose main improvements are all disappointments. And yet I'd still I'd put money on me pouring hundreds of hours into it. That's Football Manager. I'm sure that once a few patches have been released and a few things have been tweaked I'll discover that magic again. I just expect it might be a little bit harder to find than last year.
Some will no doubt relish these barbs as further encouragement to beat the system; others will see its steep challenge as a mountain that must be conquered, whatever the cost to their sanity. But for my money Stealth Inc. 2 falls short of the games I'd consider its peers, never quite capturing the simple ingenuity of Toki Tori 2, the nervy thrills of Mark of the Ninja, nor the physical comedic energy of 'Splosion Man. It's just too demanding and too laborious too often. It may no longer be Bastard by name, but by nature it's a bit of a git.
I just wish it wasn't so happy to sit in another game's shadow, and made more of the few fresh mechanisms that might distinguish it and move the genre forwards. Instead, it hews so closely to a proven template that it's basically a pretty good action-adventure by default. Yet as the game clock ticked towards 20 hours and beyond, I could never quite shake the feeling that I'd still rather be failing in Dark Souls than succeeding in Lords of the Fallen.