A lightweight but lovable adventure in the spirit of the classic Tomb Raider games. It's not particularly deep or innovative, but it balances combat, puzzle-solving and exploration well, and the third-person visuals and level design work better here than they did in Guardian of Light. Do you still like Lara? You'll like this.
Driveclub deserves a second chance, but will it get it? We hope so. It might not be a crowd-pleaser like Forza Horizon 2, but it's a frequently fantastic racer that's only getting better with time.
Don't listen to the cynics and the moaners: Titanfall was a great multiplayer shooter last year and it's even better now. Its innovative movement and Titan mechanics put many more recent shooters in the shade, and it's as fast-paced and addictive as ever. If you've just bought an Xbox One this Christmas, put it on your shopping list right away, and on PC it's an absolute bargain. Titanfall might not be the deepest, richest or most tactical competitive FPS around, but it's easily one of the most entertaining.
It's a straight HD remaster of the 2002 remake, but as long as you can live with Resident Evil's numerous and well-known idiosyncracies you'll be surprised at how well it still plays. If you're a major Resi fan it's questionable whether there's enough new here to take another dip - your Resident Evil memories are probably scarier than the real deal. First timers and long-absent friends, however, should open the creaky mansion door and step nervously inside. This horror pioneer is still one of the greats.
Where Saints Row IV earned a promotion from expansion to sequel through an explosion of fun and interesting ideas, Gat Out of Hell feels more like leftovers than a brand new experience. The action can be entertaining and the fun infectious, but there's a lot of familiar content here, and Hell itself is a drab place to explore. If you love Saints Row and want more of the same, this expansion delivers, but most gamers will find more than enough Saints Row goodness in Saints Row IV.
It's Dead Island meets The Last of Us meets Far Cry 3 meets Assassin's Creed, but while Dying Light doesn't score highly for originality, it does for parkour thrills and zombie-slaying antics. The pace lags occasionally from time to time, but this is a slicker, most refined game than you might ever have expected from the brains behind Dead Island, and one that deserves to be a hit.
Some might wish for more visual enhancements or fixes for the original game's biggest flaws, but this HD restoration of Grim Fandango only underlines what a fantastic, beautifully written and gorgeously designed game it is. It's clearly a product of its time, yet like its movie inspirations it hasn't faded with time. It was one of the best graphic adventure games then, and it's still one of the finest now.
Monster Hunter 4 is brilliant, being both more accessible to beginners and a more complex, exciting game for long-term fans. Some aspects, like the combat, structure and camera, ensure that it's never going to please everyone, but of all the games in the series, this is the one that comes closest. It's another corker for the 3DS games library, and the perfect way to try the noble sport of monster hunting on for size.
There's a lot to like about ScreamRide, but not much of it is good enough to love. With three discrete elements, each of which could have been a download game in its own right, it's reasonably good value, but no one element is quite as brilliant as it could have been, and the environments aren't engaging enough to make the mindless destruction that much fun. There's potential in the creative tools and community features, but this isn't the most thrilling of thrill rides.
Attila adds new layers of depth and complexity to Total War, and its dark, chaotic atmosphere does a brilliant job of breathing life into one of Europe's most troubled periods. The problem is that all that depth and complexity can make it a very demanding and – at first – unrewarding game. Keep at it, and the epic battles and challenging campaign mode make it well worth persevering. Overall, this feels like one for the fans, but is that really such an awful thing?
A stunning graphical showcase that can't hide a so-so game. The Order: 1886 has a great premise and a decent, albeit clichéd narrative, but the cost of its cinematic values comes in restrictive gameplay, mediocre shooting and an over-reliance on quick-time events. It's a fantastic looking game with which to show off your PS4, but it's too short and too unimaginative for its beauty to be anything more than skin-deep.
The optional PAYG purchase model and cringe-worthy sexy lady stuff might distract you from the fact that this is a hugely entertaining fighting game. Slick, spectacular and fun to play, Last Round is right up there with the best games in the whole Dead or Alive series, and one that's worth paying upfront for if you don't want to end up paying over the odds. It's not a must-have for those who've already played Dead or Alive 5: Last Round on other formats, but if you haven't, it's a good time to give the game a try.
A classic sci-fi saga that's stood the test of time. Thanks to a sympathetic visual update, the graphics look spectacular even by today's high standards, while the well-balanced gameplay and excellent mission design haven't dated much at all. Old fans might not like the way the original Homeworld has been fixed to reflect changes made for the sequel, but it's great to see two legends not just return, but reaffirm what made them legendary in the first place.
Battlefield: Hardline can be ridiculous, with stealth and arrest mechanics that stretch the very limits of credulity. All the same, the single-player campaign works brilliantly as the video game version of a big, dumb action thriller. Cracking set-piece firefights are mixed with stealth, escape and exploration, and there's scope to play some sequences your way, not just follow the objective marker. Multiplayer, meanwhile, is fiercely enjoyable, and in Hotwired boasts one of Battlefield's finest hours. Look past Hardline's minor faults, and you'll find the best all-round Battlefield since the great Bad Company 2.
The start might be shaky in places, but Revelations 2 soon builds into the most compelling chapter of Resident Evil since the great Resi 4. The gameplay blends action, survival horror and inventive co-op mechanics to make something that's exciting, but still true to the sinister atmosphere of the original games. Meanwhile the storytelling and self-conscious humour work better than they have in years. Throw in the horribly more-ish Raid mode, and you have a major treat for Resi fans.
At its best, Evolve is tense, thrilling and what pundits like to call a game changer, with periods of frantic hunting/fleeing punctuated by explosive confrontations. At its worst, nothing comes together and it all feels strangely flat. With time and experience, we're seeing more of the former than the latter, and all the parts are falling into place. Our only concern is that the core Hunt mode could eventually grow stale with repetition, and that games mixing in the other modes are harder to find than they should be.
Against all odds, Mortal Kombat X can take on the best of Capcom and Namco and hold its corner. While the core fighting isn't quite as fluid, it's smart, inventive and a lot of fun, while the brilliant story mode, Factions meta-game and additional game modes should keep you coming back for months to come. Easily the best Mortal Kombat yet, it's the first that can go toe-to-toe with Tekken and Streetfighter without going down.
Assassins Creed Chronicles: China does an impressive job of taking the lore and core mechanics of the series and making them work in a 2D game. It's slick, fast-paced and entertaining, with some beautiful stylised art, and all it lacks is a little magic to turn it from a good spin-off into a great one.
While State of Decay: Year One Survival Edition doesn't fix all the hideous flaws of the original, its bug-fixes and visual enhancements make it easier to love. The complex, interwoven systems and perma-death take some getting used to, but the result is a fantastically tense, exciting open-world survival epic with more heart and soul than other zombie games.
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.