All the new games and apps that deserve your time this week
Including two of the biggest sports titles of the year
Need a new app to occupy your commute? Looking for a fresh challenge for your console?
Here we present a rolling archive of the best game releases of the week, from AAA titles to mobile marvels.
Roam through the gallery to discover games you may have missed.
Forza Horizon 3
Platforms: Xbox One, PC
We were impressed with Forza Horizon 3. Really impressed. We even went and called it "the best racing game ever made" in a big long review you can read over here.
In short: Horizon 3 is the most accessible, enjoyable, visually-arresting driving experience you've ever had from a console game. As the head of your very own driving festival (think Fast & Furious with fewer vests), you cruise around glorious Australian locations - from beaches to the outback, with urban bits breaking up the sandy stretches - taking part in exhibitionist stunts and races or challenging passing super cars to point-to-point dashes.
Where other driving games slip into monotony or lack control and accuracy, Horizon 3 finds the perfect line between reckless fun and exacting precision. One for anyone who has ever stopped to look at a car in the street, or pressed an accelerator harder than they really should have.
FIFA 17
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Stop it. You may well shrug. But you’re going to buy this title anyway, aren’t you? It’s FIFA. FIFA 17, to be exact, and you’re going to be damned if your friends come over for a video game session and have to make do with last year’s teams, like primordial savages.
The good news is that, once again, it proves a worthy investment, perhaps the most for some time. Shaper than a Sergio Aguero trim at the sides, a new game engine and ‘pass with purpose’ function means team movement and passing is better than ever (expect your aimless through ball ratio to drop severely), while, perhaps best of all, newly added ‘pushback technology’ puts more of the emphasis on 50/50 midfield skirmishes.
Furthermore, it’s also still the best-looking (yes, we’re shallow) football game on the market, no doubt about that. Along with all the official kits and stadia, the player and manager likenesses are incredible (yep, you can even see the likes of Pep barking orders on the touchline) and its new career mode, The Journey, is without exaggeration the Game of Thrones of football simulators.
Winter is coming and you’re not even going to leave the house.
Get it here
Paul Pixel
Platforms: iOS
Paul Pixel doesn't look like a superhero, as people readily tell him. He looks like a really normal bloke, living a fairly average life. Until an alien invasion of infectious zombies ruins everything.
This retro point-and-click adventure shares a heart with the likes of humorous gems of old: Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle. It's silly. It's ridiculous. It'll have you tapping around your screen, directing Paul around on his mental journey.
It's the best £1.49 you'll spend all year.
Destiny: Rise of Iron
Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4
"Didn't Destiny come out, like, two years ago?"
Yes indeed - all the way back on 9 September 2014.
"So what's this?"
This is the reason you're going to want to actually start playing it: the latest expansion to the multiplayer online shooter challenges players to take their place as the next generation of Iron Lords. Along the way they will join forces with a legend from humanity’s Golden Age to defeat a plague of unstoppable evil once and for all.
What that translates into is a new setting on Earth called The Plaguelands, a brand-new six-player Raid, Felwinter Peak, a new social space that looks out onto The Plaguelands, new cooperative three-player Strike, more quests, weapons, gear, competitive multiplayer mode and maps, a Light level increase, a new mutated enemy faction of the Fallen and more.
Thanks to a series of tweaks, fixes and updates, Destiny is now the vast, expansive video game Bungie promised us we'd get back in 2014. Better late than never, eh?
Virginia
Platforms: PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4
You're doubtless bored of hearing the promise that "video games are the new films!" We're terribly sorry, but we're about to say it again.
Virginia is a first-person narrative-driven game about an FBI agent Anne Tarver and her attempt to discover a missing person. It treads a familiar story arch you've encountered in the likes of Twin Peaks, Fargo, The X-Files, but with one major difference: there's not a single line of dialogue. You just walk around picking things up, approaching people and watching the beautifully animated story unfold.
"That sounds dull", you'll probably be thinking. But it works. Really works. You'll sit through it's two-hours-ish experience, looking for items, "talking" to characters, watching pieces of the story fit together around you and not want to touch another game until you've finished it.
It's not like anything else you'll play this year - and that's a very good thing.
BioShock: The Collection
Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4
Would you kindly step back into one of the greatest video game franchises of all time?
Okay, so that quote will be lost on anyone who hasn't entered the watery world of Rapture - the primary setting of the twisted, darkly brilliant BioShock series. The Collection is a graphical remastering of all three titles (and all their subsequent additional content), giving a fresh lick of HD paint to the first-person shooter thrills of this seminal series.
Each instalment sees you step into the shoes of a protagonist stranded in a world where humanity has moved away from the conventional rules of society, falling prey to a chaos that comes from allowing science and industry to reach unchecked heights. Bad news for the community, great news if you want to inject yourself with a flame thrower super power. One of the most epic journeys you'll ever encounter with a controller.
NBA 2K17
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Look at that picture. Drink in every detail of it; the reflection of the players in the varnished hardwood floor, the creases of the shorts, the slowly-closing grip of those hands around the ball. This isn't a photograph - it's just how bloody gorgeous the new NBA 2K17 title looks.
Besides its graphical prowess, 2K17 offers a heap of different play modes to suit your preference: MyCAREER allows you to focus on nailing your career path with a narrative featuring the likes of Michael B Jordan, MyTEAM, which lets you build your own team of all-stars and a heap of league options including teams from the NBA, the Euroleague and classic teams.
If you've got even so much as a passing interest in basketball, you need this game in your life.
Pro Evolution Soccer 17
Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC
Is it that time of year already?
New features including 'Real Touch' (the first touch of players is determined by their personal stats), 'Precise Pass' (you'll have to take account of the movement of the ball if you're going to master the art of passing) and 'Advanced Instructions' (change the entire mental ideology of your team) have been added to a new graphics engine that makes the beautiful game look "proper fit".
ReCore
Platforms: Xbox One, Windows
Do you miss the days of good ol' platform games? None of this running about with massive machine guns and getting shot in the head by an American teenager with vastly more impressive reaction times - just hours of bouncing around worlds filled with artfully constructed puzzles, hunting down collectables and secret switches, all culminating in joyous boss battles?
Then you need to dig into ReCore - an Xbox-exclusive that draws heavily on the likes of Mega Man and Metroid.
You take control of Joules, exploring the barren desert world of Far Eden with her corebot Mack (an endearing dog-like robot), her rocket boots and trusty grappling hook. As you encounter more corebots, you'll discover new ways to take on foes and tackle increasingly taxing puzzles.
It's the kind of game you didn't realise you were missing.
Fallout 4: Nuka-World
Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC
Just when you thought you'd escaped the clutches of the masterful Fallout 4, Bethesda go and release its most appealing expansion to date.
Nuka-World adds a significant chunk of new gameplay to the Wastelands: you've got a whole decaying amusement park to explore, filled with themed worlds that have their own unique horrors (think zombies, Raider factions, that sort of thing).
Add a heap of new weapons and creatures to the mix and you've got yourself a great reason to get stuck back into the best game of 2015.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Game of the Year Edition
Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC
What do you mean, you didn't play The Witcher 3? It was one of the finest games of 2015 - a sprawling fantasy title that saw you take on the role of Geralt of Rivia, standing against a dark force crawling over the war-torn lands of Temeria.
Not to worry - it's now got a 'Game of the Year Edition' you'll want to sink your thumbs into. It features all of the core game (which is already massive) plus the expansions Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. If you like your fantasy full of magic, swords and death, you need this in your life.
World of Warcraft: Legion
Platforms: PC
Be honest - you've always wanted to be a demon hunter, haven't you? It's just that nobody ever asked.
Well today's the day; World of Warcraft's latest addition, Legion, allows you to play a Demon Hunter, a new hero class of an elven outcast shunned for daring to wield the terrible powers of the Legion.
Add ten new dungeons, two raids, a bunch of new artifact weapons and a new level cap of 110 and you've got yourself a very good reason to stay indoors this September.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC
Stealth or action? Hack or attack? Sneak around boxes and take down goons like a ninja, or blast through hallways like a one-man army?
These are the choices at the heart of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - the latest instalment of the superb, sci-fi-tinged RPG series that established an incredibly high bar with its formative 2000 title, Deus Ex.
The themes of the series have been tightened for the latest entry: it's 2029 and the world sits in uneasy tension between those citizens with bodily augmentation and those without. You play an agent looking to uncover some murky conspiracies behind people looking to make profit from tipping the world into a chaotic war. While being a badass.
While the storyline lurches from the predictable to the ridiculous, the core action is worth sticking around for: whether you choose to pimp out Adam Jensen as an untraceable shadow or a bullet hose, it's an immensely enjoyable gadget-filled combat experience.
F1 2016
Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC
Do you enjoy F1? Are you the kind of gamer who'll happily wear a dent into their sofa as they repeat lap-after-lap of the same circuit, filling yourself with shudders of delight as you nail another apex?
Then you need F1 2016 in your life.
A massive career mode, that allows you to pick any of the 11 F1 teams, is filled with details that'll have F1 fans weeping with joy: tyre strategies, ambient weather conditions, shifting temperatures, radio communications, pit strategies. It's all here, in a package of insanely good graphics and balanced controls. Lock the door, turn off your phone, strap in and prepare for one of the greatest F1 experiences you've ever stuck in your console (or PC).
Diffission
Platforms: iOS
"A maths game? You're recommending a maths game? You nerds."
Well if enjoying a maths puzzle makes us nerds then... yeah, we guess it does.
Diffission is a pleasingly slick experience: you're presented with a shape that you must divide into a particular fraction. Swipe lines through the shape to cut it. Score points for your success.
As you progress through the levels, the shapes will become increasingly hard to divide, while additional labelled blocks will give you extra points if they're divided in the right way.
A much needed workout for some maths knowledge you probably haven't used since your GCSEs.
Deus Ex GO
Platforms: iOS, Android
First there was Hitman GO, a compact miniaturisation of Hitman in a neat smartphone puzzle game. Then there was Tomb Raider GO, a compact miniaturisation of Tomb Raider in a neat smartphone puzzle game. And now there's Deus Ex GO - you can see where this is going, right?
A top-down turn-based puzzler, you slide Adam Jensen around pre-set paths, avoiding deadly foe and hacking various computer thingies in order to reach your goal. Over 50 levels, a compelling little story, it'll keep your thumbs busy until the new Deus Ex: Humankind Divided arrives next week.
Batman: The Telltale series - Episode 1
Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC (mobile coming soon)
Telltale make really, really good episodic point-and-click adventures, stories that change direction and pace with the tap of a conversation option. If you're a Game of Thrones fan, we insist you download their series this bloody minute.
Now it's the turn of DC's Dark Knight to get his own Telltale treatment, with a story that centres on a fresh wave of corruption threatening to blight Gotham's good guy, Harvey Dent.
When Bruce Wayne/Batman (that's you) discovers that Dent is falling in with Gotham's crime family to help his political campaign, you're left with a series of choices that will reshape the city (and the rest of the game). How will you treat Dent as his key supporter, Wayne? And how will you disrupt things as Batman?
A refreshingly mature Batman game, with superb voice acting, DC fans are going to want to find a comfy seat and start tapping.
No Man's Sky
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PC
Did you grow up watching Star Trek, thinking "Well this is crap. I've been born in the wrong century. All I want to do with my life is explore the galaxy, stumble upon unseen wanders, meet new aliens and shoot them"?
Good news champ - No Man's Sky is the fulfilment of that childhood dream. A true opportunity to go boldly where no one has gone before, to be master of your own ship in a sea of endless possibility.
The game hints at its frankly unsociable scale from the get go: the camera pans through an apparently infinite galaxy, before fading to white. You appear to have awoken on a planet, discovering that your ship requires some major repairs. You must scale whatever terrain you find yourself on, hunting out elements, scanning local fauna and generally bumbling about as you learn the game's controls in a haphazard-yet-intuitive fashion.
You'll find ancient ruins, hinting at a wider story that will tug on your journey. You'll find alien ships, piloted by creatures that could become friend or foe. We don't know what else you'll find - we've only been playing for a week.
The real make-or-break moment occurs the first time you blast into the open skies: does the prospect of nearly-infinite exploration, resource management, trading, space warfare and more exploration fill you with glee or dread? Can you cope without multiplayer? Does a lack of guidance float your boat or sink your spaceship?
You will either look into the void and find monotony glaring back at you, or discard all other games for the foreseeable future in favour of "Just one more planet".
Championship Manager 17
Platforms: iOS, Android
FOOTBALL. ALL THE FOOTBALL, ALL THE TIME, ALL IN YOUR POCKET.
At least, that's what it feels like when you first power up Championship Manager 17 on your smartphone and are faced with the process of selecting one of 450 potential teams to guide to glory.
Fans of the Champ Man will discover the latest instalment has a gleaming new layout - which will probably result in 30 minutes of "Why did they change it?!", after which you realise it's actually all quite intuitive and slick.
First timer? Don't worry - there's a neat tutorial mode that'll take you by the hand and guide you through this veritable forest of stats, players and buttons. Kiss goodbye to your productivity.
We Happy Few
Platforms: PC (Steam - Early Access)
Grown tired of the bleak headlines on political turmoil, civil unrest and horrifying violence? Then how about escaping it all by playing a wonderful new game about political turmoil, civil unrest and horrifying violence!
Set in an alternative retrofuturistic Sixties (there's still heaps of drugs, don't worry) everyone living in the world of We Happy Few thinks that life is bloody brilliant - apart from you. If you let on that things aren't as grand as they seem, the locals will soon turn on you. It's the game George Orwell would have made.
It's not quite finished, but if you want to check it out, it's now available on Steam's 'Early Access' service.
HELP: The Game
Platforms: PC (Steam)
Want to play video games and help save the world? Course you do.
HELP: The Game is the product of 11 different developer studios, united back in September 2015 to help the charity War Child as part of a six-day 'game jam'. Working ceaselessly, they created 12 video games that are now available in this pack.
Titles include a platformer, puzzler games, logic teasers and a brilliant ball roller (pictured) that sees you take out landmines with this amazing thing. £9.99 well spent.
Dunkers
Platforms: iOS, Android
An infuriating, hilarious, addictive experience, Dunkers is sort of a basketball game (in the same way that table football is sort of a football game - it is, but it isn't).
You control a character (after a fashion, it's more luck than control) with two moves: "dunk", which moves you forward and "defend", which moves you backwards. Thing is, your arms spin continuously, without your input. You've just got to steal the ball and hope your chaotic movement will end in dunking it into your opponent's hoop.
Hyper Light Drifter
Platforms: PlatStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Macs
Forget HD graphics or 4K realism. This is the prettiest, most artful game you'll play this year. Just look at it...
The creation of the pixel-obsessives at Heart Machine, Hyper Light Drifter is a little bit of classic adventure romps (Chrono Trigger, Zelda) topped up with what we can only describe as sci-fi samurai skills.
There's a story, but it isn't told with words: other characters talk in odd little emoji and hieroglyphs. It just adds to the mystery of what's a very special experience - backed up by a soundtrack you're going to want on CD.
Be warned, it's harder than a loaf of bread you left in the back of your cupboard in 2012. But trying to beat it is one of the most captivating trials you'll face this year.
Quell Zen
Platforms: iOS, Android, PC
Video games don't always need to push your brain and reactions to their very limits to be enjoyable. Take Quell Zen, a puzzle/logic game designed to actually help you relax - and it really bloody works.
The aim of the game is to guide raindrops (d'aww) through some 200 mazes - each filled with switches and triggers that you must work out how to activate if you're to pass through a variety of barriers and obstacles. Soundtracked by one of the most soothing scores you'll ever encounter in a game, this is well worth the £2.99 download fee. Really.
Starbound
Platforms: PC
Do you like your adventures massive? Do you long to explore far-off planets and set up your own colony? Do you enjoy playing video games that never really end?
Then you're going to want to clear your diary and get stuck into Starbound - a game that's been tweaked and tinkered with since it was made available to players on Steam back in 2013. It's now been polished to the point of near-perfection, promising you limitless possibilities of space exploration, mining, colony building, heroic dare-doing - just about anything you fancy is waiting for you in this sandbox adventure.
You can either set yourself up as an intergalactic landlord, bomb about collecting rare creatures or set about saving the universe from the forces that destroyed your home - all in a gorgeous 2D world laden with detail. If it's your cup of tea, this will be the only game you play for the rest of the year.
I am Setsuna
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4
The legacy of retro JRPGs like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6 is plain to see in the stylings of I Am Setsuna - from the beautiful aesthetic to the mana-powered combat.
In this cute, beautiful role-playing title, Setsuna is chosen to act as a sacrifice to an evil fiend threatening to wreak havoc on her home island. You must travel with a band of friends and use kick-ass magic to help save your home and deliver Setsuna to her all-important showdown. Plug in and pretend it's 1995 all over again.
Super Stickman Golf 3
Platforms: iOS, Android
Forget crazy golf - Super Stickman Golf 3 is just about the most addictive round of 18 you can have without actually setting foot on a green.
An arcade golf experience with some neat puzzle elements (you're going to have to think about your angles if you're going to make every hole at par), the third instalment of Super Stickman comes with 20 courses and a brilliant new card system: once you complete a course or cash in some Golf Bux, you'll receive cards that unlock new character skins, power ups, hats that effect gameplay, stylish ball trails and XP points.
Chuck in some surprisingly competitive multiplayer modes to challenge your mates with, and you've got yourself one of the most rewarding 'sport' apps of the year.
Pokémon GO
Platforms: iOS, Android
Right, if you're not one of the millions to have already downloaded this augmented reality phenomena, here's the brief: it's like the world of your favourite Pokémon games had a baby with Google Maps.
You walk around real-world locations, navigating a map on which you'll be able to identify wild Pokémon to catch. You can then take on opposing teams in Gyms based at real-life locations, grab supplies at PokeStops and bump into other adults who are also reliving their childhood.
No, Pokémon GO isn't as good as loading up your old game of Pokémon Red and attempting to catch all 150. It'll drain your battery like a Rapidash on speed, and you may struggle to find any interesting Pokémon if you can't get out for a good long walk. But there's something magical here, which is bound to improve with future updates. Believe the hype.
Red Dead Redemption
Platform: Xbox One
Eh? The game that came out for consoles in 2010? Are you sure?
Yes, we're sure. The western classic from Rockstar Games is ripe for replaying, having now been added to the list of old titles eligible playing on your Xbox One via Backward Compatibility.
You can either stick your old Xbox 360 disc into your Xbox One and download the game, or if you didn't buy it first time round, download it afresh from the Xbox One store.
Nanuleu
Platforms: iOS
Right, we're going to talk to you about a strategy game that sees you build an army of magical trees and defend against invading dark forces.
Because that's what the delightful world of Nanuleu is actually about. Really. And it's brilliant.
You start with a single tree in a unique location. You must expand your network, gathering resources and strengthening your forest army. As you expand, you must build defences (different types of tree) to fight off shadowy little figures from neighbouring worlds.
It's a beautiful, thoughtful, well-crafted experience that deserves a spot on your iPhone. There should be more games about magic trees.
NBA Live Mobile
Platforms: iOS, Android
Mobile sports games are, by and large, pants. The controls are too fiddly, the physics don't really work and you just end up wanting to play a 'proper' console game.
Mercifully, that's not the case with NBA Live Mobile - a superb pocket companion to EA's wider basketball series. The controls are simple: there's one direction 'stick' on your screen, with three interchanging buttons that allow you to make all the basic plays.
In addition to playing five-on-five games, there's also a comprehensive management mode, allowing you to build your own 'franchise'. That's American for 'club'.
Best of all? It's free. So you've got no excuses (unless you hate basketball, in which case, fair enough).
The Higher Lower Game
Platforms: iOS, Android, PC
Higher! Higher! Lower! Higher! Bollocks.
This is essentially what you'll be doing when you fire up a round of 'The Higher Lower Game' - an app/web game that takes the familiar form and adds an element of the digital age by making you pick between average monthly searches.
Deceptively tricky, you'll be clocking along toward a high score before the dreaded happens: Does 'Tim Henman' get more monthly searches than 'Slippers'? Silly, simple fun.
INSIDE
Platforms: Xbox One (PC to follow on 7 July)
There's too much hyperbole in video games. It's exhausting. And yet, when we passed comment on INSIDE - the new atmospheric platformer from Playdead, the group behind the award-winning Limbo - we called it "the best game you'll play this year".
And it really is. No dialogue, two buttons, a deeply sinister story with more twists than a season of Game of Thrones (and as many deaths, depending on how nimble you are at the controls), it's beautiful in its simplicity. You play a young boy, isolated and on the run from an organisation apparently taking control of all humanity. Run, jump and think your way out of numerous tight-scrapes as you delve deeper into an infernal machine.
It's an utter joy.
LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, PlayStation 3, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation Vita - everything, really
Wipe that smirk off your face this minute. LEGO games aren't just for kids. Under the guidance of the studio Traveller's Tale (they've made over 20 of them), they've become a new staple in the adventure platform genre - and this is the most matured of the lot.
The Force Awakens expands on the tried-and-tested movie tie-in build with some brilliant new features: there's some intense 3D flight combat that mixes up the pace of things nicely, and the shooting system for the characters has been vastly improved.
With 11 'episodes' that reveal untold stories about characters from the film (with voice acting from the real bloody cast) this is a must for Star Wars fans.
Perchang
Platforms: iOS
Remember when you were a kid? When a marble and some sort of gradient could provide you with hours of entertainment?
Perchang replicates these formative delights on your iPhone: a puzzle marble run game, every level sees you control two features - one red, one blue - with a corresponding button. It could be a magnet, a switch, a fan, a flipper - something out of a game of Mousetrap.
You need to get a certain number of balls into an end goal in an allocated time limit - a simple process that becomes joyously addictive. While looking lovely, it's the physics of this game that make it a winner. Yep, a game that gets you excited about physics. It's that good.
Hyperburner
latforms: iOS
June is something of a hangover month for the games industry, pumping itself up on the news hype of E3 before finding a sofa to curl up on and release hardly any games of note.
Mercifully, Hyperburner has blasted onto iPhones at unlikely speeds with some welcome thrills.
A high speed runner/dodger game, it sees you navigate your space craft through increasingly small gaps in oncoming debris. There are six zones to master, each with five challenges. No still image can really do it justice - it's one of the most gorgeous, fluid games you'll ever download, with graphics that rattle along at sweat-inducing speeds.
Get ready to stretch your reaction times to breaking point.
Mirror's Edge: Catalyst
Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC
We've never been free running. Don't have the knees for it, and with the likes of Mirror's Edge: Catalyst around, we can experience all the thrills of jumping off cranes and seriously tall buildings from the comfort of our sofa.
You play Faith - that woman bounding over a ledge in the image. Set in the futuristic city of Glass, ruled by the shady bunch known as the Conglomerate, it's up to you to take down this bunch - which obviously involves using your amazing agility to get into areas you're not supposed to be.
We use the phrase 'stunning visuals' too much writing about games - but you know what? This game looks really, really good. A refreshing break from the average platform title.
Player.Me
Platforms: PC, iOS, Android
Okay, so this isn't a game - but you're still going to love it.
Player.me is a new social network/platform/space for anyone who loves games to share all their activity in one convenient hub, grouping together all your separate gaming accounts and personalities into one neat package. Show off the games you're playing across all your devices, share your images and videos, meet new people, find new team-mates - if you're a serious gamer, you'll wonder how you managed without it.
Lost Frontier
Platforms: iOS
There aren't enough video games about cowboys.
While we keep every limb crossed that Red Dead Redemption 2 knocks the doors of this year's E3 festival, we can itch our Western scratch with this neat little app: Lost Frontier.
A turn-based strategy game with 24 chapters to its story mode, you must guide your 'Living Legend' and his crew of heavies to glory, moving across grid-based cartoon worlds to capturing saloons, shoot cowboys and build up a gang of gunslingers. It's an endearing app that'll push your tactical thinking to the limit.
Overwatch
Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC
Do you hate your social life? Do you wish for an excuse to spend hours upon hours of your life glued to a controller, mastering a handful of brightly coloured characters and their unique special abilities, rattling off taunt poses at opportune moments?
Then you need Overwatch in your disc drive right now.
Having already mastered mutliplayer mechanics with the likes of World of Warcraft, Blizzard's new team shooter is sublime. The 21 heroes overlap in strengths and weaknesses like a huge game of rock-paper-scissor; the potential for tactical gameplans is mind-bogglingly massive.
Get it. Play it. Become obsessed.
Total War: Warhammer
Platform: PC
The table top strategy battle game many of us (OK, just some of us) wasted most of our childhood pocket money on has finally been given the video game treatment it deserves, with Games Workshop teaming up with the creators of the superb Total War series in a partnership as perfect as Vardy and Kane (football's coming home lads, we can feel it).
Pick from four races (men of the Empire, Dwarfs, Vampire Counts and the Orcs and Goblins) and lose your weekend to numerous campaigns and quests - or unleash carnage as one of eight legendary characters on the battlefield. No painting required.
Fallout 4: Far Harbor
Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC
Just when you thought you'd exhausted the Wasteland of all its hidden gems, Bethesda releases a new chunk of story for Fallout 4 fans to fill their evenings with.
A new case from Valentine’s Detective Agency leads you on a search for a young woman and a secret colony of synths. Travelling off the coast of Maine you reach the mysterious island of Far Harbor, where higher levels of radiation have created a more feral world (the bugs are MASSIVE). It's the biggest expansion (and probably best) Bethesda has ever made for a game, so cancel your plans for the next few weeks.
Homefront: The Revolution
Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC
Set in a dystopian Philadelphia ruled by an oppressive military regime, this team-based shooter relies on careful planning and strategy to get results - as well as a good deal of blowing the heck out of patrol groups with a well-aimed grenade.
Part solo shooter, part mutliplayer experience, there's a lot to get your teeth into in Homefront: The Revolution - it's a big, open world environment with an endless string of enemy troops to drain your bullets into. The story ticks along nicely, but the game is at its best when you team up with three other mates for a bout of co-op play: it's an experience you've encountered in countless other shooters, but Homefront manages to create some delightfully tricky missions that require patience and proper tactics (our preferred play of 'run in with a rocket launcher' didn't really work out).
Doom
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Welcome back to hell.
Some 23 years after it first came screaming in from the shadows to change video games forever, Doom returns - faster and bloodier than ever.
Set in tight, twisting corridors and industrial spaces aboard a Mars colony filled with what are basically a bunch of demons intent on chewing your face off, the new title pans out much like the game from your youth: shoot anything that moves. If you can't shoot it, punch it. Or kick it. Tear it to bright-red pieces before moving onto the next twisted horror. Seriously, it's relentless.
With an equally frantic multiplayer, this space age gore-fest is glorious-if-ridiculous. Entertainment for all the family (so long as they're over 18 and don't flinch at watching a chainsaw peel through monster limbs).
Uncharted: Fortune Hunter
Platforms: iOS, Android
Typical. You wait five years for a new Uncharted game (the remakes don't count) and you get two in one week.
To partner the release of Uncharted 4 (a game we can't really heap enough praise on - just play it already) comes this pocket-sized companion.
A pure puzzle game, you move a cartoonised Nathan Drake around tile-based boards, navigating obstacles and collecting treasures. In addition to being good fun, the app's points win prizes: link the game to your PlayStation 4 account and you can get new multiplayer rewards for the console game, likes skins and one-use bonuses.
Great even if you don't have the main game. But you really should.
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
Platform: PlayStation 4
Uncharted 4 feels like the game the PlayStation 4 has been waiting for: yes, there have been a lot of fine titles released in the console's two-and-a-half year history, but none of them feel quite as polished as Naughty Dog's latest Uncharted.
A refined blockbuster experience, it nudges the franchise into darker, more mature quarters. Nathan Drake is living the quiet life when his older brother (presumed dead) turns up with an insane story about a long-lost pirate colony. Yes, there are heaps of cutscenes to watch, and a lot of story to get through - but this is a taut, handsome, relentless action title.
If you haven’t played an Uncharted title before (where have you been?), this is the perfect time to acquaint yourself to Nathan Drake.
Snake.io
Platforms: Android
This is evolution in a game - which might sound like a crap science project from your youth, but it's actually surprisingly addictive.
You control a snake/worm, eating food and other worms in order to grow in length and improve your score. However, the other worms you're competing against are controlled by real-life people from around the globe. It's survival of the fittest.
INKS.
Platform: iOS
Ever played a game of pinball and thought "This could do with more paint"? Us neither, but it's an idea that clearly struck in the minds of State of Play Games.
Their new pinball creation is a work of art - literally. There are over 100 pinball tables, each with a unique shape a set of 'inks' to thrash your ball into. Tables are 'completed' once you've exhausted the ink supply, leaving you with a messy, beautiful creation. Take a snap when you're done and hang it on the fridge.
The perfect brain drainer.
Sea Hero Quest
Platform: iOS, Android
Sea Hero Quest deserves every ounce of hyperbole you care to slap on it.
Every two minutes spent exploring the beautiful aquatic locations of the app is equal to five hours of lab-based research into dementia.
Navigate mazes, shoot flares to test players’ orientation, chase creatures to capture photos of them, all the while providing researchers with invaluable data on spatial navigation - a key skill that can be lost with early onset dementia.
Battleborn
Platforms: PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4
If you fuelled a first-person shooter with sugary sweets, Coke and upgrades, you'd end up with a right mess. That's not how you make video games, you fool.
But it's not a bad way to describe the high-octane thrills on offer in Battleborn. A first-person shooter with a focus on online, manic multiplayer battles, you get to pick from a brightly-coloured rostra of characters - the Battleborn - to partake in a war to protect the universe's very last star a 'mysterious evil'.
While a solo campaign offers some good old "run here, shoot that" missions, the real meat of the action is to be had in the three multiplayer modes: Incursion (defend a base from enemy AI), Capture (occupy points on a map) and Meltdown (a bonkers game that sees you guiding minions to a giant incinerator). Fast, furious and a lot of fun.
The Banner Saga 2
Platforms: PC
Vikings. They're up there with ninjas, space marines and professional footballers in the list of "characters we'll only get to be in video games".
A sequel to the beautiful Banner Saga that finally arrived on consoles at the beginning of the year, this new hand-drawn title is somehow even prettier than its predecessor. Choose a race, pick your character and lead your caravan of hardened warriors on an epic battle of survival through frozen wastelands.
Manage your supplies, take on fearsome armies, hone your battle tactics - all while taking in some of the best looking game artwork you've ever seen.
Did we mention it was pretty?
Fallen London
Platforms: iOS
"That looks familiar..."
Good spot - there's finally a miniaturised version of one of the best web games ever made.
A literary role-playing game, Fallen London is a dark, gothic tale of fantasy: Thirty years ago, London was stolen. Now resting on the shore of the Unterzee, that old dark ocean under the world, immortality is now cheap, and the screaming has largely stopped…
Part book, part game, this threatens to become your new commute obsession.
Football CEO Pro
Platforms: iOS, Android
"It's not the manager's fault, it's the owners/board/CEO!"
The gripe of modern football fan is the core focus of this mobile footy sim, Football CEO Pro. You're in charge of the operational and commercial functions of the club - everything from team sponsor to hiring and firing staff, setting price tickets to negotiating contracts.
There's an added incentive to letting yourself slip into this addictive management experience: proceeds from the app go to supporting Vi-Ability community initiatives, helping young people gain qualifications in commercial sports management.
Ratchet & Clank
Platforms: PlayStation 4
Stick with us here, but this is a game, based on an upcoming film, based on the original 2002 game. While that sounds like a recipe for disaster, Sony's beloved platforming duo somehow manages to pull it off.
It's not just the graphics that have improved in the 14 years since the original PS2 title: the action is tighter, the levels more challenging, the pace a little brisker.
The story follows the same arc of uniting the two unlikely friends, working out what the heck Captain Qwark is up to and invariably saving the galaxy. It's not a dull retelling of an old story, but a joyous slice of slick jump-n-shoot fun, with credible jokes to boot.
Much more than a nostalgia cash-in.
Hammer Bomb
Platforms: iOS, Android
Ever wondered what Pac-Man must have seen as he made his way around his eternal prison? Us neither, but it's the best way of explaining the first-person perspective of this maze game.
Run around mazes, pick up power-ups (pizza, pies, that kind of thing), arm yourself with pointy things and take on increasingly menacing bosses. A simple, brilliantly-executed dungeon arcade adventure.
Star Fox Zero
Platforms: Wii U
Fox McCloud has - after much teasing, some odd demonstrations
