PlayStation Trophies

Despite the bugs, the wonky controls and obvious issues, Disco Elysium – The Final Cut still manages to be an utterly brilliant video game. One that is dark, twisted, enigmatic, enthralling and an absolute pleasure to lose yourself in. It could have just used a couple more months in the oven.

Oddworld: Soulstorm’s highs are infrequent but often excellent, with wonderful visuals, an engaging story and a unique world to explore, as well as a few great puzzle levels that prove enormously gratifying.

Flitting between being a cover shooter one minute and a power fantasy the next, Outriders' biggest problem is that its mechanics are serviceable, but ultimately, uninteresting. As for its attempt at creating a compelling narrative to tie the whole thing together, we'd rather People Can Fly (a studio that injected Bulletstorm with colour and personality to spare) hadn't bothered.

I understand that Balan Wonderworld wasn't made with me in mind – clearly it's meant for a far younger demographic. But even from an objective standpoint, I can't figure out why anyone would want to voluntarily sink hours of their life into such an annoying and incoherent game.

A singularly jubilant experience, It Takes Two is one of the finest, if not the finest co-op games we've ever played. Positively brimming with invention and playful brio, Hazelight and director Josef Fares have found their niche and chiselled out something truly unique and special.

The original Little Nightmares was an easy recommendation, blending distinctive and disturbing visuals with elegant gameplay that, despite its imperfections, succeeded in being an unforgettable journey. Tarsier's sequel is similarly vivid and will live on in the mind long after you've finished it, but Little Nightmares II is, regrettably, a nightmare for all of the wrong reasons.

Currently, the game's voice chat is horrible, too, seeing your DualSense speaker emitting ghastly noises from other players by default, that will have you swiftly reaching for the mute button.

From a pure gameplay perspective, it isn’t terrible, but often suffers from simply being boring and repetitive. When this is compounded with its significant presentational issues and lacklustre storytelling, it all just ends up a bit of a howling mess.

What I do know is that while Hitman 3 is a great game, one that is cast in the same mould as the previous iterations and just as memorable, it’s definitely the weaker game of the three.

Night City is one of the most incredible worlds I’ve ever stepped foot into – it’s just such a shame about the state of the game. Still, despite all the bugs, for someone who absolutely adores sci-fi, Cyberpunk 2077 is easily one of my favourite games of all-time; it could have been so much more though for so many people.

As a PlayStation Plus title, it's a perfect fit, and while it might not achieve the lofty success that Rocket League did, there is the nugget of something appealing here, that will hopefully expand in meaningful and interesting ways. Worms Rumble is a whole new can of worms, then, and for the most part, it's enjoyable stuff.

Immortals Fenyx Rising is a strange beast, then. Much of it feels very familiar, and you won’t find many things here that haven’t been done before. Yet, it manages to pull together so many different aspects with such proficiency and love for the source material that it’s impossible not to simply enjoy soaking it all up, in an adventure worthy of the Greek heroes of old.

As an homage to From’s original game, Bluepoint has absolutely nailed it, and having it run so smoothly on PlayStation 5 makes the experience so much sweeter. If anything, all it did for me was cement in my mind the advancements that Souls games have made since this game rolled out in 2009, all of which are for the better. Regardless of all that, Demon’s Souls remains a fantastic experience, one that will make you marvel at the origins of a genre.

Astro's Playroom, as a free pack-in game for PlayStation 5, could have quite easily been a lightweight and throwaway thing – a means to demonstrate the DualSense controller and little else. That it succeeds as a remarkably accomplished 3D platformer in its own right, and one that never fails to entertain and delight in equal measure, is proof positive that Asobi Studio has crafted something very special indeed.

Therein lies the eternal appeal of Call of Duty – you always know what you're getting and it never fails to deliver on some front. Even if you end up disliking one mode, there's another that you'll inevitably love and sink time into. You could play through the campaign a couple of times – and with differing choices and endings, there's ample scope to do so – and not feel too shortchanged.

Ultimately, Sackboy: A Big Adventure doesn’t do too much new with the genre, but it proves to be a real love letter to many of the great platformers that have come before. Whether playing through in single-player or co-op, there’s tons of content to sink your teeth into here, and you’d have to try really hard not to have a ton of fun along the way.

Like Miles himself, this is something lean but powerful - a superhero experience to enjoy at a leisurely pace over a few days, before diving right back in for a second helping, via New Game+. There's certainly an argument here for more games of a similar ilk, slender but punchy, and deft at spinning a compelling web of intrigue.

DIRT 5 is undoubtedly Codemasters' best racing game yet - a spectacular series entry that straddles the outgoing and incoming generations with jaw-dropping visuals and a sense of pure fun that's impossible to escape. A fantastic game, there are few racers that thrill and delight in equal measure like this one.

There's an awful lot to Assassin's Creed Valhalla, making it every bit as comprehensive and all-encompassing as Ubisoft Montreal's previous two efforts. It might fall short of raising the bar that Assassin's Creed Odyssey set for the series, but it certainly has a fair old go at equalling what's gone before.

We need more games like this, please. Funny, irreverent, varied, and utterly superb, Lair of the Clockwork God is definitely worth snapping up.

There's a reason EA singled out Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit for the remaster treatment – it's still great. Throw in all the DLC, all of the features the original had, and a litany of impressive visual enhancements, and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered is most definitely a racer worth returning to. And if it's your first time, well, lucky you.

Put it all together and it's impossible not to declare Yakuza: Like a Dragon's new direction for the series an unmitigated triumph. Ichiban's enthusiasm, with his dreams of becoming a hero, proves infectious, and while he may think he's worthy of only a dragonfish tattoo on his back, we think he's worthy of something more like a dragon.

The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope provides an entertaining horror romp that is high on tension, but perhaps a little too low on actual scares. Regardless, its mix of good performances, excellent visuals and an intriguing mystery will keep you engrossed throughout, even if it falls a bit flat in the finale.

The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope provides an entertaining horror romp that is high on tension, but perhaps a little too low on actual scares. Regardless, its mix of good performances, excellent visuals and an intriguing mystery will keep you engrossed throughout, even if it falls a bit flat in the finale.

Ubisoft Toronto has done a fine job in bringing a broken, near-future London to grim life in Watch Dogs: Legion, and playing as anyone you like has a certain appeal, but ultimately, it doesn't quite work as well as one might have hoped.