Games

While it doesn’t quite have the same kind of brand recognition as either Street Fighter or Tekken, Namco’s SoulCalibur series has still carved itself a sizeable following amongst beat ‘em up fans. Much of this can be put down to the fact that – despite being based around similar one-on-one tournaments – the games play quite differently from the competition.

Split/Second: Velocity is all about driving ridiculously fast and using every trick at your disposal to nobble the seven opponents sharing the track with you. But you can forget all about the usual tricks of using your car as a battering ram or firing missiles at your rivals, as this game takes as many of its cues from Michael Bay's movies as it has from previous racers like Burnout and Mario Kart. Epic destruction is the order of the day, where instead of simply firing a weapon at another car, you trigger a huge series of explosions dropping an entire building on it instead!

The two biggest rivals in the beat ‘em up genre – Capcom’s Street Fighter and Namco’s Tekken – have put their differences aside to, ahem, beat the crap out of each other in this super-charged arcade smackdown. But can any game really live up to the kind of expectations that surround this one? Well, as far as this reviewer is concerned, the answer is a resounding ‘yes’.

You may not be able to watch Sony Pictures’ new Spider-Man reboot on your home cinema until later this year, but in the meantime you can always try your hand at swinging through the streets of Manhattan yourself that to this videogame.

Bethesda’s latest open-world role-playing game doesn’t try to redefine the genre. Indeed, the story it tells packs in pretty much every fantasy cliché you can think of (including your own character, who just happens to be the return of a line of mystical warriors long thought vanished from the realm, blah, blah, blah...). But what ...Skyrim does so well is refine the genre and deliver an awesome gaming experience.

This steampunk actioner is the most overtly cinematic game yet released for the PS4. Set in an alternate Victorian reality, it pitches werewolves against the descendants of the Knights of the Round Table, against a backdrop of incongruous tech and Ripper lore. In many ways, The Order: 1886 is the best film Paul W.S. Anderson never made.

It sometimes feels like the only point of innovation most game developers bring to online shooters is the variety of weapons players are given to kill each other. Where Titanfall succeeds is its focus on redefining how you move around the world on offer.