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If you trust my recommendations even a little bit, buy this game and play it without reading one single word further about it. This is a game centred around exploration and discovery, so the less you know, the more joy there is to be mined from the experience.

Not convinced? Read on, and I will attempt the difficult task of convincing you to play a videogame without telling you anything about it.

Off the bat, this is, in my opinion, one of the greatest videogames of all time. It's a 9.5/10 at least. It's also a perfect exemplar of what videogames as a medium can be and do: this could not be a book, or a movie. It could only be a videogame.

The headline genre here is "puzzle", but really it's a game about discovery, about archeology, about figuring out what is happening via what has happened. If you liked Myst, or Horizon: Zero Dawn, or Zelda: Breath of the Wild, there is something here for you. Even though most of what you are learning or reading is from the past, the story you uncover still manages to have twists and turns, surprises, moments of joy and discovery, and of despair and grief. This game will take you on an emotional journey. And unlike so many media that set up mystery and intrigue, the Outer Wilds does satisfyingly stick the landing. Every thread leads somewhere, every question has an answer — even questions that you did not realise would have answers, even questions you did not realise were questions at all until they were answered, and thus implicitly asked. That is to say: this is not a J. J. Abrams joint. There is a truly excellent science fiction story at the heart of this game, woven through it — no, the game is woven from it. The harmony between game — gameplay, physics, mechanics, core gameplay loop — and narrative is perhaps more tightly woven here than any other game.

But this isn't a walking simulator, or a visual novel. This is a game. It is a challenge. It is a puzzle game. It will stretch your grey matter and leave you scratching your head one moment, and feeling like a genius for cracking a puzzle the next. The best summary I ever heard is that a game like Breath of the Wild is a world containing puzzles; in The Outer Wilds, the world is a puzzle. Later in your playthrough, when you take a step back and begin to realise the machinations of the developers, to understand the sheer enormity of what they have built with this game, when you start to see the game not as a set of small gears but as a giant mechanism that fits together as perfectly as a very expensive Swiss watch, you might — as I did — swear out loud. What they have achieved here does not seem possible. I can only imagine what dark arts, what unholy bargains, were struck in order to create this.

And is it fun? Hell yeah, brother, it is fun. The physics simulation starts out clunky and strange, but soon you will be leaping through the air with joy, exploring the solar system with your rickety spaceship often in a similar manner to which a pinball ball navigates a table. There's hints of Kerbal here, and <meme of your choice> simulator, and also bumper cars. But the true joy comes from tying it all together: the mental decision on where to go, the physical challenge of getting there, the joy of discovery, the enlightenment as another piece of the mental puzzle drops into place.

What else is there to say?

Well, the reason it's a 9.5 out of 10 and not a 10/10 is that it's a little slow to get started. Give it a few hours to unfold a little and reveal to you what game is afoot, and to get used to the unconventional — but masterable — spaceship controls. If it doesn't grab you immediately, that is understandable, but I'm telling you: Give it a few hours and I promise it will suck you in for another 20. What you'll be left with is the finest puzzle and narrative game since Myst.

This is an incredible tech demo. Portal's new facelift is absolutely gorgeous and I've spent minutes just staring at the walls and looking at how the lighting interacts with various materials. If you have an RT-capable graphics card, this is a great excuse to replay Portal again (and really, not much excuse is needed, is it?).

Performance-wise, it runs a lot better than I was expecting. Easy to clear 50fps with a 3090 by turning DLSS to performance mode, and it still looks fantastic at that setting. From the pre-release chatter it sounded like a 4xxx series card would be mandatory, but apparently not!

An absolute gem of a game. "Co-op multiplayer FPS roguelite" might sound like an odd mix, but the combination is a genius one. The transient nature of each run means no-one is left behind if they can't join every session, and while the persistent upgrades are a nice mechanic that reward you coming back again and again, they don't make so much difference that you can't have fun together at different levels. This is the perfect game to play casually with friends online, and the random nature of the power-ups combined with the robust execution on the shooting mechanics themselves will keep you coming back again and again for just one more try.

Ok, I'm going to start over again, but THIS TIME I'll get it right. Just this one more time... and this time it will be great. I'll plan it all ahead, everything will fit in, and oh... oh dear. Well maybe if I move that over and... well then I have to... no, that doesn't quite work. Ok, just one more, but THIS TIME...

Welcome to Factorio, the game where you endlessly pursue perfection, only to be undone by your human inability to plan ahead. If you've ever dreamed of designing an entire factory or chemical plant yourself this is the game for you! If you haven't, you may have a few questions...

Factorio is like Minecraft, if the cap of the crafting tree was 1000x higher. You'll start out the usual way: punch down a tree, make a stick. But soon you're making factories to churn out the items you need, then you're making factories that make factories, balancing production and consumption and managing miles of conveyor belts. Unlike Minecraft, Factorio always keeps you driven, there's always a goal in sight and an ultimate purpose to work towards - even if your ultimate purpose is so far in the distance you only focus on getting just one step forward in the tech tree. As you do you take great care and pleasure in optimising your current pipeline, scaling it out, until one day, inevitably... you've built yourself into a corner. You've tried to rebuild around the problem but you can't. It's time to start over again.

But this time you have even more knowledge, experience, wisdom even! You won't make the mistakes of 2 hours ago, those are in the past. This new factory will be a veritable monument to efficiency! And thus you push one, or maybe three steps forward in the tech tree, until... oh dear. Well, I could try to move that, or I could start over...

This would be a frustrating experience if it wasn't for the sheer joy in the micro details of this sim, where you're laying down every pipe and conveyor belt, and can spend hours just learning the intricacies of ferrying items from A to B. Factorio excels in the fact you can enjoy the nitty gritty details and the big picture of creating such a complex machine - and at the end of the day, you will take pride in what you have created. Even if it did have that one problem, you know better for next time.

One of the most entertaining local multiplayer games ever made. Anyone can pick it up and play it - it's tetris after all! - but there's enough depth and variety to keep coming back to this for hours. A perfect party game.

Absolutely superb. The gameplay, the visuals, the soundtrack... everything on its own is remarkable, and as a whole is so much more than the sum of its parts. Don't read about it, don't watch youtube videos, and don't listen to the soundtrack. Buy this damn game, and let it surprise you. It clocked in at 11 hours to complete for me, and I'm about to dive back in and play it all over again - tonnes of unlockables, tonnes of customisation, very high replay value.

This is my pick for "Game Of The Year 2011". Not just Indie GOTY - overall!

While Half-Life 2 perfected the corridor shooter, and Episode One refined that experience, Episode Two takes the series in a new direction with some large outdoor set pieces. It doesn't give the player the free roam of games like Far Cry, but it's still a breath of fresh air compared to its siblings. As usual for a Half-Life game there are many unforgettable "oh my god did you see that?" moments, and it really makes you work hard to save the human race. The conclusion left me feeling physically and mentally exhausted, but also eager for more - so my only criticism is WHERE IS EPISODE THREE?

Episode 1 continues the Half-Life saga where Half-Life 2 left off, and is perhaps one of the tightest corridor shooter experiences available. Intense from start to finish, this game is frantic without ever being overwhelming. Put aside enough time to complete it in one sitting, because it's hard to put down.

Half-Life 2 took the world by storm, and is still immensely enjoyable to replay today. Valve's level design has stood the test of time, and the voice acting and facial animation is still putting games to shame five years on.