Tin Man Games has carved out a successful niche, producing electronic versions of the classic Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks (as well as its own, original, Gamebook Adventures series). Created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, the Fighting Fantasy books turned their author’s love of tabletop Dungeons & Dragons into branching narratives in which readers/players decide how to progress through the story, punctuated by battles and tests of luck using dice-rolls.

Most casual gamers are familiar with the open world gameplay ethic, where you can, within reason, travel anywhere within the gameworld at any time. From driving through a sprawling city in Grand Theft Auto V to sneaking through a tropical jungle in Far Cry 4, open world adds exploration, a feeling of anything being possible and brings a sense of reality to the gameplay, where invisible walls are a thing of the past.

Just when fans were beginning to think it would never appear, Act IV of Cardboard Computer’s arthouse point ‘n’ click adventure, Kentucky Route Zero has appeared like a lonely delivery truck on a misty highway. Have you played Kentucky Route Zero?

If you've been outside in the past week or so, you will have seen someone playing Pokémon Go even if you didn’t realise it at the time. To the casual eye, a Pokémon Go player might appear to be checking their phone for an incoming text or studying a Google Map. Just normal people doing normal phone stuff.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens has awoken, run around the world, made a ton of box office cash, done it all again on DVD, sold more merchandise than a Rolling Stones tour, and now finally gets the Lego treatment in video game form. Where does Disney bury all the revenue? There must be cavernous vaults under the Magic Kingdom.

The original Heroes of Loot put you in control of a Warrior, Valkyrie, Wizard or Elf who wanted nothing more than to stripmine their local dungeon of anything shiny and valuable that the owners had failed to nail down. The sequel, a fast-paced, fun take on the dungeon crawler that jettisons any semblance of planning and strategy in favour of frantic monster slaughter, is more of the same. However, this time you get to perform your frantic felony in a pair – although not, as it turns out, in a multiplayer game.

There are moments of real atmospheric oppression in this politically themed gun game. When you and your ragtag bunch of freedom fighter recruits are crouched behind a burnt-out car, dodging green scanning lasers streaking through the night sky from a monolithic airship as drones whizz past on a search and destroy mission, you can feel what the developers are trying to achieve. You’re the hunted on home ground. The odds are stacked against you, there’s an urgent insurgency and you’re the main militiaman. Heavy stuff.

If a good game is measured by the sum of its parts, then Battleborn is a cacophonous cocktail overflowing with noisy, distracting ingredients, fighting for your attention and clouding the overall flavour. Like a big night out, this fast-paced blaster has a tendency to be a bit messy, but good fun at the same time.

Pathfinder started life as a tabletop role-playing game. A spin-off from the classic Dungeons & Dragons, it was created during a schism over the direction the main game was taking and quickly established itself as a rival with a fanatical following.

Ratchet & Clank may well be the biggest chart topping videogame double act you’ve never heard of, but all that is set to change. After a dozen games in 14 years, Ratchet, the feline-like character known as a lombax, and diminutive robot Clank, have got a headline-grabbing year ahead of them.