Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Pretty much does everything I want a AAA action-adventure game to do: the characters are strong and believable, the combat is fluid and intuitive and great fun to watch, the story is more interested in being focused than being long, the open-world activities are varied enough to prevent any boredom creeping in while going for 100% completion (and most of them reward you with extra lore about the characters and the universe), and best and most crucial of all, it creates a vision of Harlem that feels palpably alive. From the small flourishes of graffiti, podcasts, and people stopping Spiderman in the street to ask for selfies, to the broader thematic strokes (most strikingly, you're left with the feeling that the real, constant enemy in this neighbourhood is gentrification, that the rick prick bad guy here is just the latest in a line of rich pricks only too willing to destroy the local community for their own greed), Insomniac have done a brilliant job of conjuring a living, breathing, truly three-dimensional city to play with.

Concerns about the game's length....well, they aren't exactly invalid, but I honestly wish more games in this vein were shorter than they are, and not just because of the grotesque working conditions that game developers are often made to suffer through. This is a genre that lends itself readily to wasting the player's time, padding the game's length with repetition and mundane activities that add nothing to the gameplay, the world, or the story. I never once felt that Miles Morales was just doing something for the sake of it, and I think there's a lot to be said for that.