Fisticuffs! Glorious competition, settled on a stage between two individuals who are ready to put everything on the line to see who’s the best. In many ways, fighting games are the essence of competition boiled to its purest form and unleashed with all manner of face-melting techniques that favour the skilled. 2019 may not have been bursting at the seams with fighting games, but what entries there were in this cult favourite genre were some of the best excuses ever to throw down a gauntlet and pick a fight online.

You could argue that every video game is an action, and you’d be right! For this award though, we’re looking at those games whose inherent activity that you have agency over is just so gosh dang good that you can ignore everything else about it. The games whose ability to rock you like a hurricane more than makes up for a silly story, occasional glitches or even a lack of ambition.

With an industry that’s obsessed with getting the most bang for buck with any new game, few live service games truly manage to rise above the obvious cash-grab trap and find themselves settling into a groove of establishing a community and then toiling away to create new content on a consistent schedule. That’s not to say that one such game doesn’t exist.

As we wind back the clock and have a look at what 2019 had to offer gamers, it feels only fitting to start the first of our annual time travel trips to shine a light on the best new experiences that popped up throughout the year. In an industry where sequels dominate and current games are positioned to stretch as much longevity out of a property as is humanly possible, it’s new ideas that are seen as risky business.

Need for Speed Heat may fall short in some areas, but by the racing gods I’ll defend this game’s ability to put a smile on my face with its high-speed cornering until the day I die.

We’re a month away from a new decade rolling into town, and when you look back at the last ten years of gaming its staggering to see just how far the medium has come. From an age of ambition to an era of quality without compromise, video games and the devices that we play them on have evolved over the years into the best entertainment that money can buy.

Look at us! Who would have thought that after eleven months of lows, middles and incredible highs we’d up here? Not me! The year, she is almost over like Grover. After a few months that included the likes of Pokémon, Star Wars and Death Stranding, December is usually the cigarette you light up as you bask in the afterglow of a hot and steamy session with big budget games.

Narcos: Rise of the Cartels was shaping up to be a fascinating advert for Netflix’s hit series, but the overall quid pro quo bend of strategy ultimately makes it the shallowest of tie-ins. This is one Search Bloc party that you can count me out for.