Stalker 2 (Xbox, PC, £49.99 or included in Xbox Game Pass)

Verdict: A brutal beauty

Stalker 2 sure isn't playing. The first thing it has you, a grizzled mercenary called Skif, do is clamber through messy sewerage pipes, past dead and mutated bodies, to irradiated badlands beyond. On exit, you're attacked by a horrible pig-thing which takes most of your bullets to put down. Soon after, you're shooting into nothingness as an invisible monster zaps around.

"In this respect, this sequel is much like its predecessors -- and, yes, the plural is right."

The first Stalker game came out in 2007 and was swiftly followed by two more, all set in an alternate sci-fi version of the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

They're all brutal and strange. Though none of their mysteries compare to the one about why this new sequel is numbered as the second.

"Perhaps it's because, coming 15 years after the last entry, Stalker 2 represents such a generational leap."

Its open-world Zone is vast and full of incident. Its graphics make this place of rust and time-space anomalies utterly believable. Its gunplay is heartstoppingly precise.

"When it all works, this game is quite special."

I repeat: when it all works.

"Be warned," writes Peter Hoskin. "Stalker 2 is full of bugs... some veteran stalkers will welcome this scrappiness."

Others will eagerly await improvements that are surely coming down the wires. But then you remember that this Ukrainian-set game was actually made in Ukraine during a war. So a certain lack of polish is understandable.

"Well done," says Hoskin to those games developers -- "and thanks." Good luck in the Zone.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (Xbox, PC, £69.99 or included in Xbox Game Pass)

Verdict: Soaring (and snoring)

"Come fly with me," says Sinatra almost sang; let's float down to... well anywhere really.

The latest Microsoft Flight Simulator has just been released -- and it really does give you the world. You can take your plane to Peru or Poland or Peterborough instead.

"Everything beneath your aircraft is rendered from satellite imagery; everything above it draws on actual real-time weather data."

The new career mode trains you up from humble single-seaters to behemothic airliners - it's a great way to earn your wings. Individual missions see rescuing stranded hikers & dumping water on raging wildfires.