PLAYING IT YULE

Let the gaming begin…

MARVEL’S SPIDER-MAN 2

RRP FROM £62.99 VARIOUS RETAILERS

Insomniac Games’ sequel serves up two webslingers for the price of one. Peter Parker and Miles Morales join forces to save New York from Kraven the Hunter, a fearsome foe seeking to test himself against the Big Apple’s myriad supervillains. New gadgets offer even smoother and more versatile combat and traversal in this wonderfully sleek, nimble-footed blockbuster.

01 META QUEST 3

RRP £479.99 VARIOUS RETAILERS

The latest virtual-reality headset from Zuckerberg and co offers a significant improvement in fidelity, power and storage over its predecessor. And that’s not all: gazumping Apple’s costly Vision Pro (due out in early 2024), it comes with two cameras and a depth projector, supporting full-colour passthrough so your VR experiences can blend with the room you’re playing in.

02 SUPER MARIO BROS. WONDER

RRP £49.99 VARIOUS RETAILERS

For the last two decades, the ebullient plumber’s most inventive adventures have been in three dimensions, with his 2D outings reserved for nostalgic, throwback platforming fun. No longer: the first side-scrolling Mario game post-2011 is the most creative of its kind since the 16-bit era, thanks to the transformative Wonder Flowers that produce a variety of hallucinatory effects on every level.

03 PLAYSTATION PORTAL

RRP £199.99 VARIOUS RETAILERS

Fed up of your family hogging the TV on Christmas Day? Don’t worry – you can still play your PS5 favourites via this Wi-Fi handheld remote player, a Switch-like portable device that combines the haptic functionality of the DualSense controllers with a handsome eight-inch LCD screen. At £200 it’s not cheap, but you can’t put a price on keeping the peace over the festive season…

04 AVATAR: FRONTIERS OF PANDORA

RRP £67.99 VARIOUS RETAILERS

With the follow-up to The Way of Water at least two years away, Avatar fans can content themselves with Massive Entertainment’s (Tom Clancy’s The Division) standalone first-person adventure. Cast as a Na’vi warrior raised by the RDA, you rejoin your kind before leading the fight against the human oppressors, combining high-tech weapons training with your bow-and-sling expertise.