Ready player one

Wanna play a game?

Po p! Alien

RRP £12.95, OUT NOW

Ripley probably would have preferred to come across this version of the Xenomorph during her space quest – he’s just begging to have his belly tickled.

Bing Bong

RRP £20.95, OUT NOW

Say hello to your new imaginary friend. He’s part cat, part dolphin, all brilliant – and he knows how to style out a patchwork jacket and bowler hat combo. You’ll love him inside out.

Baymax action figure

RRP £9, OUT NOW

This mini nurse-bot may not be able to scan you for injuries – and he’s not quite as squishy as the real thing – but he does come with his own Mochi cat figurine. “Haiiiiiry baby...”

Fallout 4

XBOX ONE/PS4/PC, RRP FROM £35, OUT 10 NOV

A sprawling post-apocalypse given freshness and must-haveness by brilliant retro-futurist stylings, with bitterly ironic echoes of American optimism fading against a wasteland of mutants and ruins. Combined with best-in-class RPG gameplay, stories and missions you can’t walk away from, and hugely improved presentation and dynamic dialogue, Fallout 4 might be the best end of world ever.

Just Cause 3

XBOX ONE/PS4/PC, RRP FROM £30, OUT 1 DECEMBER

Just Cause is a series based almost entirely around harpooning things with a grappling hook and watching what physics does to them afterwards: grappling yourself to planes, flinging explosive cannisters into enemies, smashing enemies into each other. This update is all this, more, and then basically the same – a celebration of physics in the name of violence and elasticity.

Rise Of The Tom b Raider

XBOX ONE, RRP FROM £35, OUT 13 NOVEMBER

All the regular sequel things are happening with this new Tomb Raider game – Crafting! Faster arrows! Probably! – but none of them are the real reason to play, which is that in the rebooted Lara Croft series, Crystal Dynamics has made an Uncharted-bothering action-adventure giant.

Star Wars Battlefront

XBOX ONE/PS4/PC, RRP FROM £40, OUT 20 NOVEMBER

A third-or-first-person action shooter with a focus on online multiplayer and vehicles. The exciting bit is that it’s Star Wars, and really very Star Wars. Battlefront is packed with details, references and accuracies from music to props to TIE engine noises that deliver nostalgia and wish-fulfilment in a stupidly good-looking package of sci-fi violence.

Halo 5: Guardians

XBOX ONE. RRP FROM £42, OUT 27 OCTOBER

If you’re going to play one big, straightforwardly gun-polishing shooty-man shooter this Christmas, there are good reasons to make it Halo 5 – new environmental movement brings the old master into line with Destiny and Call Of Duty, and the new online modes teased in betas and at games shows have been superb. ND