🔗 Share this article The Diamond Family Personal Video Game of the Year List for 2025 Alright, how did you experience 2025 in your home? Could it be described as all as good as you pretended on Facebook? Full of A-grades for your offspring and wild costume celebrations for the parents? Or was it a swamp of frustration with only occasional entertaining moments? Could any part be genuine, or have we all become digitally altered virtual entities with celebrity smiles? I've corralled everyone together, willing or unwilling, to discuss the paramount thing in twelve months: which releases we enjoyed the most. Without further ado: Release First Daughter Played the Most Pikmin "Why can't you pick just one?" "This isn't my games column." On her phone, she's invested time in Cityscapes and "searching for reasonable healthcare." "In the game?" "In reality." Game Middle Son Played the Most Overwatch "I refuse to play games on my phone." He was offended that the question was posed. Fair enough. Game Youngest Daughter Played the Most Resident Evil Biohazard She's attempting to get into acting, but when she wasn’t singing, she was playing Resident Evil. She also elaborated in great detail about her achievements on The Sims, where her avatar has a successful utopia with infinitely better healthcare than her older sibling has outside the game. Title the Wife Played the Most Crash Bandicoot: It’s About Time She began the year at 60% completion and finished the year at eighty-two percent. It’s a marathon not a sprint for her. Her phone game: something called Woodle, where you have to extract pins. Title I Found Amusing That My Kids for Still Playing Minecraft Every time I see my 21-year-old son playing Minecraft, I rib him like a cross between a persistent critic. When he complains, I reply that I am behaving this way to build character so he can be a man and play games for mature audiences. It’s a very Scottish father/son relationship. Most Impressive Gaming Family Member of the Year Eldest Daughter on Just Dance 2024 It wasn't even close for this one. She is a machine. More impressive than I was at Dancing Stage MegaMix in my prime. Game I Played the Most Marvel Snap No other game compared to the hours I spent on this remarkably well-crafted strategy wizard’s poker, with its constantly evolving range of cards and game variations. Game I Wish I Had Played Less Marvel Snap The worst thing about games that endlessly add to their range is you have a moment of clarity and realise it is all just an attempt to suck you into compulsion-based microtransactions. So love turned to hate halfway through the year and it was deleted. Title I Wish I Had Played More Doom: The Dark Ages Glorious reinvention of a legendary franchise. Immersive atmosphere from the off. I wish I could dispatch my demons so effectively in real life. Game I Wish I Had Played More (Puzzle-Focused Edition) Blue Prince I'm unwilling to rush this gorgeous, distinctive game and I just lacked the focused attention to give it what it deserved earlier this year. With holiday guests over the festive period, I will be playing this in the wee small hours after evening drinks. Title That Kept Me Sane When I Needed It Balatro I know Balatro was last year's surprise hit, but I was a late adopter. And it is remarkable. It just gets each element right. The core concept is a wonderful concept, but the abilities behind the different special cards are so inventive it has become a game I would happily play at any hour. Throw in the wittiness of the card design, and this is an definite high-water mark of gaming. I dream of being stuck in a elevator for hours just so I have an opportunity but play it. Title I Got the Most Backlash For Criticising Outer Worlds 2 I received a bit of backlash when I wrote about how a glitch in another game soured the experience for me, but that other title is still a gargantuan gaming achievement in terms of overall polish – which I appreciated even more after slogging through Outer Worlds 2. So my appreciation goes out to the commenter who took the time to send a message to say that my Outer Worlds 2 review was "missing the point". I mention that verbatim, because I acknowledge the engagement, and he is obviously an sharp judge of character. Title Everybody Loved That I Just Didn’t Get Hollow Knight: Silksong Fine. Give me a brutally difficult Metroidvania-esque thing and provide little guidance on what I am supposed to be doing, except "explore". What a joy. I get that it has great art and is ideal if you are into the genre, but I cannot think of a gaming experience I am less interested in in my mid-fifties. I was around back when all games were like this, and I'm over it. It was fine when I was a kid, but so was many outdated things. Biggest Gaming News of 2025 Close call between corporate partnerships that raised eyebrows, and high launch costs. Both morally indefensible and unpleasant. Games I Would Name My Children After, If I Was Ever Crazy Enough to Have More Clair Obscur, Despelote and Bananza would all be unique names bellowed from the garden at dinner time. Part of My Body That Aches Most From Gaming Right Thumb Joint. No joke. I don’t know if it’s because of console gaming or endless scrolling, but it aches like the mines of sulphur in the mornings now. I knew I should have got my thumbs protected back in the past. Game I Am Looking Forward to the Most in 2026 Grand Theft Auto VI. And it will come out in 2026, even if we have to stretch time until the cows come home. Game I Am Looking Forward to the Most in 2036 The Witcher 4.