Carrots and sticks. Every game should have ‘em, every game does have ‘em, or so design orthodoxy tells us. In Modern Warfare, for instance, the carrot might be a large and rather patriotic explosion, or the sight of an enemy crumpling naturistically across a smoking car bonnet, while the stick would be getting shot through the back of the head so hard your frontal lobe flies clean around the globe and smacks into the face of your unsuspecting widow. In Super Mario Galaxy, to pick a less bloody example, the carrot is generally a gleaming golden star, while the stick might be a pursuing Chomp or a ticking clock.

But what of Kirby’s Epic Yarn, unveiled at E3 2010 and on-course for a mid-October release in the US? We can spot a fair few carrots: reams of colourful, touchable, ruckable cloth, dragged this way or that by the pink puffball’s string-whip; a charming array of Kirby forms of which undoubtedly our favourite has to be the car, all snub bonnet and ‘poop poop’; the glee of lassoing your co-op partner and hurling him or her off a precipice, or onto a ledge, or through a tearable surface; and, more mundanely, the satisfaction of emptying a level of its jewels and trophies. But where’s the stick?

It's all distinctly 'Puff the Magic Dragon', isn't it?

As most readers should know by now, providing they have eyes and have come within a thousand yards of a screenshot, the new game’s big conceit is that everything is made of thread. Trees are tufts of emerald wool, rolling hills sport gorgeous embroidery, sewn-on patches take the place of treasure chests, backdrops resemble a card-maker’s table at the end of a busy day. Many previewers have noted how well this theme and style couples with Epic Yarn’s transformatory, physics-driven antics, as Kirby swings from buttons or becomes a moving dimple beneath a quilted facade. Not quite so many have noted that the game’s ‘softness’ is twofold.

We’ve played three levels in total, one solo and two in company. All three were stupefyingly painless. In many a case, this would be a problem. In this one, nothing could be further from the truth. Epic Yarn is a hefty poke in the chest for those who would have us believe that the harder you’re pushed, the better you’ll perform and the more you’ll enjoy. Developer Good-Feel (otherwise known for 2008′s Wario Land: The Shake Dimension) has little to no truck with the concept of player punishment. It trusts you to get the most out of the experience unspurred.

In theory we’re dealing with a precision platformer, modelled on the crisp, forbidding exploits of New Super Mario Bros Wii, but in practice you can smudge the gameplay’s edges a fair bit, extending a jump by double-tapping Kirby into the shape of a parachute, or converting a watery plunge into onward progress by assuming the form of a mini-sub. This takes much of the grief out of co-op rivalry, of course. The camera follows one player rather than zooming out to cover both, but should you be rudely tossed off-screen, there’s a Sonic-2-esque respawn trick whereby abandoned second players are swiftly restored to visibility.

It wouldn't be Nintendo without a lava level, but this one seems more cosy than scorching.

Death is a stranger to this habadasher’s playground. As in LittleBigPlanet PSP, brush against a foe (easy to confuse for friends in their supple new threads) and you’ll suffer high score damage only. There are no 1-ups, or continues, or checkpoints. Nothing bleeds.

It’s possible that the game will get harder further in, and if it doesn’t, it’s possible that the absence of consequence will start to pall. We doubt it though. Epic Yarn doesn’t need to force you to have fun. There’s more than enough whimsy and invention on offer to keep the player plugging.

What do you think, readers? Europe gets it in Q1 2011. Japanese release dates have yet to be confirmed.

Lengthy CGI cutscenes? A broody, brooding protagonist? Surly space marine ex-boyfriends? This certainly isn’t your father’s Metroid. Not that any of this should be a surprise from a developer like Team Ninja, the somewhat unlikely current custodians of Samus Aran. Yet an hour or so with Other M suggests the franchise is in safe and capable hands.

It starts with a CGI action replay of Super Metroid’s denouement – Samus defeating a quite frightening re-imagined Mother Brain thanks to the intervention of a larval Metroid. As she opens her eyes and sees the friendly face of a quarantine officer, it becomes clear her vision was a dream, our heroine reliving her harrowing experience. Curiously, she seems more than a little perturbed at the demise of the Metroid she refers to as ‘the baby’. Aside from owing a debt to her improbable saviour, it seems there’s a deeper connection between Samus and the Metroid, the repetition of the word ‘baby’ in her inner monologue likely to become more significant as the game progresses. It’s certainly clear that Other M’s obvious anagram isn’t accidental.

Power Rangers meets Blue Man Group.

After a lingering shot of Aran’s curves in her skintight Zero Suit – classic Team Ninja – she steps into that familiar armour to test out her powers. In a sterile grey chamber, the player is introduced to the new Samus Aran. Those expecting either a return to the series’ 2D roots or a kind of Metroid Gaiden in the style of the developer’s most famous work may be surprised at just how Other M works. With the remote held sideways, players guide Samus around 3D environments with the d-pad. Digital movement in three dimensions? It sounds like madness, but this unusual idea works, partly thanks to the responsiveness of the controls. Holographic enemies are sent in for Samus to blast, with a helpful auto-aim ensuring that shots fired roughly in the right direction will hit their target, while dodges are executed with a jab of the d-pad just before enemies or their projectiles hit.

It’s hard to imagine any game featuring a gigantic bowl of water suspended in space as having “conservative” level design, but that’s exactly what Shigeru Miyamoto thought of the original Super Mario Galaxy. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then, that its follow-up – lest we forget, the first 3D Mario game to appear on the same console as its predecessor – frequently enters the realms of the utterly impossible.

The handful of levels made available to journalists at Nintendo’s European media summit felt at once warmly familiar, yet thrillingly new. Mario Galaxy 2 might not be “more than just a sequel”, as Nintendo would have it, but it expands on ideas touched upon in the original in deliciously inventive new ways.

It’s also more difficult: Nintendo firmly signalling its intention to satisfy a fanbase that has felt increasingly betrayed by the company’s recent casual-focused output. If the generous handful of levels showcased here is any indication, some players are going to be screaming for New Super Mario Bros. Wii’s Super Guide feature. Gone are the invisible checkpoints of the original, replaced by flags Mario must touch if he wants to return there from a later failure. Enemies are quicker – Goombas aggressively waddling towards Mario like angry geese, and deadly flowers spiralling swiftly around a circular structure. Space is tighter, with hordes of marauding Wigglers patrolling the fast-moving platforms of one stage, yet levels are more expansive. Flip Swap Galaxy asks players to rewire their brains, with spin-jumps flipping the platforms underneath Mario’s feet. As if that wasn’t enough, players also have to contend with a tight time limit: four minutes to collect 100 coins. Harder, faster, stronger…

Beats flying Easyjet.

Better? It’s a little too early to tell, but Nintendo has certainly picked some good stuff to show off. Sky Station Galaxy revisits the piranha plant boss battle from the original, but PeeWee Piranha requires a bit more effort to beat than his predecessor. Instead of whacking his tail, Mario must first crack the shell on his posterior, before spin-attacking his exposed backside. It’s tougher than it sounds, with PeeWee moving and jumping around more quickly than expected. This time, three hits merely make him angrier, with a sixth whack eventually releasing the power star.

There comes a point in a developer’s career when you know they’re going to carry on producing decent games till electronics go out of fashion. Insomniac isn’t quite the platinum brand Bungie or Valve is, but the California-based independent has seldom put a foot wrong, quietly washing its hands of Spyro the Dragon before the series nose-dived into mediocrity, and treating PS3 owners to an uneasy but enjoyable marriage of realism and ridiculousness in the form of the Resistance shooters.

The Ratchet and Clank franchise is the studio’s longest-running success story, with nine releases (including the High Impact spin-offs), seven years and over 10 million sales under its belt. In the course of that lifespan high definition graphics have flourished, digital distribution has cast its shadow over brick-and-mortar retail and online functionality has become the norm, yet somehow this lean, lovable action-platformer is the same as it ever was, toying with new possibilities but subordinating them firmly to the age-old thrill of smashing stuff with a novelty wrench.

No Lombax can swing a spanner like that Lombax can.

So it is that Crack in Time, despite its up-to-date prettiness, is still a game about powderising huge chunky piles of shiny objects in order to hoover up still more shiny objects, thus upgrading your (equally chunky and shiny) means of destruction and enabling the delicate process to repeat. It’s a shamelessly tawdry experience, harkening back to an era before gaming knew what it was to be “respectable”, before the cool rounded blues of social networking sites and the sterilised family-friendliness of Mii avatars – back to Spyro’s gemstones and Crash Bandicoot’s crates.

Insomniac has served up some counterspin this time, admittedly: as Ratchet, you’ll break things for Bolts (the series’ plentiful universal currency), but as Clank you can also do so by repairing them. The diminutive ‘bot begins the game in the clutches of gesticulating, would-be universe overlord Dr Nefarious, imprisoned aboard a facility at the universe’s centre called The Great Clock. Clank eventually gets hold of a staff which enables him to reverse time, restoring objects to usefulness. It’s a sly bit of reciprocity – Ratchet trashing the galaxy in search of his friend (alternately aided and hindered by the hilarious Captain Quark), while Clank patches things up at the cosmic timepiece.

Clank doing a little house-keeping at the Great Clock.

Time manipulation also underpins the more severe of the game’s puzzles. In certain areas, Clank can create little “recordings” of himself performing certain sequences of actions to make up for Ratchet’s absence. Simpler scenarios might involve using one temporally displaced copy to weigh down a floor switch while another scuttles through; later on, you’ll have to synchronise the movements of three or four playbacks. Nothing tremendously original, but a nice change from the hover-races and arena battles which comprise Crack in Time’s other, more routine diversions.