For that last-minute Christmas shopping trip - our picks of the top titles for 2014. For all ages, we'd recommend the sports titles NBA 2K15 (basketball) and FIFA 15 (soccer): both offer near-realistic gameplay on the new consoles, plenty of multiplayer fun, both from the couch and online, and immersive career modes. Of the shooters, we preferred Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to Battlefield 4 (which we found depressingly difficult to play online due to the standard of competition). Of the three major "open world" exploration titles, we can't recommend the rebooted GTA5 due to its extraordinarily graphic violence; much-hyped sci-fi shooter Destiny was dull; instead, go for Far Cry 4, which lets you drive around the Himalayas, fly an ultralight and rampage on rampaging elephants. Driving games were thin on the ground this year - MarioKart 8, for Wii, was our pick. On the handhelds, we loved Professor Leyton Vs Phoenix Wright for 3DS, and Velocity and Child of Light stood out on PS Vita. And on mobile, we avoided Candy Crush and instead played Threes and the beautifully designed Monument Valley. AH

DVD

TOTAL RECALL, Universal (MA)

The Dutch emigre Paul Verhoeven is at his brutal near-best in this handsome, extremely violent 1990 science-fiction blockbuster, based on a story by Philip K. Dick. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a dissatisfied construction worker who signs up with a company that promises to supply him with a false memory of an action-packed trip to Mars; after the procedure seemingly goes wrong, he winds up getting more or less exactly what he bargained for. Typical of Verhoeven is the contempt for humanity at large – including both the hero and the viewer – and the fact that the most sympathetic characters are a bunch of sleazy mutants. Typical, too, is the paranoid plot with its betrayals, conspiracies and double agents, in which echoes of World War II iconography are never far away. JW

FREE-TO-AIR

HORRIBLE CHRISTMAS, CHRISTMAS EVE, WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 24, ABC3, 5,50pm

If you're growing weary of cheesy Christmas viewing, tune into the Horrible Histories Christmas Special. As ever, it's a trip through some of British history's strangest-yet-true moments (based on Terry Deary's popular book series) but this time with a seasonal slant, through sketches, mock advertisements and song. From William the Conqueror ruining Christmas Day in 1066 to King Henry II's unique court jester, a bumper version of the series favourite Historical MasterChef, and the creepy greetings cards the Victorians used to send,  this is a perfect antidote to the usual saccharine family yuletide programming. Guaranteed to be the only Christmas special featuring historically accurate seasonal farting. KO

DVD

THE NORMAL HEART, WARNER BROS (MA 15+)

Modern history is full of controversial events that make for great movie fodder. The reaction to the AIDS crisis will always be subject to revisionist history, particularly in America, where people tend to disagree on basic facts in regards to political matters all the time. Dallas Buyers Club was a superb drama set at the time when AIDS was emerging as a major crisis; Matthew McConaughey deserved his Oscar for his role as Ron Woodroof, the rough-as-guts cowboy determined to help AIDS victims and himself by doing it his own way. In The Normal Heart, we've got another non-traditional hero of the AIDS movement, Ned Weeks (Mark Ruffalo), a New York novelist who is deeply disturbed by the death of his friends, and eventually his lover, at the hands of a disease that government authorities are trying desperately to ignore. Weeks will tolerate none of the obfuscation going on around him, even from the AIDS movement, who he feels is way too patient, and afraid. This HBO production won Outstanding Television Movie at the Emmy Awards this year. The supporting cast is brilliant and includes Julia Roberts, Jim Parsons, Alfred Molina and Matt Bomer. JK

PAY TV

JANE THE VIRGIN, MONDAY, FOX8, 7.30PM

Inspired by and closely modelled on the telenovelas of Spain and South America, this American confection (loosely based on Juana la Virgen), revels in the lavish melodrama and silliness that is so often part of more traditional rom-coms, but is in this case entirely justified by the genre. Jane (Gina Rodriguez) is a sweet Latina woman saving herself for her impending wedding night, and wrestling with big contemporary dilemmas after she was accidentally impregnated during a pap smear. A complicated web of characters fluster around her, and the already murky plot thickens. The thickly accented narrator provides often unnecessary commentary, sometimes stating the glaringly obvious in a manner that is plain annoying. But the hair and clothes are fabulous, Miami sparkles, and Jane's estranged father, an actual telenovela heart-throb (Jamie Camil), with whom she is reunited, is hysterically vain. BM