Tetris Ultimate is decent, but if you've ready access to any other version of Tetris, then there's little reason for a purchase.

Destroy All Humans! 2 - Reprobed is exactly what you'd expect, a sprucing up of a game that's so obviously from another era it can be painful at times. However, strip some of that back and the core idea is pretty fun and still works on a basic level, albeit with a few caveats as mentioned. If you played the old version and have some nostalgia for it, this remake will no-doubt scratch that itch and take you back, but those after a more comprehensive 'remake' of such an effort will probably be left wanting a bit more modernisation. It's time to retire the probe for another 15 years, then.

While Adventure Time: Finn and Jake Investigations doesn't commit any felonies, a series of misdemeanors suggest you should approach with some caution. Exploring the Land of Ooo, seeing familiar locations in three dimensions, and interacting with the whimsical cast of characters will delight the most-invested fans of the series.

With solid combat and some brilliant character designs, Bleeding Edge has all the potential to become a solid, compelling online action game. Sadly, though, that's all it is at the moment: potential. What's here is good, but there's just not enough content to keep players' interest for weeks or months to come.

There are a few moments that visually provide a nice atmosphere, but it really needed more of them to help spice things up.

While it may not be that long of a game, high score addicts can sink a lot of time trying to be the best among their friends (or the world) via the leaderboards.

Despite having quite a few moments of frustration, Schrödinger's Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark features enough high points to make it a very enjoyable experience.

It really wouldn't take a lot of work to turn this into a multi-title franchise that could become the Xbox platform's very own Wave Race. We would have been happy to pay twice as much for more depth, but as it stands, $4.99 isn't a terrible price for what you get here.

Looney Tunes: Wacky World of Sports is a mediocre collection that does a few things really well - such as the overall presentation and its fun rendition of golf. What drags it down are the other three sports, which are functional but arguably too clunky to attract long-term attention, as well as the lack of online multiplayer and any kind of a proper single-player mode. This game has charmed us for sure, and we'll keep coming back to it now and again, but it's definitely hard to recommend paying £39.99 / $49.99 for it.

Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns is fun to play through but the quick runtime and light amount of gameplay on offer means you’re far better off waiting until it’s at least half-price or less. Part two only lasts for a handful of hours and Havik's timeline shenanigans never really feel like a high-stakes main mission. The new fighters are a redeeming aspect of this expansion, but the whole package seems overpriced at launch. For now, you might want to save your koins.

This is a title that is cute and fun when you aren't interested in thinking too hard and just fancy turning your brain off for ten to twenty minutes, but it's unlikely to set anyone's world on fire.

There's definitely something here for fans of both Adventure Time and Zelda, but because of its familiar design, and because there are consistent imperfections to put up with, the adventure isn't as mathematical as it clearly could've been. We suggest waiting for a price cut or sticking to a rental if you're on the fence.

If you’re feeling particularly nostalgic and in need of an RPG that harkens back to your childhood, then Pier Solar may be capable of scratching that itch, just know that there's a good chance that you probably won’t have much fun doing do.

Some will love it, others will hate it, but Dying Light is an interesting experiment at least.

A fun distraction for a bargain price, and does a great lot of things very well indeed. It just lacks that little bit of polish that sets the great games apart from the good.

If you have children of your own or nieces and nephews with a tendency of hyper-activity, then maybe this is for you.

Murdered: Soul Suspect lingers almost exactly at the quality middle point as a game. It doesn't do anything particularly good, nor does it do anything terribly bad; it's just okay.

If you’ve got a few pounds spare in your Xbox wallet then you could do much worse, but just don’t expect to be playing it for very long.

State of Decay: Year One Survival Edition is the ultimate mixed bag of mixed bags. A fantastic value proposition for fans of the admittedly somewhat buggy original, the package will provide stacks of playing time if you become hooked. The problem is that you may not get the chance, since this apparently "remastered" edition of the game doesn't seem to have had any real work done to it outside of the visuals, which remain incredibly sub-standard in terms of performance.

Guns, Gore & Cannoli isn't a game that you need to play, but if you're a fan of side-scrolling shooters and have a few friends and extra Xbox One controllers in your vicinity, it's worth considering.

The Crew is worth a go if you’re into racers. You might love it. But there's a better than good chance that the niggling issues will prevent that from happening.

Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water is the weakest of the Fatal Frame games and this remastered version fails to address its biggest issues, namely clunky traversal mechanics and a seriously wooden cast of characters. However, look past these shortcomings and, especially for fans of the series, there's still a lot to enjoy in the solid ghost-snapping action on offer here. It may not be the best game in the franchise, but this remaster will still give your spine a good tingle if you let it.

AIPD is a solidly-made twin-stick shooter with some nice ideas. The problem is that it just isn't fleshed out enough.

An interesting take on the FPS genre, the game feels like a cross between a more traditional shooter and a gameshow.

Modern Warfare 3 is quite a tough game to judge. Its campaign is good old Call of Duty fun, even if it's too short, and the game's multiplayer is a great time - built on the solid foundations of two different versions of Modern Warfare 2. However, Zombies is a complete miss this year, and the admittedly-great multiplayer is based on past triumphs more than anything else. If you love playing some CoD multiplayer every year then MW3 is another solid entry in that regard, but if you usually stick to one of the other modes or are looking for a more complete Call of Duty experience, we don't recommend picking this one up just yet. Either wait for a price drop, or bide your time in anticipation of its eventual arrival on Xbox Game Pass.

Fat City isn't a bad game at all; it's serviceable and has some genuinely fun and clever moment-to-moment mechanics. Whilst the simple graphics certainly have a charm to them, the lack of variety between each area is disappointing

Age of Ultron is safer and more predictable than Pinball FX2's best tables, and therefore it doesn't sell itself as being essential.

The Outlast Trials is a cool idea, a spin-off that funnels players through a gauntlet of twisted levels with a gameshow/Saw movie vibe. However, as good as it all looks and sounds, with plenty of levels and tons of customisation to dig into, the core gameplay here is just way too bland and repetitive, it's in no way scary, and the only real fun to be had is in getting a bunch of pals together to laugh at your misfortunes and all of the violence that ensues.

Call of Duty: Black Ops III is just okay, but being just okay isn't enough to keep players entertained when there are so many better offerings available from the same series.

Oozing charm and potential, this really is a great example of what a small development team can achieve and Brainy Studio's pride in their creation is alluded to throughout the game. It's undeniable that TurnOn does a lot of things right, which makes it sadly all the more noticeable when something doesn't quite hit the mark.

Project Zero: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse is a reasonably decent time if you can come to terms with its plodding traversal, clunky gameplay mechanics and repetitive exploration. There's an enjoyable mystery to uncover at the heart of this one, it's got some genuine scares along the way, snapping ghouls is as fun as ever and the whole thing has a deeply unsettling vibe that still feels unique to the franchise. However, as far as remasters go, beyond a bit of a visual revamp, it feels like additional work could have been done to make this remastered version of the game feel like a more modern and polished survival horror experience.

Thymesia has all the ingredients necessary to make for a solid indie Soulslike experience, but it falls short due to messy implementation of mechanics, bland level design, weak lore and issues with difficulty balancing. There are some really neat ideas here, for sure, with the game's plague weapons providing lots of variety in how you go about dealing with your enemies, but unnecessary and awkward elements such as an overly tricky deflection system and dodge mechanics that need tightening up sully the overall combat experience. With a little more TLC this could have been a banger, but as things stand it's a fairly average effort that's hard to recommend if you're not a huge fan of the genre.

With all this said, there is enjoyment to be had in Kitaria Fables if you can look past the clunkiness. The combat, for one, feels really great and gives you a ton of abilities as you progress through. Farming is also a satisfying system. If the game had just lent harder into one aspect, we can't help but think the end result would have been a tighter experience. There were times when it felt like we were playing a classic original Xbox title with its presentation, which lent a nice charm. Unfortunately, there's only so much that can carry you through its 20-or-so hour-long story.

Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator is a pretty addictive new addition to the genre, but it's giving us a rough ride at launch. It does the basics well for the most part, and features an impressively large and detailed version of Barcelona to cruise around in, but the unintelligent AI drivers, poor performance and various other irritations are significant drawbacks. This has all the potential to be a good (or even great) game, but it's going to take a few patches to get there.

It's entertaining enough while it lasts, but there simply isn't enough variety here when stacked up against other similarly-priced titles.

Painful progression and wonky UI make Albedo a much less enjoyable game than it could have been.

Whilst Cubikolor is not a bad game, it lacks the imagination and something special to make it stand out from the crowd. It's an interesting title for a quick pick-up-and-play but is nowhere near as gripping as it could be, given that the core idea behind the gameplay is fairly interesting. Unless you're an absolute puzzle fanatic, you can safely skip it.

A missed opportunity to exploit the exciting cyberpunk environment and story that was developed for it. The shooting is unsatisfactory, and the whole game has an old fashioned feel to it that doesn't sit well in comparison to other, more modern games.

Cyberpunk 2077, in its current form on consoles, is a hard game to recommend getting involved with. There's a strong narrative here, brilliantly written characters, some excellent side missions, fun combat and an astonishing setting but, as things stand right now, it's an experience that's in need of some serious TLC. The Series X backwards compatible version may well perform better than the frankly shocking last-gen console efforts but this is a game that we had constant problems with, one that doesn't feel or play like a fully finished product and one that is truly quite hard to recommend in its current incarnation.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Patrick Star Game feels like another excuse to cash in on the SpongeBob name. The game doesn't do anything offensive, but it's so barebones that it doesn't even really feel like a complete experience, particularly for seasoned gamers. If you absolutely have to try anything with the animated sponge's name on it, then frolicking around in Jellyfish Fields for a few hours or so could be fun - but otherwise, don't bother. It's probably worth just booting up Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated again if you're in the mood for some SpongeBob gaming in your life.

The soundtrack is the highlight of this mixed bag of good ideas and poor implementation and when all is said and done, it's a shame that the gameplay and visuals cannot live up to the scene set by the music.

There's also just not enough content to sink your teeth into. Outside of arcade, multiplayer and a sports mode, where players must score a goal in the opponent's goal, there's just not much to do. Unlocks aren't particularly exciting either, offering little more than concept art and other goodies. It's all a bit of a shame, as there's honestly some solid mechanics buried beneath the issues. If developers Ludosity and Fair Play Labs can stick with the game post-launch and build it up, it could end up being a completely different story in a year or so, but as it stands, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl feels like the shell of what it could be.

Ultimately, LA Cops is a decent, short run through a cop-themed shooter that doesn't do enough to really impress.

There will likely be some Jedi out there who succumb to nostalgia and enjoy reliving the events of 'Episode 1' in this game no matter what, but for everyone else, Jedi Power Battles is a tough one to recommend. The co-op mode does offer some fun moments and is perhaps the best way to experience this package, but the overall design hasn’t aged the best and we encountered some technical problems on Xbox. Maybe wait for a sale on this one, if you aren’t the biggest prequel trilogy fan.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is a distinctly average prequel/spin-off that gets itself bogged down in busywork and repetitive running in circles, overshadowing its core dungeon-crawling and town-building action in the process. The combat here certainly has some reasonable ideas, the story is decent enough at providing a setup and it all looks very pretty, but there's just far too much in the way of unnecessary padding and jank to make it feel as though it's really worth your time and effort beyond gleaning a few insights into next year's full adventure, even at this budget price point. Fingers crossed 505's main course is much more satisfying.

There's a slight control issue with control when riding a lightcycle that you'll need to get used to, and we're confused as to why you'd be riding in the brightest game world ever when the movies almost entirely take place at night or in dark arenas, but those things can be overlooked. What we can't get past are the money-gouging tactics that end up detracting from the experience, the botched launch, and the missing season pass content.

In short, Pure Pool is an excellent simulation of the sport of pool, but everything outside of the cue-to-ball action itself is lazily done.

Your mileage may vary depending on how much the story grabs you, but most will find that the asking price here is too high for what you get.

There is fun to be had for sure, and the achievements are easy to pick up, but ultimately this is a game that despite the graphical overhaul is showing its age and just isn't as good as the premise would lead you to believe.

Bedlam leaves a lot to be desired. We were really intrigued by the game at first, but the more time we spent with it, the less appealing it became to us. That, along with technical issues that shouldn't be present ultimately left a bit of a sour taste.

In short, everything Divekick says it’s going to deliver, it delivers. The problem is that it doesn’t ever actually claim that it’s going to deliver all that much.

A few minor fixes and changes here and there would do wonders, but the constant loading and the frankly abominable issues with the fighting engine that remain unfixed destroy any semblance of realism and are enough to relegate it to the indies.

We Are Doomed makes a good attempt at being a compelling and addictive twin-stick shooter, getting a lot of things right along the way. There are some problems with the basic design though and the very limited amount of modes on offer means that unless you're hooked by beating your own best scores or unlocking the limited (but tough to obtain) number of achievements, it'll be over way, way too soon.

Even at a budget price, players new to the franchise can safely avoid the set as there's much better gameplay to be found elsewhere, such as in the likes of the Metro: Last Light or even Techland's own Dying Light, both of which outshine Dead Island and Dead Island: Riptide in almost every area.

Luckily, the game is not overly pricey at $7.99 and the alternate modes help to keep the interest up, with score chasing on the leaderboard always available to be relied upon to add some interest. With that said, match-3 games are generally good for relaxation, but with the control gremlins to contend with, this isn't one that we found to be terribly restful.

There are moments of brilliance in a few chapters, but developer tinyBuild Games doesn't spend hardly enough time fleshing them out.

It isn't a bad game by any means and will provide entertainment for a while, but some will find the shackles and repetitiveness to be all too much, not to mention the fact that the all-but-identical mobile version is a quarter of the price.

For the times your friends can't make it, the single player campaign offers a frustrating distraction. But the poor AI, unlikeable characters, and levels that take seemingly forever to complete due to unlucky dice rolls make The Living Dungeon only for those with active social lives.

The idea is good and it all looks very sharp, but over-zealous presentation causes issues with the gameplay at times.

Combat feels clunky, and the graphically impressive game ends up looking bad in motion. At least Nordic Games didn't technically call this a definitive edition, as it's really anything but.

NHL 15 plays a great – if somewhat atmosphere-free – game of hockey, but the sheer amount of modes missing from the package as a whole mean that unless you become obsessed with Ultimate Team or enjoy playing severely limited career modes, there’s very little to actually do.

To say that Zombie Army Trilogy is a bad game would be far too harsh. It does provide bursts of fun and with multiple players, can be a laugh riot, especially in Horde mode. It's just that while it isn't necessarily bad, it just doesn't have the polish to ever push it past that sort of level.

Sniper Elite 3 is an average game. The sneaking around, hiding, scouting and tactical aspects are very enjoyable. But it gets repetitive pretty fast, especially when the actual gameplay and the enemies don't really change.

The lack of any real multiplayer and the repetitive nature of the story mode mean that despite numerous challenges to complete and upgrades to collect, it lacks the 'just one more round' appeal that would make it a real contender in the arcade marketplace, though.

Ultimately, it's a game full of great ideas and some addictive gameplay mechanics, but clashes with some poor pacing and a complete shift-up in the second half that loses all the charm. For an Xbox Game Pass title, there's undoubtedly some fun to be had in the survival space sim if you can look past its flaws. Just don't go in expecting the Lost in Space experience the game tries to sell.

Some will be caught up in the emotion of it all and overvalue the game. Take that emotion out though, and you’re left with a product that is very much a point-to-point affair that doesn’t allow for any exploration, is short, has little replay value, and who's main mechanic - the interaction between the two characters - has a tendency to fail at inopportune moments.

All in all, the game is a novel way to pass an afternoon but is unlikely to have you clamouring for more.

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is a really tough game to sum up in its current state. The game's vast open world and asphalt driving physics give the title a solid base to launch from, and we definitely think this series still has something to offer that differs from the likes of Forza Horizon and The Crew. However, Solar Crown's issues run deeper than launch-week server load, and the game needs quite a bit of tweaking to feel properly finished. Nacon and KT Racing are intending for this to be an ongoing live service game, and as long as the teams stick with it, we definitely think this new Test Drive game will be hugely improved months down the line. We can't recommend Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown right now, but if you're into your big open world racers, we definitely think this one is worth keeping an eye on as it gets fixed up and improved - you should be able to get it on discount that way as well. Solar Crown is yet another rocky launch for the franchise after similar issues plagued TDU2 back in the day - but that game did go on to become a bit of a cult hit, so there's hope for this Test Drive Unlimited title yet. It just needs a bit more time and attention for its solar crown to start to shine.

Need for Speed isn't unplayable by any means, but there's a laundry list of things that can – and often do – stop that playing time from being very enjoyable.

While there's a moderately entertaining co-op experience underneath the lazy level design, short game length, bland missions, occasional bugs, and minor kinks in the combat system, the quality and value most certainly aren't in line with what we expect from a $50 game.

If you liked Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China, then there's a decent chance that you'll have a good time in India, in spite of the problems outlined above.

Slice Zombies for Kinect is a solidly-made product that does everything it claims to. The problem is simply that it doesn't claim to do very much. It works well and is enjoyable enough while it lasts, but with just a single game mode and very little variation on that, you'd have to become pretty addicted to get any sort of long-term playability out of it.

Starfield: Shattered Space is a big disappointment in almost every way. We loved the base game, for all its flaws, and we were willing this to be the big, exciting DLC drop that'd make us love it all over again. However, what we've got here is a very average narrative expansion that fails to add any big choices, upgrades, new enemies, biomes, loot or anything that could potentially excite or draw in new players. It's buggy, janky, badly acted in places, and there are a myriad of bugs and performance issues to be ironed out. What a missed opportunity.

Suitable for young and old, this competitive local multiplayer title is accessible enough for beginners, whilst being chaotic enough to keep the interest of higher skilled players.

Squid Hero for Kinect is a game that can be immensely enjoyable. The problem is that even if you do absolutely fall in love with it – the chances of which are lessened thanks to some inconsistent input recognition, strange level design and a bizarre difficulty curve – it doesn't stick around for anything near long enough for you to feel suitably entertained.

And in the case of Xbox specifically, it's really hard to find a reason why you'd pay that kind of money when Crazy Taxi is backwards compatible on the platform, and can be picked up for significantly less. That's not to take away from the work that's been put into Taxi Chaos, because it's a competent enough take on the formula, but SEGA's 1999 original has more content, more attitude and a better soundtrack, so it's hard to recommend this one.

If you're lucky enough to avoid the bugs, Pixel Piracy will provide a couple of hours of enjoyment while you figure out its intricacies and perfect your crew, though we doubt there's enough variation to keep you hooked beyond your first play through.

Much like the character you create, Biomutant feels like a Frankenstein creation of various ideas. Some are good, some are bad, but the end result is a misshapen product which feels messy and buried in its own ideas. Areas of the game that should have received more attention feel relatively barebones, while others feel overly complex. The repetitive nature of looting, levelling up, and looting some more never truly evolve and make the beautiful world often feel lifeless. We really wish we loved Biomutant, but unfortunately, it's a game with many ambitious ideas, but lacks the conviction to fully utilise them.

Dying Light 2 is a pretty disappointing sequel to one of our all-time favourite zombie games. The parkour and combat here feels slightly off-point, light, floaty and unsatisfying. The first game's signature tense melee encounters feel diluted in a setting that gives you far too much space to catch your breath and night-time sorties lack the straight-up fear factor that made them so appealing first time around. With a lacklustre campaign that offers little to enjoy in the way of drama, some serious performance issues - which we hope will be patched day one - and an enormous world stuffed full of basic busywork padding, this is one zombie apocalypse we're finding quite hard to recommend.

A tad more polish would have seen this become a real benchmark for the genre, but a number of missed steps mean that it will likely just fade into the darkness.

There's a lovely story bundling all the lesser parts together, but it ultimately feels as though it's been put together with tape and glue. Your enjoyment will stem from how much you gain from its narrative, but in all honesty, other games take a similar concept and run with it so much better. Arcade Spirits comes to mind, and while it doesn't directly allow you to play any titles, is a beautiful visual novel that perfectly encapsulates that 80s arcade energy. We're sorry to say, but Button City is an arcade cabinet that doesn't do too much to justify its existence.

Time will tell if these issues get fixed but for the moment, Rebel Galaxy is several light years from where it truly wants to be.

There's certainly not much wrong with Mystery Castle, but it's not doing anything to make it stand out from the crowd either.

D/Generation HD is a game that is a product of the early 90s. Story? Not much. Scenario? Ridiculous. However, what it does bring from that era is character and gameplay that all too often today are replaced by graphical flashiness. This is an unashamedly retro experience and even with the (gamebreaking) bugs we found, the urge to finish the game remains strong.

There's some enjoyment to be had here, but it's frequently punctuated by massive bouts of frustration. If you want to try the series, you should grab China, since it remains the best of the three.

Wanted: Dead is an incredibly disappointing action effort that presents some decent ideas but fails to execute any of them properly. The idea of fusing hack and slash combat with shooter mechanics has lots of potential here, and the cyberpunk setting is initially intriguing. However, in practice it's all very clunky and janky and frustrating and beset by performance issues. There's a bunch of odd side activities thrown in to try to lighten the mood between battles, but it's just not enough in the end. With a very weak narrative, poor voice-acting, rubbish action and drab level design, this is one game that's best avoided.

Spectra is a missed opportunity that doesn't offer nearly enough variation to keep players enticed for very long.

Undoubtedly, it's a solidly-made product and the development team clearly have a good deal of talent. Sadly, there are also hints to suggest that they've misjudged this and were banking on it becoming a runaway success like Fruit Ninja or even Angry Birds. It won't.

Ironically, Infinity Runner is too short for what it is. The gameplay is as repetitive as you'd expect but the storyline and non-standard features alleviate that somewhat, to the point that it can be entertaining enough at times.

This is a tediously dull, monotonous, and derivative game that offers up absolutely nothing of any real worth in terms of story or mechanics.

Nutjitsu's biggest downfall. Being far too shallow to entertain as a main course, the repetitious gameplay — which lacks any real sense of progression outside of earning XP and leveing up — struggled to hold our attention for more than a few moments at a time.

As usual, swinging through New York City as Spider-Man is an exhilarating and empowering proposition, but repetitive open-world events, unfocused/unrefined story missions, and a surplus of technical hindrances/poor design choices keep The Amazing Spider-Man 2 from being a solid movie tie-in.

Some will play through and get some enjoyment out of it, but the long and the short of things is that this an endless runner at its core, where the developers have tried to throw in a campaign mode of sorts and where the running isn't all that much fun.

Wrestling superfans will get more out of the game than others, obviously, as the true-to-life presentation is pretty nice, with all the logos, arenas, music, and wrestlers that you could hope for. However, there’s a distinct feeling that the game was rushed to meet a deadline – something that’s only backed up by the two-week delay from which the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of the game suffered.

We're not exactly seeing what the wait was for when it comes to F1 2015. The game is clearly rushed, riddled with bugs and lacking in some relatively basic features.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is a pretty big mess. In its current state, this is a badly-judged game in almost every way. The new zone is incredible to behold at times, for sure, but it's a world at odds with itself; full of gear and guns, but with precious little in the way of enemies that challenge you to use them. The story is terrible, the A-Life system is AWOL, and the acting and writing is atrocious. Stalker 2 is cheap in how it kills without warning, is packed full of bugs and performance issues on Series X, and is devoid of mostly anything that makes it feel worth playing for very long.

There’s potential here that just isn’t ever realised, even if the game can be fun in small doses.

There's no denying that there is potential here and there are some very touching moments, but the flaws are so game breaking that at times it's just not any fun to play.