Puzzle platformers are a dime a dozen in the modern era of gaming, but there's nothing that feels quite like A Boy and His Blob. Taking advantage of blob's shape-shifting abilities to solve environmental puzzles, while seeking hidden treasures that unlock challenge stages, is mentally stimulating and very rewarding. Even though a handful of issues do frequently nag at you throughout the course of the adventure, they don't weigh the game down enough to keep it from a recommendation.

The technical issues make group play a bit of a chore at times, but the quests are varied and interesting enough to keep you coming back for more.

Shredders is an ideal Xbox Game Pass game. It's a game most players will get a few hours of enjoyment from, complete the missions and grab some achievements, and then move on. The dedicated fans will keep coming back for the fluid and rewarding gameplay, and maybe to get perfect scores on all those missions. If you go into it expecting a big-budget rival to the likes of SSX and Amped, you might be disappointed with what you find, but taken at face value, Shredders is a fun time and a worthy addition to the sports library on Game Pass.

It respects both the genre and your time, and for that — along with plenty of other reasons — there's quite a satisfying experience to be had.

Alone in the Dark is back, and frankly, it may have been better left alone. THQ Nordic's revival isn't a bad game — we enjoyed chunks of it especially towards the beginning of the adventure — but it doesn't stand out in any meaningful way, and ultimately feels a little pointless in the end. We'd recommend keeping an eye on that launch patch to see how the game is shaping up on release, but it's best not to expect a Resident Evil-level reimagining from this Alone in the Dark reboot - even if it stands as a serviceable third-person adventure.

Marvel's Avengers is sprawling and spectacular, messy and bloated all at the same time. There's a surprisingly fun and lengthy campaign here, excellent writing and acting and some of the best superhero brawling in the business. It excels at allowing you to really feel like you're fighting alongside your favourite superheroes as you decimate enemies and destroy scenery, but it loses some of that swagger as it enters its online endgame. There's a half-baked gear system, convoluted menus and questlines and some technical issues that make fighting online feel a little rough around the edges at this point in time. However, with a couple of patches, with the right support down the line in terms of new heroes, costumes, bad guys and story beats, Crystal Dynamics could be on to a winner here. This is a properly solid start and a pleasant surprise.

It's easy to see how a fan of past Olympics games could be put off by Tokyo 2020, but if you're willing to lean into its arcade tendencies, you can have a lot of fun with it. The games are enjoyable for the most part, the presentation is great, and there's enough depth to keep you playing longer than just a few rounds of each sport. It certainly won't be for everyone, but SEGA's willingness to be bold and divert away from the simulation-heavy focus of previous Olympics games makes Tokyo 2020 a refreshingly memorable competitor that deserves some attention.

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.

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.

Just Dance 2016 is a fun party game but its movement tracking does not offer enough precision to appeal to more competitive players. The track selection on the disk is a little lacking; with only a handful of big hitters available unless you are willing to pay for Just Dance Unlimited.

While there are more complex and intriguing crime games out there and it isn't the longest game, The ABC Murders still offers good entertainment for the interested and serves as a decent port into the murder mystery puzzle genre.

Treyarch and its development partners have done their best to cobble something together with Black Ops 7, but you just can't get around the rushed nature of this back-to-back Black Ops release. The game's campaign is almost an insult to Call of Duty single player offerings of the past, and while the core of multiplayer is solid, technical issues are dragging that experience down on Xbox at launch as well. Zombies is the highlight for me and I can see myself dipping back into this mode a fair bit - in fact, it's probably the only bit of Black Ops 7 that feels truly finished on day one. It's probably worth checking back on multiplayer down the line when the issues I've mentioned inevitably get ironed out, but campaign can't be saved - and overall, Black Ops 7 just feels undercooked after the care and attention that was put into last year's release.

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.

AEW Fight Forever is an enjoyable and competent wrestling game that we've been having a good time with so far. The Road to Elite career mode is fun, and the wild match types with their huge varieties of weapons are a blast to play with friends. There are definitely some downsides such as the barebones creation suite along with a general lack of game modes, but if you're an AEW fan or you're simply looking for a decent alternative to WWE 2K23, Fight Forever is well worth adding to your wishlist this summer.

Saints Row is one of the worst urban open world games we've played in recent memory, a bland, janky, old-fashioned mess of a game that fails to deliver on the promise held by a reboot of this zany franchise. Whether it's the buggy combat, boring missions, cringe-inducing dialogue or cookie-cutter side activities, there's always something to feel let down by here. If you're a huge fan of the genre you may well still find something to pass the time in Santa Ileso, there's decent character customisation, a strong soundtrack and plenty of baddies to kill and cars to wreck, but for everyone else this is one game that's virtually impossible to recommend and one of the biggest let-downs of 2022 so far.

If you're into puzzle games though, or if you're missing the good ol' days of Lemmings, you might like it as a substitute as it does cater to fans of both.

Payday 2: Crimewave Edition is an embarrassing, broken release that should be avoided by consumers and is a black eye on the current state of video game publishing.

Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell is a bargain for fans of Saints Row IV. There's less content included, but what is on offer here is good.

Beach Buggy Racing is a decent attempt at bringing a kart racer to the Xbox One.

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.

Don't get us wrong, if this was cheaper, we'd be recommending this in a heart beat, despite our reservations. It's a great trip down memory lane, with some addictive combat that still holds up today. But when you can pick up more modernised and arguably better games for the same price, it makes the trip to Baldur's Gate one that's not worth breaking the piggy bank until a sale.

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.

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.

Even if you can only beat the first set of twenty levels, Lovely Planet is a first-person shooter that is worth your time. It's beyond challenging, but when you finally put together the perfect run there isn't anything more satisfying. While it's too bad that the game hasn't seen an easy mode (or crosshair support) added in the console release, it's still a refreshing take on a genre that often feels way too stuck in its ways.

If you've played pretty much any Supermassive game in the past — from Until Dawn to The Quarry — you'll know what to expect from The Casting of Frank Stone. This Dead by Daylight tie-in doesn't quite match the lofty heights of those two games in particular, but it gets pretty close, delivering an engaging popcorn horror experience along the way. We'd have been well up for a few more hours in this universe, which certainly says something, but ultimately results in The Casting of Frank Stone sitting just below greatness.

A great introduction to either series and well worth the asking price.

Starship Troopers: Extermination is a pulpy, schlocky and suitably violent take on the Starship Troopers universe that gives you big beefy guns and a ton of exploding alien bugs to get busy decimating in online warfare. There are some big old hordes to take down, thanks to some impressive tech on display, and everything looks and feels properly great when you're in the thick of the acid-spewing action. However, there are way too many technical bugs just now, this doesn't feel like a game that just left a prolonged early access, and so for now it's a janky-but-fun experience that, with a couple of patches and content drops, could become a great one.

In conclusion, Sparkle 2 is a lot like Sparkle Unleashed, which in turn was a lot like PopCap's Zuma.