If you’re in the mood for making sense of a mess of a game, with little moments that might - might - make it worth it, then this is The Good Life.

What we have here is a charming, if not flawed, adventure into the unknown. However, certain gameplay issues mean that you may just want to cut your Time on Frog Island short.

As a whole, Dungeon Escape is a rather mediocre platformer game. It doesn’t have much in the way of personality or unique mechanics but the game offers a few hours of challenging platform for a low price. It also offers an easy 1000G which is always a bonus.

If you can hack it, Horde of Plenty on Xbox One packs a challenging punch which will scratch an itch for some. However, it’s a simple experience that doesn’t really manage to deliver enough bang for your buck.

Rise Eterna is an average and serviceable strategy RPG offering on Xbox. It’s certainly a welcome release on the platform that doesn’t often host too many games from the genre. The various moving parts are promising, but they don’t come together in a way that feels compelling from a game design standpoint and that means Rise Eterna is worth checking out only if you’re starved for options.

Double Pug Switch is a simple game, with simple controls, and a simple charm. It looks basic yet the difficulty ramps up to ensure things get very tricky, very quickly. It would be perfect for a short bash while on a car journey via Nintendo Switch, but on the Xbox One it’s a harder sell. Whatever you are playing it on though, if you like jumping and pugs, then by all means give it a whirl.

It is always an exciting time to see a new release from the guys at the Virtual Air Guitar Company, but Air Guitar Warrior for Kinect isn’t one that I find myself as happy to recommend as I had hoped. With a shocking motion detection system that messes with the controls when aiming directly above or below, and an incredibly tough difficulty curve for the later levels, the early fun never really continues.

Treat Sonic Superstars as another 2D Sonic adventure and it’s fine. Treat it as anything more, like it was advertised, and you will be disappointed.

Even with it coming in with a small price to pay, if you’re after a twin-stick shooter that you can engage in for hours on end, this is certainly not one I’d recommend. But if you’ve got a couple quid lying around, then maybe, just maybe, you can find a small amount of enjoyment within InkSplosion.

It’s hard to say whether Untitled Darkness is a gaming experience at all. It's definitely an experience and an important one at that, and I'm a big fan of solo developers experimenting with their art forms and concepts. It’s helped that the art style and subject matter are both well-executed and designed, as well as being very prevalent in our recent examinations of mental well-being.

If you’re creative or are happy to dip into design, you should find Hotel Renovator to be enjoyable. The story is light and a bit madcap, but it works well, however the control systems aren’t particularly easy to get to grips with.

The Letter: A Horror Visual Novel is a stunning but uneven visual novel. It’s at its best when it plucks at your nerves, threatening scares and layering on tension. It’s at its worst when it shifts attention to your heartstrings, trying to generate some empathy for its large cast. Stretched out for twenty hours and viewed from multiple perspectives, those worst aspects get amplified.

HAUNTED: Halloween ’86 has been made with a lot of love by a team of NES enthusiasts and the gameplay ensures it feels rewarding to progress through. The sheer variety of enemies, locations and even moves that Donny/Tami can pull off is impressive considering the limitations of the format. Unfortunately, not having the option to use the analog stick is super annoying, the story doesn’t bring enough to the table to be memorable and the hit mechanics seem a little awry.

If Dollhouse: Behind The Broken Mirror didn’t come complete with such a mad roaming camera, and if the combat wasn't bland, then it would make for a much better game. With these elements in place, it instead feels a bit unfinished, unable to be lifted to heights through the intriguing and enjoyable atmosphere and narrative.

Legends Aligned: Minis in Conflict brings warring factions to the table for a tricky organising puzzler, albeit at a cost. Not a literal cost, because it’s actually quite cheap, however Afil Games rely on the same mechanic too much, leading to tedium, and have even cut back on the number of levels compared to the original Legends Aligned.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a better-looking or more visually original roguelike than Tunche. It would be all too easy to find one that’s more enjoyable, though.

If constructing your own farm in Stardew Valley feels like too much work, yet you want something laid-back with a pastoral backdrop, then look no further than Island Farmer. It’s a little rough around the edges, but it’s the gaming equivalent of putting your feet up on a rocking chair and having a nap.

I’m happy that Toad Slide exists. While the mix of sokoban and sliding games doesn’t gel (too easy, no strategy), the experiment was enjoyable to take part in. Plus we were rewarded 2000G for our curiosity. Not a bad deal all round.

Sea Salt is an interesting experimental idea which offers players a cool premise and game world to indulge in. While a lot of thought and care has gone into building a compelling world in order to convincingly provide players the empowerment of being a cruel omnipotent being, the actual real-time strategy gameplay is far too simplistic.

Draw a Stickman: Epic 2 might be fairly cheap on Xbox One, which almost balances out the shortness of the adventure and the abundance of rather simple problems to solve, but it can’t excuse the poor drawing mechanics. If the developers can’t provide us with accurate enough tools to make a decent looking stickman at least, then you have to wonder what the point is.

From an Arkham Horror fan’s perspective, Arkham Horror: Mother’s Embrace on Xbox feels like a blancmange model of the source material. It has none of the spiralling difficulty, gloom and impending doom. It’s easy, competent, and it’s clearly been made more palatable for a wider audience. We suspect that non-Arkham fans will see it as an extremely basic tactics game with lots of levers that you won’t need to pull, sewn onto an unsatisfying adventure game.

There are some good ideas kicking around in Police Shootout. A few of these work well, like the interrogation and turn-based combat. However, other moments bring it all down – shooting is weird, as is stealth, and the whole thing feels like it is stuck in another generation.

The moment-to-moment gameplay is a blast and the visuals really are a sight to behold. However, unless you’re a super completionist, you may not want to stick around with Recompile much longer than taking a quick peek since the story, frustrating design choices, and disappointing boss fights can drag the experience down.

A divisive entry remains as divisive as ever; Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water on Xbox offers a highly intriguing premise but is let down by a plot that progresses at a snail’s pace. You spend a lot of time in-game wading through water and this serves as a perfect metaphor for how playing the game feels.

If you like cutesy mixed with mild gore, then A Pretty Odd Bunny is certainly one to try out, but keep in mind that you will have to contend with a few bugs as you play.

sCATch: The Painter Cat certainly isn’t a bad puzzle game, by any means, but it’s not one that you ever feel like you can truly master, either.

The Race Factory is fugly, there’s no doubting that. It doesn’t even try to make up for its bad looks by being friendly; the racing here is punishing and precise, with a single mistake costing you the race. But, behind the grumpy demeanor is a deep racing game with plenty of options, a track constructor, and some multiplayer thrills. For a lone developer, that’s an impressive achievement.

If Stonefly was an insect, it would be a stinkbug: beautiful to look at, but lets off an unpleasant odour when you start grappling with it.

If you are happy to play alone, then I can recommend NARUTO X BORUTO Ultimate Ninja STORM CONNECTIONS as the Ultimate Naruto game, with a lot of content and fighters to go at. But without a functioning online section, this seems like a missed opportunity.

PAW Patrol Rescue Wheels: Championship is thinner and more charmless than PAW Patrol: Grand Prix but - hey! - it’s got Rescue Wheels in it. It just about, by the skin of its teeth, retains its role as a gateway game for prospective racers.

Wonder Blade on Xbox is inconsistently fun. The wildly contrasting difficulty and bumpy pacing makes the experience feel slightly disjointed, however it’s all wrapped up in a way that will no doubt bring a smile to the most miserable of faces.

Hopefully Off And On Again won’t have you reaching for the power button, because despite costing perhaps more than it should, there’s a decent little adventure on offer here.

If you’re looking for a casual experience and an easy 1000 Gamerscore than MonsterBlast on Xbox One might be the game for you.

Shadow Man Remastered looks bad, plays poorly and all the rest, but it still has that much needed X factor; that hook that keeps you trying again and again.

It all leaves Pad Quad as an opportunity that wasn’t seized. It’s a platformer where you can swing a racket, knocking back projectiles, and that’s inspired design. But Pad Quad does so little with the concept, building levels that could have been in any other budget platformer.

Paladin is a cheap and cheerful twin stick shooter that gives plenty of ship upgrading abilities. But for what boils down to an hour’s worth of game time, that price still seems a little high and probably makes sure the game is something you’ll wish to pick up in a sale rather than at full price.

Charon’s Staircase can feel a bit like putting on a pair of comfy slippers, sipping some cocoa and kicking back with a good old-fashioned ghost story. But other moments frustrate, with some not-so-fun puzzles, brightness issues, and a familiar last act.

In all Frost is an enjoyable if initially very difficult game that comes crumbling down once you have built yourself up. There’s definitely some enjoyment here and fans of deck building will find the initial strategy very interesting, but survival wise it falls short by simply not giving you anything impactful to latch on to.

Mel the Space Cat isn’t a particularly special platformer. It’s easy, short, and the enemies are all recycled from a bazillion other games. But Mel’s blink-dash power, which lets her zip about the level at speed, just about saves the day. A bland 2D platformer gets the smallest sprinkle of interest.

AEW: Fight Forever possesses the foundations for it to be an excellent blast from the past, but fails in building upon them. It’s not a bad game, I just feel as though there are too many areas in which it’s lacking substance and so longevity is an issue.

Dynablaster is fine - a perfectly perfunctory, vanilla version of the party classic. But we couldn’t help thinking about other Bombermen while we were playing it.

Paperman: Adventure Delivered presents a cute story with some fun characters and a colourful world to explore. Yet whilst there are some good puzzles and the inclusion of cooperative play, the mechanics are not as intuitive as other games in the genre.

The Church in the Darkness on Xbox One has me divided. On one hand, I love the concept, writing, and visual style. On the other, I pretty much hate the randomised elements, the permadeath, and a number of small gameplay annoyances.

Too often, we’d be cuddling up to its fresh take on puzzle-platforming, only for it to unsheath its claws and dig into our thigh. 1 Catline is a fun idea that seems reluctant to embrace that fun.

FLASHOUT 3 is alright. It isn’t blindly great, nor is it awful; very much middle of the road, except for the stupid air brake. If you fancy an anti-grav racer that isn’t going to break the bank, you’ll find it in FLASHOUT 3.

A game that works okay, is good fun with a group of friends and capable of providing an interesting take on the Robin Hood myth, Gangs of Sherwood fills a gap. But I think the tone feels misguided and at times it all seems like it has been ripped from a previous generation of consoles.

If you’re looking to kill an hour, get 2000 Gamerscore in your bag, and have five dollars burning a hole in your pocket, then Fit and Fry is an option.

There’s plenty to commend in PAW Patrol Mighty Pups Save Adventure Bay on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S. It’s that rare example of a game that can be played by under-7s without help, and a strong co-op feature means that you can share Adventure Bay with them. Kids might not care, but it’s indefensibly slight for the price. Kids WILL care that they don’t get to play as the titular Mighty Pups for more than a few moments, though. It’s a long demo that kids will love for a time: if that’s enough for you, then go fetch.

TAURONOS on Xbox is a game that I have enjoyed playing, particularly due to its old-school visuals and fascinating take on the old great myth. I like the idea of being stalked by one creature and experiencing a hero’s strange journey to escape the maze. However, some of the traps are utterly unforgiving and having to restart the game from the beginning makes things tiresome.

Defunct isn’t a game that must be played, and the damn camera and poor audio don’t ever breed much confidence. But underneath the issues is a fun little title that is just begging to get out.

The Prince of Landis is far more successful as a story than it is a game. It’s a take on the ‘80s-kids-find-something-supernatural’ template, but pushes it in a lonely, unsettling direction that also manages to feel original.

Monster Hunter Stories doesn’t really excel at anything, but it doesn’t do anything particularly poorly either. What it does though is lay foundations for better games to come.

Unturned on Xbox is very much a game of two halves. If you go into it looking for a challenging survival game, and you aren’t too worried about polish, or lack thereof, there is fun to be had here. Staying alive is hard, and keeping healthy is even harder. However, it’s not going to be for everyone, as the lack of explanation about the mechanics of the game soon becomes tiresome.

Above Snakes isn’t going to redefine survival games, but it doesn’t need to. It offers a charming, occasionally relaxing, sometimes frustrating journey into a frontier world that’s part history, part imagination. The Wild West setting is a breath of fresh air, even if the supernatural twist doesn’t quite land.

Cyanide & Happiness - Freakpocalypse (Episode 1) marks a steady start for the trilogy that leaves room for improvement. You’ll almost immediately know if this weird but sometimes wonderful adventure is one which suits your tastes or not.

One Button Games 5-in-1 vol. 4 continues the upward trajectory of the One Button collections. I don’t think it swings-and-hits as much as One Button Games 5-in-1 vol. 3, but it’s superior to the first two, slightly shonkier collections.

I’d love to say that New Yankee: Through the History Mirror is best-in-class for the resource-management genre, but the bugs say no. Its mirror is cracked.

Songbringer is neatly designed, written with wit and humour and has some fun gameplay, but it struggled to keep my interest through its entirety and I found it hard to replay dungeons after many a death.

If you just want to find needles in haystacks, then Sleeping Beauty: Hidden Object Game smiles winsomely and lets you do exactly that.

If you love a challenging puzzler in which you are left to search hard for clues, then After You could be the game for you. I would suspect most will need to rely on a guide, but even then, the story and visuals are both good enough to draw you in.

We’re not going to be running around screaming about Ravva and the Cyclops Curse. It’s distinguishing feature, a series of beasts you can summon, are nothing more than four different attacks, and you’ll only use a couple of them. But what’s left is sturdy enough, somewhere between Mario and Megaman. This owl-based platformer won’t turn any heads, but it’s a minor hoot while it lasts.

While the main event of Circus Electrique is the turn-based combat, it had us falling asleep in our seats. The real fun, you see, comes from the side-acts.

Code Shifter on Xbox One is definitely an interesting game. The gameplay doesn’t overstay its welcome, and it’s solid enough to entertain you through each stage. The biggest strike against Code Shifter is that it thinks its story is the main reason you’re here. Due to the bizarre tonal shifts, unlikeable characters and huge exposition dumps, this just isn’t the case.

Blow it up has enough about it to remind of the joys of Angry Birds. The destruction mechanics are good, as is trying to work out exactly where the sweet spot sits, all so you can go blowing things up with aplomb.

RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures Deluxe is a shadow of the game it originated from, despite being a decent entry level park simulator on its own merits.

Whilst Dead End City is just about capable of providing a short term SHMUP fix, if you're looking for anything longer term than that, we'd expect the boredom to push you away long before any real excitement hits.

Hyper Scape on Xbox One feels like it tries new ideas but fails to implement them in any effective way, and frankly even if they were well-optimized, it’s still not enough to make it stand out from the rest of the pack. This is a perfectly serviceable battle royale, but it is just that – serviceable.

Guts and Glory is a good old bit of fun. It’s the perfect game to play with some friends for a few hours, just so you can see who can be obliterated in the most hilarious way and who will come out on top with bragging rights and the fastest times. However, these sessions won’t last too long and you will find yourself getting a little tired after the game begins to repeat itself for the umpteenth time.

Despite seeming like an alternate version of Pokemon in many ways, Monster Crown isn’t a total imposter. It is still enjoyable in it’s own right, but apart from a handful of original ideas this is largely because the core gameplay has already been tried and tested.

Skycadia on Xbox is as basic an arcade flight game as they come, and the simple, functional mechanics serve their purpose well to deliver a reasonable score-chasing experience.

Shame Legacy is a fairly good survival horror game. The story, visuals and the exploration parts are pretty solid, but the stealth mechanics and enemy detection are strange and not particularly enjoyable.

Learning tactics, grabbing special abilities while fighting and luring your enemies to their destruction will always take a while to get stale. What is more problematic is the lack of game modes and variety of things to do; this is certainly a game that will need a strong community to allow it to work online.

Super Perils of Baking nails its theme, but a few small nuggets aren’t enough to prevent it feeling like a run of the mill platformer. Achievement hunters and completionists will benefit the most from this one.

Rabbit Raid is a forgettable experience that only really has one gimmick - picking up and throwing vegetables. But even that is barely a factor throughout the majority of the game, only being utilised during the even more forgettable boss fights.

For the concept, Mind Maze is probably the best game on the market. Unfortunately, dots-and-boxes isn’t particularly entertaining. It doesn’t do much wrong, but Mind Maze needs more game modes and variety to really excel. Unless you’ve got a friend to play with, expect only a few games of entertainment out of this one.

If you enjoy taking charge of a sphere and wish to spend a little time with a simple but fun side scrolling platformer, then you’ll probably like what you find with On A Roll 3D… especially when you consider the low price tag that is attached.

It’s too sterile and slow for us to wave it over our heads and tell everyone to download it, but those of us with a geeky love for card games and space research will find a diverting hour or two orbiting around To the Moon and Beyond.

Ghost Teen Escape from Limbo is yet another by the numbers platformer which provides a fleeting but fairly fun flutter of gameplay, even if it fails to do anything that helps it stand out from the crowd.

Trash Sailors is a fundamentally flawed experience which isn’t totally sunk but will have you questioning when you can get back on dry land.

Empire of Sin has a lot going for it: a jazzy soundtrack, a lovely idea and a nice map. But at present, it is far less than the sum of its ambitious parts and falls short in a highly frustrating fashion.

Hidden object loyalists will enjoy their time with 9 Clues 2: The Ward. Anyone else will wonder how something so hammy and cliched could wind up on the Xbox Store.

Dungeon Color is fine if a bit timid. It’s overly afraid that players will get stuck, so it takes measures that are way too extreme: it strips out anything that might resemble challenge or interest for the first two-thirds of the game.

Don’t write off The Expanse: A Telltale Series yet, however a mediocre first episode is far from ideal.

While managing to deliver a decent melee combat racing experience, Road Redemption is bogged down by its stilted progression and under par presentation. The campaign can be a pain to complete and the time taken to upgrade your rider and bike, with little payoff, seems pointless.

Although there are certainly some issues with Awesome Pea 2 on Xbox One and it doesn’t really do anything that isn’t offered elsewhere, it’s a reasonably fun way to kill an hour or so. And it has to be said, there are certainly worse ways to earn 1000 Gamerscore.

Our time with Bumballon was something like being fired out of a cannon. At first, we enjoyed the sights and marveled at the speed. We were flying. But then we realised where we were heading. We came crashing down to earth in a mangled mess of frustration, impatience and a complete lack of control of our fate.

Choice of Life: Middle Ages takes the popular medium of those Choose Your Own Adventure books and applies this to a videogame. And a bare bones videogame at that, stripping away most of the good stuff and just leaving a procession of decisions to make in quick succession.

Stellatum on Xbox One certainly catches the eye at first, and the upgrade system adds a basic element of strategy. However, despite being playable, it runs out of ideas quickly and starts to feel like a grind, which makes it hard to recommend.

With the help of a walkthrough you could easily get 1000 Gamerscore in under an hour from Energy Cycle Edge on Xbox One, and that’s probably the main reason I’d suggest an impulse purchase. Otherwise, it’ll just be an unnecessary frustration-filled experience.

Save Your Nuts on Xbox One tries its best to provide a fast and frantic nut-fuelled experience, and while it does that for a limited time, it doesn’t take long for total repetition to become the ruling factor. By all means give it a bash if you are looking for a new timewaster, but don’t expect to be playing it for much longer than a few evenings.

For all the good in Dangerous Driving, there are many, many, moments of slackness. All of this combines to see Dangerous Driving deliver one of the most disappointing overall experiences I’ve had for a long old while.

The Commandos 2 & Praetorians HD Remaster Double Pack on Xbox One has one average game, and one way past its sell by date. Commandos 2 has certainly aged but has enough neat little additions that it looks like a spring chicken in comparison with Praetorians. However, it is still arguably not enough to recommend the entire package for a bang average game, especially when the other game is Praetorians. Even with the HD treatment, Praetorians looks, sounds, feels, tastes and smells bad.

If you want a better defensive survival experience, then you should play the base game, whilst those looking for a new horde fix should play something else.

It’s a novel game for the first few tries, but its slow drip feed of progress prevents you from getting anywhere near the end, failing to really entice you to return after logging out.

Lost Artifacts 5: Frozen Queen isn’t a bad little resource management game - at times it’s relaxing, at others it’s a lightweight puzzle - but it’s too much of a bland thing. The sheer number of levels, alongside a complete lack of variety, felt like we were on a diet of bread and water for the week we played it.

As it stands, it’s threadbare, slightly charmless and reversing a lot of the previous games’ good work. There may be a positive future for Let’s Sing, but that future might seem a long way off while playing Let’s Sing 2024.

eFootball 2023 is a shadow of its former self, but signs are there to suggest it will eventually become a decent free-to-play football game.

Sometimes Captain Blood falls into the “it’s so bad it’s good category”; sometimes it’s just pretty bad but there always remains a clear charm behind every action.