Star Balls won’t be on any game of the year lists come the end of the year. Its achievements are glitchy and/or broken, its save system is unknown, sound effects’ archaic, and it is cheaper and more suitable on mobile platforms. But it has solid physics, a unique charm and never tries to sell itself as more than a simple casual game.

Zombo Buster Rising isn’t bad-bad. It’s not broken, it doesn’t stick around too long, and it’s not going to empty your wallet at a reasonable £4.19. But it hunts around within it’s tower-defence-meets-shooter gameplay for something resembling fun and can’t find it.

Skater’s Solstice presents a promising puzzle concept that hits a slippery slope too swiftly. While it contains a respectable number of stages, the ideas run out fast and there’s a lack of fresh elements to keep your interest.

Big Crown: Showdown has an overall idea that could provide a really enjoyable, exciting game to entertain the masses. With plenty of courses at hand, tons of hazards to evade, and a level of accessibility that allows gamers of all abilities to get involved, there’s certainly potential here. Sadly, the courses grow tiresome after only a couple of plays, given their short length, and so you’ll struggle to convince people to come back to it. Throw in the lack of other modes present, the dead online component and the other issues outlined, and it’s difficult to recommend even at just under a tenner in price.

Legend of the Skyfish does have a lot going for it: an intriguing story, a cool gimmick, a beautiful Zelda-like aesthetic, and easy achievements. Unfortunately, the execution is rather fishy.

There are two ways of looking at Little Mouse’s Encyclopedia. It is a children’s reference book that happens to be on the Xbox, and as such it’s lovely to leaf through for a few minutes. The watercolour art could happily grace the walls of a nursery, and that’s intended as a compliment. But while it does a great job of putting names to animals and plants, it does a less successful job of making you care about them, or telling a child anything that might stick. It could feasibly form an hour-long home-schooling lesson, but you’d struggle to make a curriculum out of it.

Tank Brawl 2: Armor Fury on Xbox doesn’t look the best, the pop-in is ridiculous, and the way that foot soldiers are bigger than your tank ruins any immersion. On the flip side, there is something endearing about the game; something that will keep drawing you back to have another go - if only so you can find out if it’s possible to destroy tanks using the Force.

Games are glorious things, because there’s an audience for pretty much everything. But we honestly don’t know if there is one for ReactorX 2. It’s so stupendously and wilfully challenge-less, that we can’t see the wood for the ease.

If we had to glide Aery: Titans of the Future into a hierarchy of Aery games, it would land somewhere in the middle. It has no new levels of note, and the story is a lecture. But robots are quite cool, I suppose, and there are no bugs to disrupt things. As possibly the most prolific series on the Xbox, we should be expecting some improvements, but I guess we’ll have to make do with ‘more of the same’.

Cinemoji Collection is one player, not multiplayer. It’s controller-only, which makes text input a ball-ache. It’s hardcore in its questions, and has barely any of the basic features that you would expect from a quiz game. BUT the puzzles can be clever, and cine-enthusiasts will get a kick from answering them.

For existing fans, there is some joy to be had in this Resident Evil love letter. For those that never played the originals though, Heaven Dust isn’t a patch on the games that inspired it.

The Spy Who Shot Me is fine, but it doesn't feel very polished and it failed to hit the funny bone I was looking for in terms of humour. I also found the gameplay and mission structure a bit too old school. In fact, it grew tiresome at times.

Whilst it’s clear that a lot of effort went into Curse of the Sea Rats, the game really needs a significant amount of fine tuning. Similarly, there are a variety of great ideas included within it, but these need expanding on and fleshing out further to ensure this one turns into something that is truly brilliant. At present, Curse of the Sea Rats simply feels unremarkable.

Puzzletronics: Digital Infinite is a hard one to recommend, even for the silly low asking price. It's three hours of mindless jigsaw puzzling, aligning tiles in hope of lighting an LED.

You’ll think I’m mad, but Constructor does start off as a rather enjoyable experience; plodding away, building little communities, experimenting with the Undesirables. It could be a great game, but then it swiftly all goes downhill.

Roxy Raccoon's Pinball Panic - a clunky, clumsy pinballer that tries to add in a story for no real reason. Whilst there’s no doubt that the amount of content included in Roxy Raccoon's Pinball Panic is high, rarely does any of it work as intended.

DARKLAND 3 isn’t a 79p diamond-in-the-rough. I’m not going to reveal that there’s a pocket platforming classic here that costs less than a Wispa Gold. What you do get for your cash, though, is a breezy, easy and repetitive little game which does just enough to keep you playing for all fifty of its levels. If that sounds like it might be worth your time, then fill your boots.

Block & Shot is fine. A fine puzzler, a fine giver of easy Gamerscore and a fine way of spending a sole evening of gaming. But it could have been more than fine. It could - and should - have been something more testing, delivering on the explosive premise, building on the simple puzzling mechanics.

CityDriver is not helped by the fact that the driving mechanics are off, running a bit rough, whilst a strange sat nav and some crash mechanics are just weird. You could say the asking price is way too high too.

Sparkle 4 Tales on Xbox One is a great example of how a video game can never simply just be a piece of art, as it needs to have gameplay substance which goes beyond just superficial fodder to make players pick up a controller. There is certainly an attempt to evoke some sort of existential wonder, but it all comes across rather pretentious, especially when the game design as a whole just feels rather superficial.

Skyland: Heart of the Mountain on Xbox isn’t going to be highly recommended; that’s not because it does too much wrong, but more a case that it just about does enough to get by, possessing nothing to allow it stand out from the many others of this ilk.

This is as average as shmups get, and the whole set-up and premise is far too silly to the point where it blurs the line of being a parody of itself.

If you’re after a game that can provide some moments of fun then Robocraft Infinity could deliver, but with the overbearing lootbox presence and limitations to non-premium players, this isn’t something you should be looking to get involved in, and instead Robocraft Infinity just provides more fuel to gaming’s most controversial issues.

Much of Around the World in 80 Days: Hidden Objects is so bad, it’s plain bad. The colour-graded scenes make it hard to spot, well, anything, and reasonably frequent bugs mean that certain levels became guessing games. Even with a perverse affection for all of its oddnesses, I have to acknowledge that Around the World in 80 Days: Hidden Objects isn’t particularly polished, nor is it rewarding.

The levels are still enjoyable for short pick up and play sessions of course, but don’t expect to find anything groundbreaking in Ancient Stories: Gods of Egypt. It’s cheap enough for a quick fix, but there are free games like Frozen Free Fall: Snowball Fight and Gems of War on Xbox which provide better content for your gaming pleasure.

Some reasonable ideas shine through in the crafting system and characters, but ultimately Justice Chronicles is a lumpen grind that you could justly do without.

It’s hard to knock a game too much when it comes to market with such a low asking price in tow, but a combination of dodgy platforming mechanics and an inane story sees Lost Snowmen melt without a trace. Grab it if you’re after some easy Gamerscore, but otherwise those lost snowmen should just go and, well, get lost.

A game like this is only as good as its questions, and it’s here where Bright Side: Riddles and Puzzles stumbles.

StarLightRiders: HyperJump does what it sets out to do – it is a fast paced arcade shooter, and while it is very much a case of “it does what it says on the tin”, there isn’t too much drive to keep plugging away. If you want a rock hard shooter, then have at it, but there are better entries in this genre to choose from.

The gameplay may be responsive but it is extremely irritating in an attempt to lure you through that ‘one-more-time’ mentality, except most of the time when you die it feels unfair and unjustified. The rhythm-based aspect funks things up, but as for the game as a whole, there isn’t much to be found here except a 2D side-scroller with no story, unfair gameplay challenges, and a repetitive drum and bass soundtrack which doesn’t stand out in the slightest.

As always with these types of games, come to Chippy’s Stash knowing that you’ll be leaving it again well within an hour, and understand that the majority who do buy it will do so for Gamerscore bragging alone, and it’s hard to knock what is offered. But if you’re looking for a game that is approaching anything near ‘decent’, you’re going to be left disappointed.

ExitMan Deluxe is a perfectly adequate game for its low asking price. When it works, it’s a fun, reaction based game that’ll stir your competitive spirit and keep you entertained for a fair few hours. When it doesn’t, it’s a frustrating experience that’ll make you grit your teeth - and not in the “I’m concentrating” way that most competitive game players can attest to.

While other games have reinvented the wheel, this feels like the same old wheel just with a new lick of paint.

Chornobyl Liquidators is a mixed experience. On one hand you have this delicately crafted piece of art that so desperately wants to pay respects and highlight the tragedy of Chornobyl’s disaster through a realistic depiction. On the other hand, it’s a clunky, indecisive mess and lacks any form of identity to achieve the success it might otherwise deserve.

Even taking the super low asking price into account, Cats and Seek: Osaka is a hidden cats game that is seriously low in content.

The action is dull, and while the monsters are nice, you never really feel like you are in any danger; as such the horror part of Ikai falls flat.

Flying from feather to feather just isn’t fun or relaxed when those feathers seem placed at random. In pure gameplay terms, we think Aery - Cyber City might be the least enjoyable of all Aery games.

Deep down, under all the skimpy clothes and comedy nudity, there is a solid game trying to get out of Empire of Angels IV. The story is good, the actual battles themselves are fun, and seeing your ragtag band of ladies become badass through constant fighting is quite rewarding. However, this has to be balanced against the frankly juvenile way that women are portrayed.

Forget leaving with a lasting message about the dangers of capitalism - the only thing you’re likely to remember about Norman’s Great Illusion on Xbox One is how utterly tedious those minigames were.

Ultimately, World Championship Boxing Manager 2 swings and misses with its simple, yet repetitive, boxing management sim. Sure, it’s a streamlined experience that’s easy to delve into, but in no time at all you’ll realise there's a monotonous gameplay loop and a lack of substance.

I just couldn’t bring myself to play A Clareira for long stretches. It swings, pendulum-like, between too-easy and impossible.

For now, Crackdown 3 has a great action-oriented gameplay foundation, but not the polish and/or memorable experience to back it up. If you’re a Crackdown fan, then you should definitely play it. If not, then you probably shouldn’t.

Talking Tom Candy Run on Xbox One is a competent endless runner and perfect as an entry-point for young players who might recognise the titular Tom. For more critical players, though, you’ll feel your hackles rise at the laziness of a free-to-play game dressed up as something paid for.

Element Space on Xbox One is a game that apes two of the giants of sci-fi gaming – X-COM and Mass Effect – and instead of using this as inspiration and building on them, instead tries to ride two horses and ultimately ends up falling down the gap in the middle.

If you’re after a racer, then maybe head towards one of last year’s many releases, you know, like the incredible Forza Horizon 4. As for Xenon Racer, it doesn’t match up with modern racers and is sadly one that will probably be forgotten pretty sharpish.

With a little more care put into the tutorial and explanation side of Warhammer 40,000: Space Wolf, the card based gameplay could well have been a lot of fun, but that fun is nipped in the bud sadly.

At the end of the day I just can’t see any reason why any gamer – or bike fan for that matter – would want to fork out on a game that is pretty much a carbon copy of the game that came before it, and of the one before that. For that reason, recommending a purchase of Tour de France 2020 on Xbox One is a seriously hard push.

Odallus: The Dark Call on Xbox One is a promising retro title that is hamstrung by woolly controls and a stupidly massive hitbox for your character.

Butterfly on Xbox is an average puzzle platformer that doesn’t do enough to catch your eye. It will only set you back a few quid, but doesn’t do enough to stand out from the crowd.

Wells isn’t an entirely terrible game and anyone looking for a simple platformer, or those looking for an easy boost to their Gamerscore, will be more than set with what it holds. But if you’re looking for an adventure that offers any form of engagement that stretches beyond the first level then you will certainly want to look elsewhere.

QUByte Classics – The Immortal by PIKO on Xbox is a restoration of a weird and interesting retro game, which by no means is a classic by any stretch of the imagination. It’s not the kind of game you want to go out of your way to experience, as it’s not a must play title from yesteryear.

With sluggish and unresponsive combat, all of which fails to match the overall speed of the game, Bloody Zombies isn’t the best thing you’ll be playing this year.

Zombie Vikings is a fun game for the first few hours. It is a joy to look at as the art style is, as expected from Zoink! Games, stunning. Sadly the story wasn’t exciting enough to keep me gripped and the jokes always fell flat, which was a shame.

As an absolutely mindless time killer, Lord of the Click II cannot be criticised. Yet for near everything else, it can. There's no requirement of skill, no need to worry about tactics or strategy and certainly nothing that will cause concern to anyone who is familiar with a controller. It really is a waste of time. But then, perhaps that's the point…

Those who have a love for these types of games may find some enjoyment, but if you’re looking to jump into a classic ‘brick breaking game’ for the first time, then you would be better off looking elsewhere.

As a whole, this is a disjointed RPG adventure with all of its parts struggling to be held together, ultimately coming across as an upscaled mobile RPG finding it difficult to perform on Xbox One.

Deck of Ashes: Complete Edition feels like a sub-par card game. It’s a deckbuilder with the fun sucked out of it.

Family is a big deal in the East and it is portrayed very well in Road to Guangdong on the Xbox One. Sadly though, the family included here isn’t worth the drive to get there.

Collie Call has some good ideas for its Sokoban puzzling, but fails to do anything worthwhile with them. Sure, it’s cheap, however it’s also short, far too easy, and only really good for boosting your Gamerscore.

FullBlast is an average scrolling shooter that will provide enjoyment for an hour or two. The main problem is that it is far too easy, and its ideas are consistently being stretched too thin. It doesn’t do anything new or different, and what it does do doesn’t quite add up to the full package.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with being a punishing game. In fact, there’s a lot of enjoyment to be had in failing and then trying something new and seeing yourself improve. But Despotism 3k feels like one without the other. It’s punishing, but comes without the chance to improve. It feels like a game entirely at the mercy of RNG.

Survivor Mercs feels like a gift from well-meaning grandparents. It's well wrapped and you can tell there's good intentions, but once you start digging into it you realize it isn't what you asked for. When there are so many Survivor-like games already available, Survivor Mercs' ideas cannot save it from the boring gameplay and convoluted systems which make it just another casualty.

Lethal League tries to take dodgeball to the extreme, turning it into a fighting game which runs at a ruthless pace. If you’re happy to play rounds that generally last for a few hits at a time, then you’re in luck, but anyone like me will grow bored of the ‘whack, whack, next round’ procedure over and over again. Allowing for slight variation in hits and having special abilities helps to a certain degree, but for there to be any longevity, one must distinguish what’s going on when the pace quickens to get the most out of it.

Violet Wisteria ends up being one of those games that shoots for the stars but doesn’t get close to leaving the atmosphere.

One half of LoBlocks is more enjoyable than we anticipated. The other half is far, far worse. Where does that leave us? If you can hold a hand over one eye as you pick from the game menu, then there’s a devious little puzzler to be had in its Classic Mode. Just don’t look at the other half, the Arcade Mode, which is a half-formed little growth that could probably do with being sliced off.

Sleepin’ Deeply on Xbox is attempting to be funny with the main character being a drunk and the level designs being as wacky as they are, but for me it’s just not humorous; a bumbling alcoholic walking around burping and mopping up poop just doesn’t do it for me. But you may find that stuff hilarious, and if you do then Sleepin’ Deeply might be just the game for you.

For anyone interested in the setting, there is a rather good, if flawed, turn-based strategy game out there on the PC which is available to purchase. Otherwise, I’d suggest getting out your D20s and giving the tabletop RPG a go and, sadly, giving Noble Armada: Lost Worlds on Xbox a wide berth.

STONE on the Xbox One compares itself to films such as The Big Lebowski and Inherent Vice, and in the odd moments it is. But even in a game that is barely two hours long, these moments are too far apart, and the filler is very disappointing.

It’s hard to make a case for the goofy but messy RICO London. It only has one trick - breaching and clearing rooms in glorious slow motion - and while that trick is fun, it’s not enough to hold up this mid-budget FPS roguelike.

Had this game been priced accordingly I could easily recommend it, but with what you get and the price at £10.99, I would highly suggest looking elsewhere for a local multiplayer fix before considering Oh My Godheads.

With a full rework, rather than a vanilla re-release, The Humans would have got our grunted approval. But the advances of twenty years of gaming have meant that the flaws of QUByte Classics - The Humans by PIKO are glaring.

We never expected metal detecting to be a Michael Bay movie, but we did expect the moment of finding a treasure to feel exhilarating. In Treasure Hunter Simulator, you just toss it onto the pile of identical treasures behind you, and press on with a weary sigh.

Despite the name, Freddy Spaghetti 2.0 is a step backwards. It has less ideas, less levels and less ambition than the first game. As a fan of the original, I was hoping for something more from the oddly lovable strip of slinky sentient spaghetti.

Speed dash? Perhaps EpiXR Games should slow down. Paper Flight - Super Speed Dash feels like one game and one franchise too many, as their Aery formula is stretched so thin that it snaps and breaks.

The Secret Order: Return to the Buried Kingdom on Xbox One acts like a strong trailer for hidden object gaming: it’s easy to pick up, the puzzles are a pleasure to interact with, and Artifex Mundi have mastered the systems that surround it. But it’s only a trailer: too short, too unsatisfying and narratively incoherent to get your teeth into.

Unless you’re a shoot ’em up completist, there’s very little reason to pick up QUByte Classics: Thunderbolt Collection by PIKO. It feels like they’re getting splinters from dredging the bottom of the shooter barrel.

Dr. Oil misses the mark in regards the core concept of what makes a platformer fun - a feeling of accomplishment for overcoming a challenge through skill.

School Teacher on Xbox One is stuck in that awkward middle-ground of being too simplistic for older kids and not hand-holding enough for the younger crowd. While some of the mini-game ideas are creative, the short blasts of fun they could deliver is curtailed by repetition. Sure, credit is deserved for the attempt to ensure a varied mixture of mini-games is present, but everything else just kills any kind of momentum it could gain.

We didn’t regret getting tangled up in Spirit Roots, but we didn’t wholly enjoy it either. While it looks like a Rayman Legends expansion pack, and comes with a heap of levels, the charm began wearing off as soon as we started playing.

On Xbox, Oniria Crimes’ greatest successes are in the rich world it’s created, and the uniqueness of interrogating the crime scene to come to a conclusion. But neither are enough: the experience tumbles into a nightmare, as poor controls, bemusing design decisions and bugs overwhelm everything.

Dyna Bomb 2 is a frustrating experience that feels unfairly difficult. It suffers from some strange development decisions, and thanks to the inflated asking price, just isn’t worth a punt.

Give an editor a machete and the opportunity to carve out vast chunks of The end is nahual: If I may say so, and you might have a good game. As it stands, this is a fascinating, unruly mess.

The annoyances with Dustwind: Resistance outweigh the good points. There is no doubt that it is a solid enough game, with a few good ideas, but they are buried beneath a layer of obtuseness that makes playing Dustwind: Resistance a chore.

I’m at a loss. There’s no good way of playing Sora - Winds of the Jungle, and I’m not convinced EpiXR Games know how they want you to play it, either. It’s a flying conundrum, and we reached the game’s end wondering why anyone bothered.

Maximum Games have a solid premise throughout Troll and I, and the game can be made much better with patches, but ultimately Troll and I will be lost to the vast majority of players who are unwilling to see the game for its good points opposed to its potential.

As a tool for the inexperienced driver looking to learn the way of the road in America, taking in real world experiences in a safe environment, Driving Essentials on Xbox One is just about fine; although even then the lack of content is an issue. But for anyone else, it’s a total waste of time. The visuals, the audio, the huge price tag and the problems with the AI and penalty system will fail to ever really draw in any prospective new driver, even if they fully understand that at no point in time is this ever being marketed as a game.

Cyber Pool excels in the table types, but fails with inconsistent gameplay and dodgy hit detection.

There is a great game with a brilliant idea underneath the problems of Headspun; problems that have made the game unworkable.

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy- Definitive Edition on Xbox is an overpriced and poorly produced release which does absolutely no favours to the classic games it attempts to celebrate. The experience here is far from definitive, and aside from the sheer laziness in the graphical remastering and performance, it introduces a whole slew of performance issues.

There are some great ideas, and an admirable aesthetic, but when you can pick up better fighters such as SoulCalibur VI, Mortal Kombat X, Tekken 7 and even Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite for far less, it’s hard to really justify the price.

We were surprised about our reaction to 7 Days of Rose. It was like a reflex: a gag at how smarmy and inauthentic it was. As a visual novel, it’s fine - well presented with several endings. But we found the main character to be as unlikable as the relationship is unlikely, and we struggled to play the game as our eyes were continually rolling.

Gene Rain is a disappointment. It is ultimately good looking enough, but shallow, with poor gameplay and frankly laughable dialogue. The acting is poor, the guns lack heft and the cover mechanic is broken so much that you really don’t want to get me started.

Move over House of Wolves, for there’s a new worst Destiny expansion in town, and it goes by the name of Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate.

Put it this way, if a meteor hit the Xbox Store today, no one would miss Roarr! Jurassic Edition.

Ultimately, there just isn’t enough here. 8-Ball Pocket is a lightweight, plainly presented little pool game, which doesn’t have the modes, options or customisation to warrant a purchase. In a world with a bewildering number of pool variants, there’s no real excuse for packaging in a bizarre solo option and a vanilla multiplayer option.

It is tough to recommend Hyposphere: Rebirth on Xbox to anyone other than achievement hunters, and even then it is probably best to still avoid it.

Richy’s Nightmares is, appropriately, a nightmare. We challenge you to master or even enjoy its scrappy jumping. The physics, bugs and laggy leaping make this less a limbo, and more a straight-up platforming hell.

Vera Blanc: Ghost In The Castle on Xbox is a spectral shadow of Vera Blanc: Full Moon. It feels similar, but the story is thinner, less threatening, it doesn’t last as long, and the kitschiness is replaced with misogyny.