Struggling is bonkers, disgusting but also different. It’s enjoyable in parts but the frankly exasperating controls take the shine off some innovative gameplay ideas.

If the battles were anywhere near as playful as the base-management, then Steampunk Tower 2 on Xbox would be an easy recommendation. Instead, the scaffolding is better than the game it’s supporting, and that’s probably not where you want your game to be. It’s a fascinating experiment for sure - making a console tower defence game that’s both vertical and only on one screen - but ultimately it doesn’t quite succeed.

There are still several issues that need to be ironed out but GRIP: Combat Racing isn’t a terrible game. In fact, with a few necessary fixes, it could definitely become something rather special thanks to filling the gap left in the genre and providing something a bit different to most other racers. At present though, it’s going to take a bit more variety and polish for this to be a racer we’ll be remembering fondly.

While I cant claim to be the intended audience, at the price of $5.99/£4.99, it’s still a tricky one to recommend, mainly due to the largest issues that stem from the underdeveloped story and short overall length.

There is no denying that OVIVO on Xbox One is a fantastic game to look at and take in. The black and white levels are beautifully designed when you see them in all their glory from a different perspective. When zoomed in, as you control the ball through them though, you miss most of this aesthetic as you try and navigate through basic yet frustrating gameplay.

Approach Cinders on Xbox One with caution. If you like a bit of melodrama in your life, and the prospect of a well-crafted, alternate take on Cinderella sounds appealing, this glass slipper may well fit.

Dustwind - The Last Resort presents a world which intrigues and offers a gritty RTS experience. However, punishing difficulty, gradual pace and repetitive gameplay make it an acquired taste for sure.

You should enjoy BLEACH: Brave Souls, but much of that will be down to the story and being keen to see where it goes next. You see, the rest of the time, the game feels a bit scrappy, a bit of a rushed conversion. There is fun here, but BLEACH: Brave Souls is far from the most polished game you’ll ever play.

Infiltration brings with it an exciting environment full of fresh ideas, such as the use of height and depth, but the opening cinematic really doesn’t help the whole thing feel as free flowing as it should. The gameplay aspect obviously isn’t affected by this and the open areas bring for some great ranged opportunities to take down the masses of enemies, and many will find it as a fairly average DLC offering.

For picking up and blasting through an hour at a time, Ember: Console Edition works. It’s an RPG lite experience that fails to hit the depth and intricacy of a standard RPG, yet it does a good job of providing entry-level genre ideas.

BFF or Die on Xbox is clearly best played with friends, but the inclusivity of a single player mode is welcome, despite being less enjoyable. It’s lacking compared to some other party games out there, but it will provide a couple of hours of fun to those prepared to give it a chance.

Yes, it’s just a port from a successful mobile game and the controls might work a lot better on a phone, but it does the job intended of it and will appeal to a lot of sim fans.

Swords & Bones has some good ideas, but the execution needs some work and maybe a touch of polish.

Griftlands is the turducken of card games. It’s a deck-builder stuffed with a second deck-builder, inside a faction-management game, inside a single-player narrative game. It’s ridiculously overstuffed and impenetrable, but you’ve got to admire the craft on display. Taken as individual games, there’s some fantastic ideas in Griftlands, but as a single offering, they don’t quite work.

This is not one of Artifex Mundi’s best: it’s a meandering, weirdly earnest story, and the hidden object puzzles are more fiddly than they needed to be. We weren’t exactly ‘bah humbug’ while playing Yuletide Legends: Who Framed Santa Claus?, but we were at least a little crotchety.

If you’re after a zen, chillout game of Carmageddon then maybe Zombie Hill Racing will work for you. For us, it was a bit of an uphill slog.

You’ll enjoy Spot The Differences! Party, at least in short bursts. It’s addictive to see how far you can progress, as you look to improve your score in solo mode, whilst Party mode is a fun way to spend a couple of hours with friends.

I Am the Hero isn’t the best example in the genre, but it isn’t among the worst, either. The story is forgettable, but it compensates with appealing, well-animated visuals and a varied musical score. Combat offers a galore of options, but the overall difficulty is just too low to incentivize their usage.

We suspect that there will be an audience for Seduce Me - The Complete Story. This is a generous visual novel package with some racy scenes, and the incubus/succubus angle is a fresh one. Someone is going to love this. But it rubbed us up the wrong way.

Castle Pals works well as a game that you play when you need to kill a little time when out and about, but sitting down and playing it in one go just isn’t what it was designed for.

CD-RUN on Xbox One is a good solid entry into the party scene. I just wish there was the opportunity to take things online, and to have more to enjoy in terms of game modes.

A bit like BROK himself, BROK the InvestiGator is a bit of a hybrid. It’s a brawler spliced onto a graphic adventure, yet neither half of the gene pool is quite stable enough to support it.

I can’t help feeling that Habitat Shapes is a puzzle-designer short of a really good game. With more finesse in its layouts and the shapes that it offers, it would have been more memorable and stimulating to play.

For the price asked, ADVERSE is good for what it is - a trial action-adventure game for skilled gamers to flourish with. If you hate repeating things, or have nightmares with anything that involves precision platforming, then this isn't the game for you I'm afraid, however if it is, there is plenty to get your teeth into.

Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster is one of the seminal JRPGs. It’s just that it has, unfortunately, been outclassed by its own peers.

Battle Axe on the Xbox is fast-food in an action-brawler wrapper. It tastes and looks good in the short-term, full of E numbers and shots of adrenaline. But it leaves you unsatisfied in the long term, leaving you hungry for something more than thirty minutes of easy hacking and slashing. When you’re £25 lighter after the experience, you’d be forgiven for expecting a heartier meal with more courses.

Pikuniku on Xbox One is a tiny little game. It tries to do a whole lot with its short campaign, yet it only does half of it well. Its writing bounces back and forth between being endearingly random and just plain unfunny. The puzzles featured within the campaign and co-operative modes are easily the best part of playing, so it is odd that the game does not focus entirely on those two things.

Cotton games are known for being charming and precise, but Panorama Cotton feels ugly and unwieldy. It’s not the most ideal of trades. ININ Games have done a sterling job of porting this curio, but we warn you: as a modern gamer, it’s a bumpy ride.