Balancelot on Xbox has over 50 levels to play through, but there isn’t anywhere near enough differentiation between them to keep players entertained. The tapestry style and Monty Python cues can only carry Balancelot so far, especially when things such as the cutscenes and water effects are so badly ported over, which has to be said is unusual for a Ratalaika game.

Beyond Enemy Lines 2 touts itself as a hardcore strategic shooter that requires patience and intelligence to make its way through. Whilst that idea is certainly an interesting one, it fails to deliver in almost all regards.

For the potential that Super Soccer Blast on Xbox One brings, it consistently fails to deliver, with bugs, glitches and an overriding rushed feeling provided throughout. Even though the in-game mechanics aren’t the best, it could well have still been an arcade football game worth playing. But it comes with a severe lack of game options, zero online capabilities and enough bugs and glitches bubbling around, ready to explode, to ensure that this is one to avoid.

For free, Defiance 2050 is ok, there is fun if you can overlook the bugs, and the story is a good one, albeit identical to the game I played half a decade ago. However broken shooting mechanics, poor graphics and not enough love put into the detail conspire to rob what fun there is.

We’ve hate-played games before, but hate is a strong word in the case of Royal Roads 3. It’s more that we persisted in a state of bored disbelief. Surely something interesting is going to happen. Surely we’re going to end up somewhere less brown, rather than more. It’s almost impressive that no, it makes no attempt to do anything of the sort.

Johnny Rocket on Xbox One is a game that just screams missed potential. It has a unique concept and a bold, beautiful art style, and yet those weren’t built upon to make a well-rounded experience.

If you're after a mindless blast through space and fancy hearing the constant ping of achievements as you go, the low asking price of X-Force Genesis is probably going to be enough to tempt you in. Don't expect anything resembling a decent shoot 'em up experience though.

Anti Gravity Games Studios have included four unique zones, tons of levelling options, a hardcore mode and an actual incentive to perfect levels. Unfortunately the design of most of the game’s systems make that content unenjoyable. Between performance issues, difficulty spikes and a large amount of unfair deaths, it’s tough to enjoy your time here, and much of what fun can be had ends up being more at the expense of Hell Warders rather than because of it.

Ultimately, it’s the controls that doomed Lara Returns to the Castle: when the basic hopping about turned out to be less than enjoyable, there was only one way that things were going to go.

Unfortunately, there are some glaring issues in Crossroads Inn on Xbox that prevent it from being recommended in its current guise; notably that it’s not suited to a controller and is badly optimised. There is a roadmap planned for the rest of this year with new expansions and patches that hopefully fix the issues such as console optimisation and even the missing scenarios. But as it stands, it is best to avoid this one.

As a one-hour stroll goes, One Step After Fall is a painful one. It’s more like walking over LEGO than a relaxing amble.

Heads Up! Phones Down Edition is not a bad game: it’s just an unnecessary one. Slap £33.49 on that unnecessary game and, well, we creep slowly out of the room to play The Jackbox Party Pack games.

With seventy puzzle layouts and no frills, Mahjong - Xbox Series X|S might seem like the ideal purchase for someone who wants a no-nonsense version of the classic game. But when the simplest interactions come with baggage, there’s no reason to pick this over the many other options on the Xbox Store.

There’s nothing wrong with a deeply difficult platformer. But they have to be fair, and the controls have to be well-oiled. Alexio isn’t even close to nailing either, and the result is about as unsatisfying as a precision platformer can get. Don’t be tempted by the cute duck on the marketing: this one is less fair and more fowl.

In many ways My Universe – My Baby on Xbox just feels like a tutorial that never ends and you’ll end up repeating activities far too often; activities which aren’t even that good in the first place. It’ll only last you a few hours maximum, proving there’s not much longevity here either, but the mini-games do occur one after the other to ensure there isn’t any unnecessary downtime.

There is a good game buried deep inside Robin Hood – Sherwood Builders, trying to get out, but the layers of nonsense over the top do a pretty good job of smothering it.

Winter Games 2023 will be a game that you find yourself playing for an hour or so tops, before the repetitive nature and poor presentation start to properly grate.

Bunny Parking takes a classic puzzle from yesteryear and tries to make what is essentially a one-trick pony enjoyable across a whopping amount of levels. Sadly it fails due to a combination of a lack of guidance, repetition, annoying sounds and a real absence of quality in terms of game mechanics. Sure, the actual puzzles are fine in the sense that they will test your problem solving skills and there are some easy achievements to unlock, but everything else surrounding it is a letdown.

We can’t walk away from Sokomonster and pretend we enjoyed our time with it, but aside from building frustrations at the solving of each puzzle, it rarely does anything wrong. We much prefer the pushing of SokoCrab over the sliding of this little monster, but your personal decision may vary.

With all things considered you're probably best off giving Orbals a miss entirely. The gameplay is frustrating when it should have been fun, the precision is off and the lack of consideration given by the game itself is enough to end what could have been a joyous relationship.

Esports Life Tycoon gets off to a flyer on Xbox thanks to a great array of customisation options, ensuring the branding and players are how you want them to be. In fairness, the gameplay is nice and relaxing too, but just becomes repetitive due to the everyday life and matches being so samey. The wheels come off when the crashes, sluggish inputs and awkward menus start to grind on you. And don’t even bother with the buggy Challenges, for they’ll almost instantly disappoint.

With its actual mission and objective based gameplay, Dragon Pinball may just be the best pinball game yet from Super PowerUP Games. But based on what has come before it, that isn’t really a compliment.

Revhead is both good and bad, with the scales coming down on the bad side rather firmly. As a mechanic simulator, it works and is fun. But the rest of the game is shockingly bad. I can’t recommend Revhead to anyone who doesn't have actual grease under their fingernails.

Crashy Laps very much does what it says on the tin, chucking you into an old school racer that is intent on crashing. Poor visuals, terrible audio and a 'feel’ that is nothing short of unique fail to help this racer speed away from the grid, let alone be able to compete for podiums.

For little ones, this may be a good entry point into gaming, but for the older gamers, this is nothing more than Gamerscore fodder, and it’s tough to even recommend it for that reason.

Foxyland 2 on Xbox One is not a good challenge, as the majority of the difficult moments are due to off controls, poor hit detection and the 1-hit deaths. The aesthetics are great, but the core gameplay is incredibly frustrating

Bai Qu: Hundreds of Melodies is a dull, melodramatic plod of a game, and it’s a textbook example of how to get visual novels wrong. We’re partial to a visual novel, but they do have habits that we dislike, and Bai Qu does its darnedest to exhibit every single one of those habits.

We expected to have our heartstrings tugged like we were playing a John Lewis advert. By the end of Animal Shelter Simulator, we were yawning in the destitute cats and dogs’ faces.