We’re blessed with high quality platformers on the Xbox with a new one tending to arrive every few weeks. When that’s the case, there’s no chance that we’d give Crossbow Crusade anything but two thumbs down. Just wait a few more weeks and something more worthy of your time and patience will come along.

A platform speedrunner might find something in Dashing Orange. It’s an obstacle course for that player, in the same way a Spartan Run is for a jogger. But in our case, we wanted to give up repeatedly on Dashing Orange. This little orange was not for us.

Games have moved on massively since the early 2000s and while BloodRayne 2: ReVamped is almost like a time capsule, it feels like a rushed port, with no real attempt made to tailor the game to the console market or controller even.

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Quest for Balance tries to do way too much. The gameplay is unfocused, inconsistent, and unpolished. And the refined storytelling that made the original show so beloved is completely absent.

Emulating Space Invaders was always going to be a challenge, mainly because some bells and whistles were needed to update that classic for a modern audience. But SHMUP Mania goes the other way. It takes things out, making a minimalist game even more minimalist, and the result is a snooze ’em up that you can safely ignore. ‘Mania’ indeed.

Awkward most definitely does as the name suggests. In fact, I’d go as far as to say this is one game that is highly unsuitable for a family birthday. But for a group of mates on the beers and looking for a laugh? It does a reasonably decent job, at least for 5 minutes.

You can give us all the choices in the world, and they won’t mean anything if none of them are satisfying. And that’s the problem in Twice Reborn: A Vampire Visual Novel. Every path we took was padded out with insufferable world-building and detail. We felt like we were in a conversation with an energy-vampire; all the interest, all the goodwill that we had for the game, was being sucked out of us.

It feels like there is potential for a good game in there somewhere, but there is not enough content in El Coco to fulfill it. The game plays like a prototype or a tech demo rather than a fully fledged product in its own right.

From Heaven to Earth wants to provide a relaxing zen time - maybe it could have, had the controls been tightened and the frustrating movement made smooth.

Arsonist Heaven has some good ideas, but it really could do with a bit more care being spent on the traversal mechanics. Rather than being a twisted firestarter, it is more of a damp squib.

Mini Madness may hit the right nostalgic notes, but the repetitive humdrum racing and somewhat lazy execution is a long way behind the curve.

Thunder Kid: Hunt for the Robot Emperor has little more than a gimmick to offer, and even this has a very limited appeal.

I’ve struggled with Cards We’re Dealt. Yes, it all runs fine, and the multiplayer works okay, but I’ve been left disappointed by pretty much everything else – the visuals, the sound, the gameplay and the controls. If ever a game has failed to click, this is it.

The real test in Ball laB II is not in how many levels you will actually manage to complete. It's more to do with how many deaths you'll be able to take before you switch off and uninstall.

Gridz Keeper is 25-minutes of random lever pulling and the odd jolt of satisfaction when a puzzle is solved. If we’re honest, we’d rather spend that time head-shotting undead hordes in a more conventional zombie game.

Tokyo Warfare Turbo on Xbox One feels like an unfinished and incomplete game, and while the core tank action can be quite enjoyable, it is unfortunately situated in a package that offers very little in the way of gameplay variety and modes.

The lack of variety, weird aesthetic choices and quickly monotonous gameplay is not enough to recommend STAB STAB STAB! to anyone.

Arrest of a Stone Buddha is a superficial and empty video game. Despite having some novelty in its setting and ideas, there is simply no semblance of coherent game structure or practical gameplay mechanics. It almost feels like a concept to what could have potentially been a very cool 2D action game, but as it stands Arrest of a Stone Buddha is a pretty meaningless one; one that has been poorly ported and presented on Xbox.

At its best, Obsurity is a hardcore hack-and-slash where you spend more time retreating than progressing, which is better than it sounds. But at its worst, and it is all too often in that area, it’s a buggy, unwieldy and incomprehensible brawler that needs tightening up on pretty much every joint.

Calico on Xbox is a cat café sim where you’ll actually spend more time away from the shop than inside it – rendering the place almost useless. Fortunately, the townsfolk are nice enough to have a chinwag with and have plenty of distracting quests to provide something to do. Sadly, there’s too much back-tracking through a world that isn’t overly pleasant to look at and it’s got a fair amount of bugs.

Whiskey Mafia: Leo’s Family is a Mafia adventure that is over within forty-five minutes, and you will have 1000G handed to you in a brown paper bag. That might be an offer you can’t refuse, but we’d argue that you should.

Outbreak: Contagious Memories is a love letter to a game that will be stamped “return to sender”. It takes the memory of great games from the past and drops on them from a great height.

I really wanted to like Hellboy Web of Wyrd, from the announcement trailer reveal, it looked amazing. Technically that is still true - it does looks amazing. Yet sadly it doesn’t have the substance to back up the fantastic style. Maybe hardcore fans will find more joy, but Web of Wyrd feels tricky to recommend to even the most dedicated fans.

The art style is generally pleasing to the eye, but the lack of enjoyable content means that it’s likely to be the only thing you’ll remember from the game. With an already diminished player base, there are plenty of other similar local multiplayer titles on the market that offer a lot more.

Fundamentally flawed, Filthy Animals: Heist Simulator will struggle to hold your attention - it is frustrating rather than entertaining, no matter how many of you are playing at once.

Yes there are the occasional good bits, and it’s reasonably decent fun to be able to take a solo career team on a journey to success, but at the end of the day you’ll have to be a huge fan and follower of all things volleyball in order to really find enjoyment. And even then, it’s not a patch on what we find down at the beach, even more so when you take into account the horrendous price being asked.

If you’re fond of the genre, and are prepared for a challenging (even frustrating) experience, Mars: Chaos Menace might be just what you’re looking for. However, the average player will almost certainly be alienated (pun!) by the staggering amount of retries it takes to make progress.

Windborn - Echoes of the Night has none of that trademark Aery calmness. Its entire focus is on relentlessly hitting checkpoints against a strict time limit. To be honest, the whole package feels a bit half-baked. It's a real shame.