It’s a joy to play something so substantial and well crafted in Fast & Furious: Spy Racers Rise of SH1FT3R. Sure, Forza will trump this in every way, but for the younger player – particularly one who’s bought into the TV series – this is an unexpected gift.

There's a Gun in the Office is an unconventional and effective game that, if nothing else, might just prepare you in case the worst should ever happen.

Damning Ufouria: The Saga 2 with faint praise, but this is a sturdy, enjoyable and accessible platformer. It’s almost impossible to dislike thanks to its gorgeous feltworks world, and it’s equally impossible to fall foul of its difficulty levels.

I like magic a lot, but even I need something unique to look at, or a fantastic story told, to really keep me interested.

The single player side of things is fantastic, at least short term, and if only there was online multiplayer play included, House of Golf 2 could well have been found pushing Golf With Your Friends for a place on game session rotation.

The key takeaway with F1 Manager 2023 is that your enjoyment of the game will differ immensely depending on your knowledge of F1. What is here, as long as you are a real F1 nerd, is capable of captivating for hours on end. However, with niggling issues within Race Moments, a lack of sense of progression, and the engineering side difficult to get to grips with, F1 Manager 2023 is the nichest of niche titles.

This 2D platformer has a healthy mix of different obstacles to battle your way through, which can prove to be quite challenging. While the graphics and music make for a great gameplay experience, the lack of story and difficulty can see things getting old really fast. However, if you have quick reflexes and love a challenge, then Alteric may be the game for you.

Despite legitimate questions around longevity, Arcadegeddon is an absolute blast that takes place across a lush, digital battleground. With the right support, the future should be bright for this one.

As a family, we enjoyed JoJo Siwa: Worldwide Party. The music immediately went on our daughters’ playlists, and the blend of platforming and rhythm action was reasonably smooth. But while it tries hard to remix things and offer new takes on the gameplay, it can’t disguise the repetition.

Heroes Battle Awakening is undeniably Plants vs Zombies. It just is: it borrows all of the mechanics and many of the troops. Strategies that worked for Popcap’s game will work well here.

Aquadine is an original visual novel that plays with a unique and absorbing story. It comes with some good writing, likeable characters, beautiful visuals and a great soundtrack.

If you’ve got a hankering for some old-school, 8-bit platforming thrills, without any concerns about bugs or quibbles, then Super Onion Boy 2 is cheap and plenty cheerful.

As a freebie, Space Science Investigations is a delight and despite its brief running time it packs a lot of information in.

If you are wanting a more modern JRPG, Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom PRINCE'S EDITION is still well worth a look. Just be prepared to do a lot of reading, as there is far too little voice acting in here.

3D Don’t Die Mr. Robot is a little too true to its arcade origins. Like the games it homages, there’s an immediate kick of adrenaline, but not much in terms of staying power.

Charm is perhaps the biggest thing Scott Pilgrim Vs The World: The Game - Complete Edition on Xbox has going for it. Unfortunately, the fighting isn’t quite as tight as it could be and occasionally lets down the wonderful music and great visuals.

Sidestep the obvious criticism that there’s no interaction or choice to speak of in The Fairy’s Song, and you have one of the better kinetic visual novels. It’s polished to a crystal-like sheen, and the characters all grow to become endearing versions of themselves.

While Deadfire is still a fantastic game and one of the best isometric RPGs in recent years, it’s clearly much better suited for a PC audience. If that isn’t an option for you, there’s still a solid port here with the Xbox One version, if you can see past any of the technical missteps.

Gravitators brings something a little bit different to the table of an overcrowded market, and as such is worthy of a look. While it isn’t massively original, bringing things together as it has, does deliver a spark of originality.

Edna & Harvey: The Breakout - Anniversary Edition on Xbox One is a big old game, but if you wish to get your teeth into a world of eccentricity and the bizarre it should just suffice.

Awesome Pea 3 bears all the hallmarks of the many, many platform games that came before it. That doesn’t prevent it from being a solid couple of hours of fun however, and possibly the best in the series. It’s always good to go out on a high.

If you can look past the rather hefty problems – i.e., the silly amount of loading screens found in the campaign – then the rest of CastleStorm II on Xbox One is absolutely fine. The humour is stupid but on point, the battle scenes are fast and frantic, and the world-building is just deep enough to let you feel like you’ve got a proper control over proceedings.

Aimlabs is a very difficult game to score, mainly because it’s not really a ‘game’ and nothing else like it exists on the Xbox. If you want to get better at shooting, the exercises will help, as will the ping of achievements, something that Aimlabs is quite generous with. But this is far from something that you will fire up just for the heck of it.

At some point those behind Puzzle by Nikoli W Shikaku will have to reveal what demon pact they’ve signed. It’s the only way to explain how they keep creating original puzzles that we haven’t encountered before in the wild. We’ve never played a Shikaku before, but we’re Shik-hot at them now.

If you want a polished single-player adventure then Pigeon Simulator is not the right perch. But if you are looking for a light-hearted co-op romp filled with physics-fuelled disasters and ridiculous pigeon-antics, this is well worth a dive.

Don’t Sink isn’t a micro-managing RPG experience that you’re going to sink a ton of hours in to, however the time spent with it will be mostly full of charm and provide a decent amount of joy.

Whilst there could be some work done with the combat and control system, The Wild Eight performs well enough in all other aspects and presents you with more than enough gameplay to keep you entertained for hours.

On the whole, Flipping Death delivers a creative idea that will satisfy for a little while as you have fun possessing weird people, working out which one’s the key to progression and, of course, literally becoming Death himself. You’ll either giggle a lot at the humour or find it a bit too inane, but I personally enjoyed the daftness.