With Cube Farmer you reap what you sow in the sense that you can get a cheap and decent puzzler for a cheap and decent price.

The Wreck was such a labour for us to wade through. It’s too structured and symmetrical, making it feel less like a story and more like a syllabus of homework tasks.

Strategic Mind: Spectre of Communism is better than previous games in the franchise, but that isn’t a particularly high hurdle to clear. As strategy games go, there are better options out there, but this does work and is able to offer up a bit of a challenge.

We felt like we were playing the bare bones of a tactics game - from story to strategy to replayability - and those bare bones had sharp edges that kept stabbing us when we least wanted it to. If you’re bubble-wrapped by love for the genre then Vanaris Tactics might (emphasis on the might) be enough to keep you going to the end.

Atomic Heart may not feel wholly original, but you can’t deny the craftsmanship that has gone into building an immersive, vibrant world. It may be a familiar tale of tech gone wrong, but there’s enough creative flair here to justify treading the path once again.

Tales of Symphonia Remastered is a brilliant JRPG. Some areas such as the battles and overall sound feels a little dated, but it is still very much a playable game. Where it is let down is in the remastering details, or rather lack of.

Bravo, Puzzle by Nikoli W, you’ve done it again with Masyu. We don’t know what bargain you’ve struck with a puzzling demon, but you’ve delivered yet another fresh-feeling, devious puzzle onto the Xbox.

While Gunman Tales is overflowing with ideas, there’s no denying that the central one is creaky. The lightgun stuff is neither fun nor particularly varied, and adding in some character movement isn’t enough. Once we’d found the Golden Canyon and claimed our treasure, we didn’t have the impulse to return. We just rode off into the sunset.

We want to spread the word: absorb more people into Zapling Bygone’s body. This is a gruesome Metroidvania that will make you gag, and we loved every flipping minute of it. Join the hive-mind. We dare you.

Figment 2: Creed Valley is more beautiful, there is absolutely no denying that: it’s an absolute feast for the eyeballs and ears. But when we looked back and ticked off the wonderful moments, we didn’t get off our first hand. In Figment: Journey into the Mind, we could barely fit them on our fingers and toes. A stand-out game has become merely a very good one.

Whether you're looking to take some tentative first steps into Atari's Recharged series or are an old veteran of the rebooted scene, we'd urge you to stick Caverns of Mars: Recharged right near the very top of your play list. It can certainly feel brutal, there's no denying that, but the adrenaline hits it can bring far outweigh those of frustration.

Road Stones is not a great tower defense game, but a cheap and slightly cheerful one. The freedom proposed by the gameplay is decent, with lots of upgrades eventually at your disposal to increase the joy of defeating monsters. The difficulty is completely skewed though, causing frustration when your resources are limited.

Lootbox Lyfe+ can be a rather spiffing little platformer. Stacking on ability after ability, at roughly three times the pace that Samus might, for example, is a bit of a lark. It’s at its best in the opening moments, when that cadence is something of a punchline, but it’s still good in the latter game, too.

There's no debating that Akka Arrh is a gaming experience worth taking in, yet perhaps more as an intrigue point. We're not sure many will find it to be much of a long term proposition.

Remoteness is in need of some patching and only then may it well be interesting enough to look at it. The gameplay is all over the place, the asthma mechanic not needed, yet there could well be an intriguing game hiding away underneath it all.

Merge & Blade plays pretty similarly across all the modes on offer and it is that which is both its strength and its weakness. Fun to play for short bursts, there is no doubt that earning new units is great, but it isn’t long before things start to feel like a drag. As a short term proposition then, Merge & Blade works, but I’m not sure the long-term hook is there.

Destiny 2: Lightfall is a let down. The blessing is that the gunplay and action are as good as ever, but stupid difficulty spikes and poor writing make Lightfall a chore to play.

Few visual novels can lift you to the belly-laughing highs, and then plunge you into the tearful lows of Animal Lover. Squirrel away the cynicism and give it a go: you may start looking at pets in a completely (and innocent) new light.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a superb game. It is blindingly fast, fluid and great fun to play. The bosses will have you chewing your pad until you suss out their patterns, and the rest of the action is just as tough - never underestimate an enemy, even a small one. Apart from the loading times, this is one of the best action RPG games on the market.

Pinball FX is a pretty good place to begin your collection, but not good enough to duplicate it.

The Smile Alchemist is a hard game to rate. It is slow, but charming, dull, but interesting; it kind of defies description. As a change from the plethora of retro-styled JRPGs that KEMCO release, it is a success, but on the flip-side, it is a hard one to recommend; it does get pretty samey.

Aabs Animals is less a game and more a transaction. It’s a shifty guy in a dark alley selling 1000G for £7.99. “Just look at a cat mate”, he says, as he pockets the cash and runs giggling over the horizon.

Webgeon Speedrun Edition isn’t going to set the puzzle-platforming world alight. It is an ice-sliding puzzle in spider’s clothing, and the additions it offers - including some fantastic chandelier vandalism - are minor, gentle additions to the formula. But together with the intricate, well-crafted levels, they’re just enough to nudge Webgeon Speedrun Edition into the realm of a recommendation.

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.

Scars Above is a challenging game that has a lot to offer, with a price that fits its ambition. The story is original and there’s some good space drama going on.

Cleopatra Fortune S-Tribute plays very well and is a lot of fun. It is a shame about the Mystery Mode though as it is - as the name suggests - a completely impenetrable mystery which leaves us with pretty much half a game; a bit of translation would have made this a much more palatable proposition.

What Iris and the Giant lacks with its minimalistic style, it more than makes up with addictive card-play. The emotional narrative is subtle yet works greatly due to the little nuances from Iris’ life incorporated into the gameplay. And the gameplay is where it thrives.

You will probably be fairly impressed with Dead Station. It is short, don’t get me wrong, but for only £4.19, it is a reasonable price for a reasonable game. The atmosphere is good, as is the gameplay; it’ll certainly keep you playing until the bitter end. That said, you’ll need to put up with some annoying platforming and jumping - especially the pixel perfection that is required with the latter.