Jump Force somehow only achieves mediocrity at best despite the star power found on its roster and the potential that comes with that cast. The characters are indeed faithfully recreated, stylish abilities and all, but nothing feels seamless. From the horrible cutscenes and choppy combat animations to the struggling frame rate, everything feels cut together haphazardly. Jump Force looks like an excellent idea on paper as a crossover containing over 40 characters from various Shonen Jump series, but in practice, the vision falls flat due to a serious lack of polish.

Wargroove pays homage to Advance Wars in both style and substance, with an obvious nostalgic appeal to Game Boy Advance veterans. It's a well-rounded game that makes turn-based strategy accessible to anyone new to the genre. However, it can still challenge seasoned players via custom difficulty settings and custom content. The inclusion of straightforward content creation tools increases its scope and longevity and gives it the potential to develop a community centred on amateur game development. It may resemble a relic from the Game Boy era, but Wargroove is far more than just another retro game.

With unique and tricky puzzles, 39 Days to Mars will feel right at home in any puzzle fan's game collection. The simplistic art style allows the puzzles to remain the focus of the experience. The choice of solo or co-op mode is ideal but the controls are slightly awkward, making things a little off-putting in both modes. While not perfect, 39 Days to Mars is a great time filler when you and a friend want to put your brains to the test for a few hours.

Yonder is the type of game I wish we had a lot more of on Xbox. Its quaint and relaxed nature is a breath of fresh air and an easy recommendation for families playing together. While its more structured story leaves less post-game life to live compared to its genre counterparts, it also manages to find a comfy middle ground between simplicity and depth. It's approachable, adorable, and sows the seeds of happiness in its characters and players alike.

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown brings the franchise hurtling onto Xbox One with all guns blazing. For genre fans, it's a great time thanks to intuitive and compelling combat, an interesting variety of missions, a wealth of content, planes, weaponry and technology, all backed up with stunning graphics and a thumping soundtrack. Other than issues with difficulty spikes in missions and a substandard multiplayer offering, there is little to complain about with the title. It's a high-octane, jet-fuelled blast.

JackQuest attempts to blend genre features together with its platforming and metroidvania elements, but it ends up being quite average in execution in almost all aspects. The art style and catchy, albeit short, soundtrack are positives, but they do little to eliminate the middling feel of the game. The plot doesn’t make me care to learn anything about the characters or what will happen to them, and the gameplay, while serviceable, doesn’t compel me to recommend JackQuest to fans of this style of game. It isn’t a terrible game, but there are far better options for those who are looking to for a fun retro romp.

Just like its campaign can be fun after you forgive its glaring flaws, Wrecking Zone is similarly full of potential and could be something really cool with further development. In its current form it can certainly be entertaining, but considering you can't deliberately play with friends yet, you'll wait a long time in matchmaking. It all lacks variety round to round, so the fun feels fleeting. Hopefully the developers have the green light to build on the multiplayer suite because it feels like they could have something really worthwhile on their hands after a few updates. For now, it's pretty easy to jump off.

Covering horror as often as I do, I know by now the telltale signs of a horror game that is little more than a walking sim with a few scripted door slammings. Conarium thankfully rises above this regularly faulty approach by including just enough actual threats to keep players on their toes. It is still an adventure game in part, but it gets that part mostly right too thanks to a good atmosphere and a story worth following whether or not you've read its original inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft. Puzzles and controls leave a lot to be desired, but Conarium does much else well, making it an easy recommendation for any fans of the author.

Fans of the series have been waiting for this game for a long time, and Kingdom Hearts III will not disappoint them. Both the new and old worlds are a joy to play through, and you are given the freedom to explore them as and when you want. The story is complicated, there's no denying it, and this is not an easy jumping on point for people new to the series. If you put your time into this game there's an abundance of rewards to get out of it, only tarnished by some minor gameplay issues. Sora's latest adventure is magical.

It's fitting that just days after Microsoft announced the name change of their internal production branch from Microsoft Studios to Xbox Game Studios, Crackdown 3's launch screen displays the old moniker. After a year of exciting studio acquisitions for the company in 2018 and a stronger push for first-party moving forward, Crackdown 3 is the last remnant of the bygone era of Smartglass, live-action/video game hybrids, and forced Kinect purchases. It survived the purge where Fable Legends and Scalebound did not, but even in its best moments, Crackdown 3's campaign feels like it was born too late.

Far Cry New Dawn continues the series' year-long descent into self-parody with this uninspired sequel. The spinoffs for Far Cry are usually very exciting, previously taking us to an alternate future or the ancient past. In New Dawn we return to Hope County, now with 300% more pink. Neither the premise nor the execution of the setting and story ever justify the project, but for fans who haven't tired of the series' formula yet, you can't really go wrong with more of the same when it's well done. It's mechanically tight and often engaging while it lasts. Let's just hope New Dawn is actually the setting sun for this version of Far Cry. The series could really use a makeover soon.

Exodus is an overall excellent experience that succeeds at nearly everything it attempts to achieve.

This is a team game, and it's hard to recommend if you'll be only playing alone as even things like magazine size caters to its team-centric gameplay. Even the innovative ping system can't change that. But as a team battle royale, Apex Legends is excellent.

Away: Journey to the Unexpected tries to do a lot at once, which is a tall task for a game mostly built by just a pair of people. Ultimately, its strange direction lends to the charm of it all, but it's also clear the game is lacking in a few key areas — namely, shoddy combat and inconsistent level randomization. Still, it was billed as a "feel-good" indie and I'd have to agree. Despite its faults, I'm happy to have played this weird game.

I don't know if perfection is a rational goal, but I can say that Unruly Heroes has come as close to platforming perfection as any game should be expected to and it'd be a mistake to miss it.

Aside from the pacing, the episode is let down by a variety of technical issues which add a layer of frustration and detract from the experience. Fortunately we can see that the pace of Episode 3 is likely to pick up, and hopefully that finally reaches the potential this story is promising.

Sundered is a game that is able to constantly give players that “one more time” feeling by providing multiple ways to overcome its many hurdles. When you die, you know that you’ll almost always be coming back stronger to tackle the obstacles that are put before you, whether it be a seemingly undefeatable boss or an unforgiving location full of hard-hitting enemies. Some deaths can be chalked up to procedural generation forcing you to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when the gong sounds, but those moments become less and less bothersome as Eshe is continuously upgraded through the satisfying and fulfilling gameplay loop.

Purely as a game, it is mediocre at best, but for fans of the show, there is something quite entertaining and quite enjoyable about the title. Fans will have a smile on their faces as they work through all of the content and events, and if that is what the title is aiming for, then that is probably more than enough.

Onimusha: Warlords wasn’t revolutionary when it launched in 2001, but it was certainly good and time has been kind to it. This remaster offers a fresh overhaul of the game’s visuals and gameplay that make it feel accessible and enjoyable for a modern audience. The gameplay itself holds up quite well despite lacking the depth some other action titles have, with a variety of enemies and weapons to fight and wield. The story is horrendous and the camera can be difficult, but exploring the world has a nice flow to it that alleviates some of that. Onimusha isn’t a 2019 classic, but it has earned its place as a 2001 classic that’s still more than worth playing today if you’re in the market for good games from bygone eras.

Telltale's final season was presumed dead a few months ago, but just like the titular zombies, The Walking Dead: The Final Season has risen from the grave to live again. It's a good thing too, because Broken Toys is the best episode of the season by far. In its heyday, The Walking Dead deftly juggled strong character moments, difficult choices, and a somber tone to win Game of the Year awards. In 2019, the landscape is different, and justifiably fewer are as impressed by the Telltale formula these days, but it's heartening to see Clementine may leave this world with a bang, not a whimper.

Absolver had a chance to be something new and fresh. Its combat system is unlike anything else and comes packed with plenty of depth and skill that could get fighting fans pretty excited. The problem is the rest of the game. RPG elements have no place in a competitive action game yet here they’re front and center, granted with muted effect which makes it clear the developers were aware they were hurting their competitive balance and did it anyway. Perhaps worse for those of you who’re looking to play alone, the single-player adventure is dreadfully dull and plays like a short and mediocre Dark Souls. There’s promise in a sequel and I’d happily look forward to it, but this first attempt is better left defeated.

Where Blood Money offers classic levels and assassinations with unwieldy controls and gunplay, Absolution offers smart, tight controls and better action but unfortunately few sandboxes for which the series is famous. You can see in hindsight how IO put it all together for 2016's relaunch of the franchise, and how they built on that even further to release the very best Hitman ever this past November. The Hitman HD Enhanced Collection, thus, makes for a fun and nostalgic trip for longtime fans, but a contract not worth taking for most everyone else.

Sure, it's got an exceedingly forgettable story and its gameplay design isn't as easy to understand as one might hope. But it's also got a roster of characters that feel unique and that take on topics your average popcorn JRPG doesn't dare touch. Its combat has a ton of depth for those that dig deep enough and it's really quite fun. Its world design is excellent with secrets to discover everywhere and a clear path for those on a mission. This isn't the best JRPG you'll find on the market by any stretch, but it's certainly still good and those looking for a history lesson on how the genre used to be couldn't do better on Xbox One. Tales of Vesperia is a title fans will be happy to revisit.

This is a game with no personality despite a can't-go-wrong premise of Nazis and monsters. This is a game with poor design, little depth and artificial intelligence so catastrophically bad that it is inexcusable. I love the genre, but I couldn't recommend this title to anyone.

Most impressively, each of the dozens of levels has been thoughtfully recreated with impressive attention to visual and audio detail, bringing the magical feel of the series to life once more. Fans of the originals will find almost nothing to dislike, and I can see Spyro delighting a new generation of players with the quality of this collection.

If you're into resource gathering, crafting and exploring, then Subnautica is simply a title that you have to play. The wonderfully colorful and diverse environments invite exploration. Using all of the technology available and being able to create your own habitats and vehicles just encourage you to voyage further.

Ashen is a soulslike, but to call it a clone would be a betrayal of the awesome job A44 have with their debut project. It manages to stand on its own thanks to rewarding exploration, deep combat systems, and an audiovisual experience that masterfully builds atmosphere. You'll see the game over screen often in the game, but you'll keep coming back and fighting again because Ashen never ceases to reward your victories with a world of stones begging to be overturned.

Other than a few minor bumps and quirks aside, there remains little to complain about in the latest installment in the Ride franchise. Milestone has used its vast knowledge of motorcycling titles to build one of its best titles yet. The racing is as accessible as ever and remains welcoming to players of all levels. The growing confidence in the Unreal Engine brings improved presentation, graphics and physics, and when you throw into the mix that you now have more bikes, manufacturers, locations, and the new livery editor, it really feels like the most complete two-wheeled racing game we've seen in years.