Mines are often deep, resourceful and interesting. Mining Rail, on the other hand, is the polar opposite of each. There’s very little that I can say in its defense other than that of its decent and precise control feedback. The presentation is poor, the UI is ugly, the selection of stages are bland if indeed diverse, and its currency and progression system remains far too confusing. Though above all else, it’s just not at all fun to play.

Despite its varied modes, the bulk of your time spent playing Phar Lap will consist of little more than participating in dull repetitive races, whilst tending to a shed-load of overly linear upgrade paths. The game’s depth is puddle deep, and remains as about as exciting as watching paint dry. Moreover, it relies far too heavily on cheap tactics to needlessly stretch out its longevity, only further emphasizing how quickly it outstays its welcome.

Birdcakes is far too taxing for its own good, far too steep in its difficulty and far too lacking in its content. The requirement to constantly grind and persevere with its tedious singular mechanic just isn’t fun nor thrilling enough to justify a recommendation. Birdcakes’ distinctly designed stages and its tight controls are certainly commendable, but these few pros pale in comparison to its several cons.

BCD?! Is clearly a budget title from a small team, something evidenced by the credits appearing on the walls of the hub area. For what it’s worth, I quite like the art style, and the music recalls the classic Diddy Kong Racing at times; all chirpy, bouncy race tunes. But even so, it simply isn’t any fun to play. The terrible camera angle is the biggest bugbear – just raising it up a tad would improve things no end. Even then, the erratic handling, lack of feedback or information and general blandness to proceedings would still be in place. A shame, but when there’s so many other great racers out there, I can’t find any reason to recommend checking this out.

I do like the Gameboy-style visuals, and the music is somewhat enjoyable to listen to, it’s just that it really isn’t fun or rewarding to play along to. Crowded rooms lead to death after death, and the lack of control over our own shooting only compounds the issue. Another easy 1000G is about the only redeeming feature here, if you care about that sort of thing.

Bleak Faith: Forsaken starts out incredibly strong with its visuals and architecture. It is unable to back up this initial promise with engaging combat, or game design.

Roller Coaster Tycoon Adventures Deluxe is like a county fair. Sure they have some rides and the fairground is decent, but its nothing compared to the official amusement parks and hotspots that were its predecessors. The game comes off empty and shallow, more like a walkthrough for somebody’s first tycoon sim. The game shows little to no consequence while spoon feeding players which in turn gives it no self accomplishment or overall purpose.

The developer should be absolutely ashamed for releasing the game in this state. There’s several faults in Eternity: The Last Unicorn that couldn’t possibly have gone unnoticed during QA. It’s buggy, it’s ugly, it’s boring, and even with its countless issues to the side, it’s got almost no likability. If you’re an absolute sucker for nostalgic RPGs, pick up any recent legacy Final Fantasy title. They’re decades old, and a hell of a lot better than this waste.

911 Operator houses an interesting idea but doesn’t back it up with any depth. Sure it may be cool to download a map of your local city and serve as an emergency responder, or take to the campaign to do the same there, but it’s far too repetitive and far too boring to be justified as a solid well rounded experience.

Mars Chaos Menace is too hard to recommend due to being chock-full of cheap deaths, awkward level presentation, and poor design choices. To the game’s credit, and a forefront necessity for any shmup, its handling remains fluid and responsive throughout. That, however, means next to nothing when much of the difficulty within is relayed through little more than its incompetent development. Simply put, it’s a waste of digital space.

Monster Harvest looks charming and it offers a lot of the things you want from a game like this. A story, a farming sim with some creative choices and an animal combat element. It could be described as a Farmville Pokémon hybrid but only very loosely. A lot of the game feels lifeless and countless bad decisions in this game will leave you bored. Also losing your progress will infuriate you more than the three looping songs this game has to offer.

Due to a range of technical issues and poor design choices, Monster Jam Steel Titans utterly fails to capture the excitement of its source material. Not only do the trucks handle like fat cars on an ice rink, but everything from the wonky physics, right through to the game’s numerous bugs, collectively pulls the entire experience short of even substandard quality. Furthermore, even if things worked well, the core content is too tedious and repetitive.

Duck Life: Battle is one of the most tedious games I’ve ever played. Whilst its general framework is plausible in regards to progression, everything else falls to pieces. The game’s combat is lackluster, its countless mini-games are far from fun, and even basic traversal feels like a slog. It’s a shame that there isn’t much more to the game than that, ultimately making for an experience that’s bland, drawn out, and wholly boring.

Make no mistake about it, Battle for the Grid is a cheaply developed cash grab that will sorely disappoint those fooled by its admittedly exciting promotional run. The game’s dull campaign takes little more than twenty minutes to complete, and once you’re done there, you’ll be waiting equally as long to find an online match. Whilst local play is indeed an option, I cant at all recommend it due to its shamefully weak, boring, and unbalanced gameplay.

Bring to Light is about as scary as a bush baby, about as deep as a puddle, and about as interesting as watching paint dry. Whilst it is indeed very accessible in comparison to most horror games as of late, its complete lack of difficulty, together with the absence of innovation, only tends to further emphasize how boring the whole ordeal is. If you’re looking for your next horror fix, you’re most assuredly not going to find it here.

Gene Rain is a complete waste of storage space. The game’s nonsensical and incoherent story confusingly bounces around like flubber in a basketball court. It doesn’t help that the voice acting is the worst I’ve heard since the original Resident Evil. Grouping that with the game’s sluggish controls, its bland locations and its lack of originality, collectively makes for one of the worst cover-shooters this gen.

Void Vikings would have been more interesting if its needless debt structure was stripped away to allow the game’s core functionality to shine. However, even if that was so, there wouldn’t be much justification to warrant a recommendation. The game lacks refinement across the entire board, making for an experience that, despite its decent variation, is more convoluted than it needs to be, and a lot less fun than its peers.

When all is said and done, Smoots Summer Games is fun, for a brief period. But, with no real atmosphere, and no online play, it’s not really going to be keeping you coming back for very long.

Maximum Football 2018 is a game you’ll want to avoid for many reasons. Take your pick; extremely dated visuals, daft character animations, puddle-deep gameplay mechanics, graphical faults, technical problems and a complete and utter lack of polish across the board. Sure, the game’s main performance may be passable and it controls well for the most part, but that’s the max limit of the game’s pros.

Red Bow makes some good points but unfortunately lacks in the horror side of things. With some easy achievements to go for, the hunters out there will no doubt get more out of it, but others may not find as much worth in a playthrough.

Tiny Hands Adventure is a simple action platformer than feels pretty drab to play, looks bland and is too unexact and muddy to be engaging for anyone, let alone to younger audience to which it is catered for.

Foxyland is a game about a fox collecting gems in the woods. It is very easy to play, takes about an hour to complete and doesn’t require any previous knowledge or experience in gaming. For those who give a fox about achievements, then this game could only have been made for you.

Grab the Bottle takes a simple idea and fails miserably to build on it. I wont deny that the game is fun to begin with, but once you realize that you’re doing the exact same thing from start to end, it soon wears thin. The initial fun is swiftly chased away by the game’s reliance on its singular mechanic, ultimately making for an overall experience that consists of little more than frustration and perseverance.

High score enthusiasts will find some enjoyment in bettering their scores, but anyone else will likely get fairly bored after just an hour or so. Simple and to the point, it feels more like an early app store game. Something to pass a few minutes while waiting for a train, rather than something to sit in front of the telly to play.

Bounce Rescue! is yet another 2D platformer that fails miserably to relay a worthwhile adventure. The controls are far from precise, the enemy variation is poor and the world design is bland and repetitive. This all goes hand in hand to produce a frustrating experience that spends far too much time annoying the player. Despite the fun multiplayer modes, Bounce Rescue! isn’t worth your time and attention.

All told then, I was mightily underwhelmed by Crossfire X. While it’s not entirely without merit, there are far better shooters already out there – and on Game Pass – which meant I lost interest in this fast. Clunky combat and menus, requiring an additional purchase for the full campaign, and a bizarre one mode per map multiplayer set up all come together to define Crossfire X as a massive disappointment.

As an interactive experience, Lucid Cycle had some potential to be an interesting break form the norms of gaming as a whole. What we got though was a tedious set of scenes that threaten to have some sort of narrative payoff but falls flat at every turn. There are far better “walking sims” out there for you to be wasting your time and money on this.

Robot Squad Simulation X isn’t a great game but still playable to a degree. Unfortunately riddled with bad mechanics and average design, this title will see you getting more frustrated than having any real enjoyment. A great idea, just poorly executed.