The campaign missions do get a little repetitive.

The biggest offender in what affects this games overall experience is its repetitiveness. Sure new enemies are introduced often, but the one hit death mechanic can become quite frustrating. Having a dozen near useless abilities doesn’t help either when you learn which few overpowered ones to save up for instead. Unless you are longing for those Scorched Tank days from way back when, you may want to 'spear' clear until a decent sale.

If you like a challenging post-apocalyptic platforming adventure game, then line up your 1200 MS points because this game is worth every penny.

If you’ve played NASCAR Heat 4, you’ll know exactly what to expect from the latest sequel. I mean that almost literally, as the main complaints from the community is that it’s essentially the same game with the 2020 season liveries and driver updates. If you already own last year’s outing, there’s not much reason to upgrade unless you’re a die-hard fan, but if you’re new to the series or skipped a few of the last ones, NASCAR Heat 5 is a great starting point, even for amateurs to the sport.

There’s a lot of depth and strategy to Fission Superstar X, it’s just a shame that the difficulty is so astronomically high that most won’t get to experience most of it before giving up, as it will take some dedication to make any real progress. Even with constant death and restarts, I enjoyed my time carrying out Doctor Leopold’s orders, well attempting to, as I’m still working on trying to blow up Earth.

Difficulty is one thing, unfair is something completely else. GONNER2 fits somewhere right in the middle, though leaning slightly towards unfair and almost out of spite. If you enjoy brutally difficult roguelikes then GONNER2 is exactly what you’re looking for. GONNER2 is also on GamePass, so there’s no reason to not check it out and see if you can handle its challenge.

If you have a huge amount of patience and love self-punishment when gaming, then you’re going to have hours upon hours of fun with Slain: Back From Hell. If you’re like me though, you’ll appreciate what it does well with its amazing visuals and audio, and retro feel, but completing the game is whole other question.

What Eternal Hope lacks in originality of its gameplay it makes up for in heart. It’s a story of love, loss and redemption. Ti’bi, like a lot of us, is just struggling to keep moving on and moving forward. Clever dual dimension gameplay and a simple but emotional story make this a great little game if you want a heartfelt adventure to get lost in for a few hours.

Vostok Inc can be funny at times and it doesn’t take itself seriously at all. The humor makes its silly premise work and the core gameplay can become quite addictive when you want to build just a few more buildings to make your earnings replenish quicker. Vostok Inc is a grind but a fun one, and with its $14.99 (CAD) price tag, I recommend it if any of the above has sounded entertaining and you want to amass an obscene fortune across the galaxy with some addictive gameplay.

No doubt there are many others that will enjoy Grip just as much as I didn’t, and as a game, it's not so poor that I wouldn't recommend it. In fact, it's quite the opposite. If you get the chance, play a round of Grip or two to see what you think. There is fun to be had, but as far as comparing it to the fast-pace racers that got my blood pumping growing up, Grip is laps behind.

Danger Zone 2 isn’t a terrible game by any means, but it is bare bone and almost devoid of any personality. It’s a fun distraction in short bursts if you really like climbing leaderboards, but there’s no longevity. There’s no soundtrack, no multiplayer, no replays and the menu system looks as tacked on as it gets. At $10 I could see it being a hard sell, but fun for those of us that miss the classic Burnout days, but the problem is, it’s being sold for double that. $20 for a single game mode from a classic just isn’t enough when it doesn’t even match its quality and personality. That, and there’s no Kenny Loggins.

Darksiders, when it was released, became the definitive example of a sleeper hit, and like the Phoenix that arises from the ashes, Darksiders III has been resurrected in a fashion that lays the ground work for a tremendous conclusion to the series should we get Darksiders IV and the final chapter of the horsemen and the apocalypse. If you're a fan of hack and slash adventure games with an incredible story, then this should be on your list of must have games to purchase.

After playing this game, I don't think I will even think I'll ever lay eyes on rollercoaster tycoon again even if it did just launch onto the Xbox not to long ago. I think I will stick with this game.

I was pretty excited when I read about Cannibal Cuisine and the abilities that your characters have. Being able to cook the food away from the spit and heal yourself and teammates with totems adds another layer of co-op and planning that I love in these types of games. But it’s just not enough for me and my wife to enjoy it. We are fine with us failing a level due to bad communication or her lack of skill, but when we fail because I lost most of my health running through the unavoidable spikes, and just as I am about to throw a meal on the fire an angry tourist tracks me down and kills me with one hit, or I fall off a moving platform because there wasn’t enough room next to a fence, it just takes all the fun away.

Overall this is a typical XBLA porting of a great game; easily identifiable, playable and most of all enjoyable.

If you have MLB 2K10, I don't feel there's any need to upgrade unless the new features catch your fancy so much that you need to have this game.

When I first started playing Serial Cleaners I was very frustrated because I didn't see any way not to get captured, so I put it down for a couple of days. Once I went went back to it, I have since changed my tune. Serial Cleaners is very bloody and gruesome and at times annoying. Still, once you figure out that you need to learn the patrols and see what kinds of things you can do to distract the officers, this opens up a fantastic opportunity to mess with cops in ways you can't necessarily do in real life, such as hacking a computer and turning the lights off on the other side of the room, or using a chainsaw to make an officer pass out from fear. I also really got a kick out of the fact that when you are cutting up a corpse, it gets censored. I have really enjoyed Serial Cleaners, I just suggest that if you have kids, play this one after they go to sleep as it is quite bloody.

The game is absolutely stellar and with minor improvements could easily take on some of the heavy hitters.

It has some good things going for it, and is a relatively interesting take on arcade pinball, but it’s just so damned short and lacking in many departments.

I really enjoy puzzle games, even those with some steep challenges, but for some reason, Felix The Reaper frustrated me more than usual with its steep difficulty, and moments of ‘fun’ were far and few in between. Levels should only take a matter of minutes, but when I’m repeatedly trying one for over an hour, it’s hard to not let the frustration set in. If you really want to challenge yourself then Felix The Reaper is a great choice for those that truly want to test themselves with some punishing difficulty. For the more casual puzzle fans, it’s hard to recommend as you’ll get stuck quite early on, something that even Felix’s charm and dance moves can’t overcome.

If you’re a Souls fan, you’ll most likely enjoy Hellpoint, as long as you can handle its lack of polish and extremely janky platforming. It would have been easy to write off Hellpoint as a simple Souls knock off, and I almost did until I found a friend to play alongside. It’s unforgiving in every aspect and doesn’t hold your hand in any way, something Souls fans will appreciate. The co-op feature makes it much more accessible for casual fans of the genre like myself, but there’s enough content within to really test yourself with for those accustomed to difficult challenges.

Whiplash offers up some real unique ways of getting the job done, unfortunately the fun is short lived, I made it through the game in about 10 hrs, not really a long enough challenge for a game, and after the first few hours the cartoonish humor starts to loose it’s luster.

The streets are covered with activity and with very few slow downs. They best part is getting someone stuck on your car; this is where it gets fun.

Even after a dozen hours and more, I still want to log on every night with my friends and grind some genie challenges out to try and get a new piece of gear and upgrades. Best enjoyed with friends, visually it can become quite chaotic when four players are all casting their spells and abilities, filling the screen with particles, explosions and damage numbers. I don’t normally get hooked on ARPG’s like this, but Torchlight III is addictive, beautiful to look at and sounds great, it’s just a shame that there’s so many issues and crashes that are a constant frustration. With a patch or two that fixes its main problems Torchlight III could easily hang with the bigger names in the genre, but until then it’s still an entertaining game to enjoy, but you’ll constantly have to battle against the game itself.

While the challenge may be a little too steep for some, gamers from my era should know exactly what to expect. It by no means does anything new with the genre or gameplay but was an entertaining yet frustrating few hours of nostalgia gameplay I mostly enjoyed aside from the final two levels. It's a good thing I’m the perfect demographic for Jay and Silent Bob – Mall Brawl; an 80’s NES kid that loves Kevin Smith movies. Snoochie Boochies.

Rush: A Disney-Pixar Adventure is a good game that should be played in short spurts, given the nature of how the quicker you are, the better your score. Sure, the game isn't a heavy narrative driven experience, but for kids of all ages, maybe even those kids that may be grown up, Rush manages to provide some quick and easy entertainment for those that love everything Disney and/or Pixar. And the fact that the game has been ‘remastered’ to take advantage of the Xbox One X, as well as using a controller to play, is another plus. Rush may not be that deep platformer fans are looking for, but man, to be able to play as your own character in five of the six universes offered is fairly enjoyable, for the time that it lasts.

Even with its flaws, and understanding it’s one of their older titles, I still enjoyed my time with Dark Arcana: The Carnival, even if it was a short adventure. I love these types of games for those nights I simply need to relax and not worry about shooting anyone or racing against my friends. You might scoff at HOG titles, but they are quite relaxing, and if you’re not proficient at puzzle games the difficulty here isn’t very high and it allows you many alternative ways to progress if you ever become stuck. While not Artifex Mundi’s best title to date, it’s still a fun adventure and a great way to get your feet wet with their catalogue in a long forgotten genre.

Technomancer has so much going for it in terms of story, sound, moral choices, and everything we’ve come to expect from a quality 3rd person RPG game from the big players in the gaming industry, so much so that it really feels like you’re experiencing a cheap knock off of a really great game. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, it just means that it could have been a whole lot better.