From an Arkham Horror fan’s perspective, Arkham Horror: Mother’s Embrace on Xbox feels like a blancmange model of the source material. It has none of the spiralling difficulty, gloom and impending doom.
Paradise Lost on Xbox has surprised from start to finish. It tells a good and moving story, and deals with an alternative chilling history with some brilliant visuals and well-written narrative. It's not a challenging game at all but rather a narrative exploration that takes you on quite a linear path.
All in all, if you have a group of friends to play with, Can't Drive This on Xbox is worth a shot. It’s a giggle for sure, and deliberately driving your partner round the bend (literally!) is as fun as it gets, especially as you get further, the pace increases and things get pretty tense. But if you’re a solo player, this hits party games' cliche number 1: it’s just not as much fun on your own.
Angry Video Game Nerd I & II Deluxe on Xbox is more than just a video game based on a popular YouTube channel; it’s an amalgamation of all things that made gaming in the NES era so special and timeless.
With the pleasant and cathartic combat system in mind, Ruvato: Original Complex on Xbox might be all that some people are looking for. The game can be completed within one or two sittings, and the combat certainly is engaging enough to warrant said completion. But if you just don’t see the appeal of repetitive, unoriginal, overly dramatic anime stories, you’re better off forgetting this one.
Explosionade DX on Xbox is loud, dumb fun with the emphasis firmly on shooting and staying alive. With multiplayer built in, and online leaderboards to see how you rank up against your friends, this is a game that manages to scratch the itch that I'm sure we all feel from time to time: the urge to just blow things up.
I’ve found Adios on Xbox to be moving and profound. If you are a fan of games like Everyone's Gone to Rapture or Firewatch then I think this is probably up there as a must-buy game. But on the other side of the coin, if you are not one who is particularly interested in narrative or storytelling, preferring gameplay to run your games, then you may well have a bit of an issue with what it delivers.
Rip Them Off on Xbox is one of those games which is perfect to play for a while, before you start to feel frustration, put it down and then get swiftly tempted back in to find a solution.
Black Legend is an unusual game to find on the Xbox, yet it is a game that will scratch a tactical itch for some players, especially as its combination of theme, tricky tactical combat and gothic horror is potentially a heady brew. However, in practise, it fails to really deliver on any of these fronts as everything feels vague and unfocused, like the game world’s mists have shrouded Black Legend itself.
For existing fans, there is some joy to be had in this Resident Evil love letter. For those that never played the originals though, Heaven Dust isn’t a patch on the games that inspired it.
Sure, it’s attention-grabbing to do something new, and innovation does get reviewers hot around the collar. But, most of the time, we just want a good thing done well, and Kaze and the Wild Masks does its 2D platforming extremely well. While Kaze and the Wild Masks on Xbox wears the masks of various platformers, like Donkey Kong Country and Rayman, they’re all polished to a mighty sheen.
Two Point Hospital: JUMBO Edition on Xbox plays very similarly to the main campaign, with just the right amount of tweaking to keep the offering fresh. It’s an essential purchase for fans of the original, and highly recommended for everyone else.
Occasionally there are gameplay experiences which you take in, but then require a nod to not just the asking price, but the size of the development team. Sanity of Morris on Xbox is one of those games; a game that at times feels like a triple-A title in scope and ambition.
Cave Bad is not a bad game by any manner of means, but it’s not great either and so the overall viewpoint to focus on depends on what you want from a game. Easy Gamerscore? This is nailed on. Long-term gameplay? It’s not.
Not the disaster we predicted from the truly terrible trailer, Warrior Boy on the Xbox is nonetheless a barebones action-adventure, where the combat is weak enough that you’ll ignore it, but sidestepping it leaves you with nothing more than a giant treasure hunt. There’s little value on offer right now, but Warrior Boy has an inevitable future in the sub-£3 bracket, which might be the moment to invest, delivering an easy 1000G Gamerscore and a leisurely ramble around someone’s 3D modelling portfolio.
