Paul Renshaw

What we have here with 9th Dawn III is a game that is a great deal of fun almost in spite of its features, rather than because of them. It’s big, it’s hard and it’s brutally unforgiving, but strangely it’s equally as tough to put down.

Double Pug Switch is a simple game, with simple controls, and a simple charm. It looks basic yet the difficulty ramps up to ensure things get very tricky, very quickly. It would be perfect for a short bash while on a car journey via Nintendo Switch, but on the Xbox One it’s a harder sell. Whatever you are playing it on though, if you like jumping and pugs, then by all means give it a whirl.

If you are in the market for a very hard but rewarding shooter, GROOD on Xbox One could well scratch that itch. The action is non-stop, the sectors that you fight through are all very different, and with both the time of day and weather dynamically changing, it’s unusual to play the same looking stage twice. It does suffer from the same problem as many other shooters, in that the action starts to feel a little samey after a while, but all in all I've enjoyed my time with GROOD.

In this episode of "gaze back into the murky haze of my gaming memories", I'm going to be looking at the second game in the series, the imaginatively titled Darksiders II. Still, even that’s better than "Deathinitive Edition" eh? Sadly, that’s the version that I'm looking at this time around, dodgy name and all. Still, the second game in the series must have grabbed me at least as much as the first game, right? Well...

If you've been living under a rock for the last 20 years and have never seen a driving game, you may get a bit of fun out of Street Racer Underground on Xbox One. If you have played anything after, say, Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 on the Amiga, you won't.

Come with me down memory lane, where I look back at what made Dragon Age: Origins - Ultimate Edition so great, following a year after the original release.

If you have a team of friends who are always online, I can almost call Cake Bash an essential purchase, as it is truly bonkers, and different each time. It’s just a shame that for single players, whilst there is fun to be had, it’s reduced down a smidge.

9 Monkeys of Shaolin on Xbox One is a great fighting game. Using the skills you learn, deploying the right attacks, dodging within a hair's breadth to allow you to attack faster; these are all great gameplay moments. The visuals do a superb job of showing whats happening, multiplayer on the couch is just as fast and furious (if you really want a challenge, turn friendly fire on), and the online multiplayer side of things - while suffering from a severe lack of players - works just as well.

Ah, Obsidian Entertainment, how you have provided me with many and varied memorable gaming moments - not always in a good way. Team Obsidian up with Bethesda Softworks, and the rate of memorable moments increases exponentially, it seems. At least, this was certainly the case with Fallout: New Vegas, which, I think it’s safe to say, was a complete mess upon launch.

For a free-to-play title, Rogue Company on Xbox One is worth every penny. As you'd expect, there are various options for buying cosmetic items, but as these have no effect on gameplay I'm okay with the opportunity if others want to spend real money to make their Rogue look a bit different. Rogue Company is certainly better if you can get a good squad around you, as playing with randoms is a bit like banging your head against a brick wall, but a team that talks is a team that wins.

There are two distinct styles of racing game: the simulation type, where tweaking tyre pressure to shave a tenth of a second off your lap time makes lots of sense, and the arcade style where you can be found pulling off outrageous handbrake turns and getting style points for it; games in which you don't care how much pressure is in your tyres as long as the neon under the chassis is working. So, in this article I'm going to embrace the sillier side of the racing games - the arcade racers, the anything goes side of the genre.

For achievement hunters, a purchase of Tamiku on Xbox One is a no brainer. Minimal time investment plus maximum points score most certainly equals a win. For the rest of us, those looking for a game that’s fun to play, this is a much harder sell. While it lasts, it’s fun, there’s no two ways about it, but your time with Tamiku is ultimately over way too soon

Dragon Lapis on Xbox One is easy, but fun. The story is pretty good, however the controls are annoying and the whole thing does seem a little bloated, forcing us to go to places that we really don't need to. Aside from that though, all in all it’s a pretty good little playthrough. If you like a retro JRPG, but aren't very good at them, this could well be the game for you!

If you like an arcade racer, if you like drifting, and especially if you like drifting in arcade racers, Inertial Drift on Xbox One is the game for you. Even if you usually like the more serious end of the racing spectrum, I defy anyone not to be gripped by the sheer exuberance of the game world and the outrageous handling that is on display.

As a representation of the speed and danger of bike racing, RIDE 4 is pretty bang on. The races are hard, the Time Attack is brutally unforgiving, and the online component holds its end up, with no difference in the way the game plays. For fans of two-wheeled death machines, there is a lot to like here and Milestone have, once more, made a good fist of the various difficulties of bike racing.