Paul Renshaw

Destiny 2 has launched. At 11:30pm on a cold Tuesday night, I was stood in my local GAME store, seeing the staff (and a solitary customer) dressed up as Guardians, as I waiting for the midnight launch of the game I have been looking forward to since those first screenshots appeared way back at the end of 2016. After listening to the cosplaying customer explain to me for the third time why she loved Destiny so much, I finally grabbed the game and its expansion pass (yes, already), jumped back into the car and made my careful way home. After sliding the disc reverently into my Xbox One, I was hit with a 6Gb patch so went to bed, resolving to start my adventures the next day.

Path of Exile: The Fall of Oriath is a game that owes a massive debt to the seminal loot based action RPG, Diablo. Grinding Gear Games have brought all the fun of Diablo to the Xbox One but at a fraction of the cost. The game itself is one of the growing number of Free-to-Play titles that are appearing, but is it worth a look?

I used to love Smash TV back in the ‘90s, and it is still one of my proudest completions on the SNES. What we have here is almost the spiritual grandson of that game - a fast paced, multiplayer twin-stick shooter that has an intense adrenaline hit from the first wave of enemies. Excalibur Games are bringing this game to the Xbox One after a successful run on the PS4 and Steam, so the question is, is it worth your time, or are better shooters out there?

Slime Rancher has been in the Xbox Preview program for quite some time, but has only now been released as a full title. The time spent in the Preview program seems to have done it some good, as the game feels solid and runs smoothly. Indeed, Monomi Park, the developers, are to be congratulated for creating a world that seems so plausible and believable, if you'll just ignore that whole "transported through space to a distant planet" stuff. Oh, and that you’re left dealing with Slimes and their poo.

As we expect from Bungie, as the clock ticks down to Destiny 2's release on September 6th, they will ramp up the hype with trailers and sneak peeks. We saw it with Destiny, and true to form, just ahead of Gamescom, Bungie have hit us with the official launch trailer for Destiny 2.

On the list of things that not many people know about me is the following fact: At one point, I was the 23rd best 1/10th scale remote control drifter in Europe. And I even represented the UK in the sport of RC Drifting - back in the days when I could spend hundreds of pounds on toy cars without the wife beating me. So, with this background and pedigree, I felt it was only right that I should put in a tender to review Absolute Drift: Zen Edition, the new to Xbox One game from Flippfly and Funselektor Labs.

Diablo has a lot to answer for, at least if you judge it by the amount of games that have released recently that appear to pay homage to Blizzard’s seminal title. In the recent past, we've had Victor Vran, Vikings: Wolves of Midgard and Van Helsing, all of which bear more than a passing resemblance to the gameplay style pioneered by the Diablo range of games. The latest to appear, in beta form at least, on the Xbox One is Grinding Gear Games’ Path of Exile. And if there’s a more appropriate name for a studio developing a Diablo style loot crawling game I don't know what it might be!

Fortnite is a strange game to try to explain in a single sentence. It’s a base building, objective defending, team based craft and shooter with strategy elements. I think. It’s been out in alpha and beta form on the PC for a couple of years, and now it’s the turn of Xbox One players to get involved, thanks to its introduction as a Game Preview title.

In a challenge similar to that which faced Hercules when he upset his daddy, I've been asked to put together a piece on what Bungie got wrong with the version of Destiny 2 that they recently let us get on hands on with. Now, those of you who have read the pieces I've scribbled about Destiny will know that I am partial to a bit of Bungie's masterpiece. The word "fanboy" has been tossed about, and in all fairness I can't argue with that epithet. However, as I touched on with my opinion piece about the beta, it wasn't a clean sweep or a slam dunk for Bungie this time around. So what I'm going to do is list the things that I feel need to be tweaked before the full game comes out.

The last thing anyone should expect from a piece written about Destiny (or indeed Destiny 2), authored by yours truly, is objectivity. However, I'm going to make a monumental effort to try and not let my blind fanboyism get in the way as I write about the recent beta of Destiny 2, as not everything in the garden is looking rosy.

Avalanche Software have released a game based on the new Cars movie that is currently doing the rounds at the local multiplex, so the question that I will attempt to answer is have they done a decent job, or is it a cash grab like in the bad old days?

I've always thought that the job of a cleaner is one that is under represented in the game world. Actually, that’s a lie, I've never thought that, but now that I've spent some time playing Serial Cleaner, I definitely think it is the case. The cleaning found in this game isn't a little light dusting either - it’s cleaning up after a series of gruesome murders. The question is, can iFun4All and Curve Digital turn the grim subject matter into an enjoyable game?

Bosses eh? They're a funny bunch. Sometimes they are too easy, sometimes insanely hard, but when they are done well, the memory of the fights can stay with you long after the game is over and done with. I've sat down, pulled on my thinking cap and had a good look back through all the games that I've played on Xbox One since its launch. From this mammoth brainstorming session, I've culled my ten most memorable boss fights. They aren't all the hardest by any means, and some of them are memorable for some strange reasons, but at the end of the day they've stayed with me.

A Hole New World, from Mad Gear Games, was successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter way back in July 2015. Reaching over £9,600 of an £8,000 target, it’s clear to see that their vision of NES visuals and modern playability struck a chord with gamers looking for their next retro hit. Well, now it’s here on Xbox One, so let’s see what they have made!

It’s not easy picking the best bits of any E3, and this year with the announcements coming thick and fast, has made it even harder than usual. I've been tasked with watching all the relevant streams/conferences, and have just finished doing so after a frankly weird Ubisoft conference. It’s always good to see a video game legend like Miyamoto-san running around with a life size replica of a gun from a game featuring Mario and some Rabbids, after all! What I intend to do in this piece is share with you my personal favourite parts of the whole E3 2017 experience