We had a tower defence using these same maps in Dino Hex Trap, and now we’re getting a kind of flight-control sim in the form of Herd Dispatch. But while the tower-defence worked, this one doesn't. It’s too simple to maintain the attention, too unclear to be anything but bothersome.
Animal Doctor on the Xbox is less about being a vet than it is helping one, and you’ll be fetching antibiotics from pharmacies more than you’ll be nursing sick puppies. It’s realistic rather than cute, educational rather than fun, and that’s not necessarily what your little doctors ordered. But if there’s still interest, even after those caveats, then Animal Doctor might actually work out.
Knight Squad 2 on Xbox looks the part and offers plenty of customisation options. However, thanks to the shallow gameplay the price tag feels too expensive to be fully justified and as a result the fun is short-lived.
Without a fun world to explore, Moon Raider can’t fall back on its charm or style, as it only has a limited pool of it, and it doesn’t feel good enough to play. Moon Raider has been stripped back too far, and what’s left is a pencil outline of a Metroid game, and that’s not enough.
There are twenty-or-so decent levels of platform-puzzling in One Escape on Xbox, but it’s surrounded by another forty levels of filler. With more ways to get caught, and more options to avoid getting caught, this prison escape might have warranted a purchase. Without them, it can feel more like a sentence than an escape.
The shooting is accurate and feels good, and it’s possible to reach a state where you’re chaining headshots and being crushed beneath a pile of Achievements. But, lest we forget, Gangsta Paradise has virtually zero ideas and variety, and it somehow manages to make its two hours feel thin.
Crypto by POWGI on Xbox is perhaps the easiest title from the four now available from the Lightwood Games team, so achievement hunters can rejoice. For those looking for an exciting word puzzle game, this doesn’t really offer anything new or unique like some of the others do. Once you have got the hang of the puzzle tropes, Crypto then just becomes a rinse and repeat exercise with very little difficulty.
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.
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.
Thunderflash on Xbox is as derivative and basic as they come; a homage to top-down arcade shooters of yesteryear that provides a fun and functional experience at best, without delivering a sense of compelling challenge or encouraging subsequent replays.
Doodle Devil: 3volution on the Xbox falls foul of the same problems that have plagued Doodle games since the beginning of creation. Progress begins well, with elements mixing logically and a fun flourish when you get a pairing right. But then the pattern sets in, and you’re painstakingly combining every element with every other element, with the emphasis on ‘pain’.
If you were brought to Under the Jolly Roger on Xbox with the promise of swashbuckling, action, and a hope that it would be ‘Black Flag: The Ship Bits’, then turn sail: this isn’t the game you’re looking for. This is a pirate sim with the emphasis on ‘sim’, and all the resource management, tedious downtime and charmlessness that can come with the genre.
Persian Nights 2: The Moonlight Veil on Xbox is best described as an anticlimax. It starts well with a wonderful setting - magical lunar eclipses and techno-Persian backdrops - but then fumbles them completely, reverting back to all the usual Artifex Mundi cliches.
Butterfly on Xbox is an average puzzle platformer that doesn’t do enough to catch your eye. It will only set you back a few quid, but doesn’t do enough to stand out from the crowd.
The repetitive gameplay and unrefined controls of Get Over Here on Xbox make it very difficult to enjoy. It’s cheap, and throws a fair bit into the mix, but despite this it will struggle to get its hooks into you.
For anyone interested in the setting, there is a rather good, if flawed, turn-based strategy game out there on the PC which is available to purchase. Otherwise, I’d suggest getting out your D20s and giving the tabletop RPG a go and, sadly, giving Noble Armada: Lost Worlds on Xbox a wide berth.
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