Loopindex may not win any awards, or get Phil Spencer to pull out his chequebook and buy up the studio, but it might also be what you need right now. It’s a concise, perfectly able puzzler, and it gets even better in two-player. For the low, low price, that’s an absolute steal.
TY the Tasmanian Tiger 2: Bush Rescue HD may not hold a candle to a Ratchet, Crash or Spyro, but this is a little ripper that’s worth a Captain Cook.
With a short Challenge Mode, a very brief Arcade offering, and less than an hour of gametime required for everything to be done and dusted, there’s little that Super Destronaut DX-2 is able to muster up. If you enjoyed the swiftness of the original game, and fancy picking up some cheap and easy Xbox Gamerscore, you’ll want to get shooting here. But otherwise, this is a Ratalaika Games title that will fast be forgotten.
If you're a fan of Monty Python and the type of animation and humour that has come from it, you are going to love The Procession to Calvary. It's a game which is great fun with a bonkers mad story, weird multiple endings, and some brilliant use of art and animation.
Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance doesn't ever feel like it is doing anything particularly new and the whole setting, concept, and world just seems a bit tired at times. But that said you’ll have some decent fun here, particularly with the story, the hack and slash gameplay, and solid mechanics. If you find yourself playing alone, it might get a bit stale, but with friends behind you, you’ll have a great time.
Unfortunately, despite an intriguing proposition, The Strange Story of Brian Fisher: Chapter 1 fails to meet its ambitions at almost every turn. What results is a lacklustre experience for which I cannot recommend saving your pennies for.
Griftlands is the turducken of card games. It’s a deck-builder stuffed with a second deck-builder, inside a faction-management game, inside a single-player narrative game. It’s ridiculously overstuffed and impenetrable, but you’ve got to admire the craft on display. Taken as individual games, there’s some fantastic ideas in Griftlands, but as a single offering, they don’t quite work.
If you haven’t already got a mobile gaming controller and have been struggling around making the most of Xbox Game Pass without being able to get your phone up close and personal, the GAMESIR X2 Bluetooth is one to certainly consider.
An uninspired wave-survival shooter with bland enemy and level design, significant balancing issues and a real lack of replayability - you’ll only need to play through it about four times and you’ll have seen just about everything Bitmaster really has to offer. It’s a shame because Bitmaster actually controls really well and the RNG gameplay could have been the foundation for something fun and replayable.
If you are a gamer of a certain age then you’ll discover that Galaxy Champions TV is very much the spiritual successor to the classic Smash TV. It’s fast, it’s furious and it’s damn hard, yet it’s perfect for a quick blast when you have a few minutes to spare. Perhaps it could provide a little more in terms of game length, but then there’s the Nightmare difficulty to complete for those looking for it...
Let's Cook Together borrows heavily from Overcooked! and overall it offers a less complex, more simplistic experience that’s suitable for gamers of all ages. It’s still a lot of fun to play though, because put simply, what it does, it does well.
If you enjoy an ARPG, spending time with Scarlet Nexus is a no-brainer - the story and action is strong enough to suck you in and keep you playing. With time travel, psychic powers and huge monsters to kick in the teeth, it’s one hell of a roller coaster ride from start to finish. The slight let-downs of the side quests aside, this is a more than assured entry into the genre, that wholeheartedly deserves a whirl.
The Elder Scrolls Online - Blackwood is an excellent inclusion. The new companion system is an awesome gameplay enhancement, and despite their lacking in combat it's incredibly cool to have a partner to explore these worlds with. The new region is dense and gorgeous, offering a great selection of content to work through.
It is an utter treat to revisit Metro Exodus with the new enhanced version on Xbox Series X|S. I do recommend that if you are new to the Metro Series then play the first two games before picking up Exodus, however if you’ve played those and never managed to get around to Exodus, this is the perfect time to visit it.
Perhaps one of the more challenging titles from Lightwood Games, Mixups by POWGI will test players far more than previous titles. It’s a shame then that sometimes there isn’t a unique pun to reward you for completing the puzzle, but after spoiling players with hundreds of them in five previous games, we shouldn’t complain too much.
