If one day thousands of unsold copies of Micro Machines World Series were found in a ditch alongside the remaining copies of ET: The Videogame, I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised.

“Who wants a little Wang?” This is a typical line taken from the amusingly named Lo Wang, star of Shadow Warrior 2. 

It has been five long years since The Surge burst onto our consoles, and so I feel the time is ripe for a little retrospective.

No, you aren’t going mad. Prey did indeed come out in 2017, and it is not to be confused with the original that landed many years ago in 2006. The game that we are looking back upon here is a reimagining of the IP, as opposed to a direct sequel or remake. 

Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts and the sequel - Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2 - are much, much improved from their earlier efforts. However, the subject of today's Looking Back article is the third in the series, the aptly named Sniper Ghost Warrior 3.

Originally appearing on the trusty Xbox 360 way back in 2011, it was almost inevitable that a new version, for the new generation of Xbox hardware would be released, and so it came to pass in 2017. Entitled the Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition, this promised to not only update the visuals to take advantage of the power of the Xbox One, but it also featured all the post launch content and a special surprise. 

Playing as all the characters, exploring the (frankly bonkers) storyline - which is killing me not to reveal - and finding all the little nods to popular detective fiction was a lot of fun when Thimbleweed Park released back in 2017.

Snake Pass is a game that dares to be different. It asks players to engage with it in a way that few games do: forget everything you know about any game you’ve played and relearn it to discover something completely new.

After all the furore surrounding the completion of the original Mass Effect Trilogy, and in particular the massive amount of fan upset that the ending to the story brought, you’d have thought for the difficult follow-up - Mass Effect: Andromeda - Bioware would have pulled out all the stops to make for a smooth launch.

In all honesty, I enjoyed Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands more than its follow-up, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, as the whole game just felt more polished and finished than its successor.

It’s that time of year when we reflect on the past 12 months of Xbox. From expansive open-worlders to smaller titles that are equal in quality, you can be sure that the ten games following will be mainstays on our gaming schedule going into 2018. Let us get proceedings underway with ten of the best Xbox One games, and indeed TheXboxHub’s Game of the Year of 2017…

2017 has come and gone - providing some stellar AAA titles throughout the year. If you want to know about our overall Game of the Year for 2017, then take a look, but this article is all about the indie releases that we saw arrive on Xbox One this year. The following 7 independents have given us some very unique and memorable experiences in 2017...

With all the amazing releases 2017 brought us, there were bound to be some Xbox One titles that failed to hit the mark - and were unlucky enough to be deemed some of the worst games of 2017. Sorry to the following games and their developers - but why don’t we all take this list of the very worst Xbox One games of 2017 as some good-natured constructive criticism, yeah?

With Gamerscore taking pride of place on our profiles, and the addiction that is Achievement hunting continuing to rule over gamers, completing a game now means mastering everything there is to offer whilst earning that sweet 1000/1000. With that in mind here’s a list of 10 of the easiest Xbox full game completions of 2017.

Whilst there may only be a few games that have garnered such high praise for their overbearing difficulties, there are still many that arrive each year that bring the ultimate challenge to even the most hardcore gamers out there. Here are ten of the toughest full Xbox One game completions from 2017. Do you have what it takes to tackle them?

For years there has only ever been one snake worth talking about… Konami and Metal Gear’s Solid. But now there's a new guy in town and this one has ditched the aggression, gone away from the destruction and fails to even hit the town with the least deadly weapon possible. Yep, this little guy comes across as a much kinder fella… oh, and he's called Noodle. That's super cute in its own right.

Nothing will be forgotten. That’s the tag-line for Middle-earth: Shadow of War, and I certainly haven’t forgotten how brilliant Shadow of Mordor was; it became an addiction to hunt down Orcs and slash them to pieces to get my kicks in what was my Game of the Year at the time. The bar has been set pretty high for Monolith’s sequel, Shadow of War, but can it recreate the magic without just being more of the same? How many stories based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantastical world are there left to tell?

Don’t get me wrong, Resident Evil 4 was a classic, in fact it’s still one of the best-selling games of all time and one of my favourites in the series, but Resident Evil is a series born from the horror it created back in 1996, and the last few titles have failed to recognise that. Capcom have been listening though and a new game has arrived, but has Resident Evil 7: biohazard brought the franchise back to where it belongs?

From the very first announcement way back in 2014, Cuphead was one game I just knew I had to get hands on with. With its beautiful hand-drawn animations and the 1930’s style design bringing back thoughts of the earliest cartoons, all mixed with some rather incredible attention to detail and hardcore run and gun platforming, Cuphead was looking like it could become the best-looking game I had ever seen. Years of delays however have taken its toll on the overall hype for the game, with many expecting a release long before now. But the wait is over and Cuphead has finally arrived. Was it worth the lengthy delays or have we been tricked into getting hyped about something that is a disappointment?

Since it first hit consoles back in 2005, Sniper Elite has been a big hit with the gaming community, and it’s not hard to see why. Unlike the many other shooters available on the market, Sniper Elite doesn’t send you into battle all guns blazing - in fact, those that attempt to do just that on anything other than the easiest difficulty option are sure to get blown away in mere seconds. Instead, the task here is to map out the area, plan your route and get the job done as quietly and efficiently as possible. As a big fan of all things stealth (which was most likely brought on by my childhood dominance of Hide and Seek), Sniper Elite has always been a series that has appealed to me. But as we all know, too much of the same thing can get boring very quickly and with Sniper Elite 4 set in the same time period as each of the previous entries in the series, does this latest iteration have enough in the tank to provide another thrilling experience, or will another shot at World War II be too far for one of the most decorated Indie franchises on the market?

Forza Motorsport has a long and storied history on the Xbox. I myself have been playing since 2009, way back to the days of Forza 2, and as a series it has provided me with many happy hours of racing and painting. The series has got increasingly shiny as it’s gone on, with each iteration improving on the graphics of its predecessor. But now we come to Forza 7 and it boasting on the cover about being in 4K and enhanced for the Xbox One X - the question I guess is how good does it look today?