The difficulty curve is forgiving, although it does ramp up a little more toward the climax, but it never gets close to the levels of irritation that platform games of old managed. The control input method may be difficult for some, but once you get used to it, it becomes second nature and even the fastest sections won't be too demanding. Max may have been sneaked out earlier than we expected, but it's a little gem that could easily be over-looked, but will reward gamers who invest their time in it.
Gomo does have some real charm in its simple yet appealing visuals and its strange sense of humour, but it is seriously lacking in the gameplay department. It is far too short and even the most inexperienced point and click gamers won't take more than a couple of hours to complete the game. After that there is nothing to really come back to, and neither the puzzles nor the plot are interesting enough to warrant a second play-through. You can see Gomo's indie roots clearly, and maybe it would have found its place better in its original flash-based format.
The fact that Lococycle was intended to be an Xbox 360 game to begin with is quite clear, as it does nothing to take advantage of the new power that the Xbox One affords it. Despite a mixed bag of launch titles on the console, this is by far the biggest disappointment, as Twisted Pixel have delighted us so much in the past.
You can take a certain hypnotic bliss from simply working along calmly and peacefully, making sure that your park is running as smoothly as it can and improving the conditions for your ever-growing menagerie of creatures. This game was never going to be he bombastic launch title that blows the minds of gamers. Zoo Tycoon is a different pace of game for a different type of player. With the Xbox One Microsoft are looking to create a device that provides all forms of entertainment, for everyone, and a game like Zoo Tycoon certainly shows their commitment to creating a broad base. It may ultimately be a little shallow, but it has bags of charm and there is more than enough on offer here to provide hours of animal magic.
Mario Party: Island Tour is far from being a bad game, it’s just a part of a series that seems to have run out of ideas to an extent, lacking any aspects that really excite or pleasantly surprise you. There is still plenty of fun to be had when taking on some of the more successful mini games with a group of friends locally, but the game as a whole does come across as more of a re-tread of something we have played time and time again. As such, there is little about Island Tour to recommend above past portable versions of the game. If this is your first experience with the series, it is certainly one of the best versions, I’m just not entirely sure that it’s a necessary one.