XboxEra's Reviews
As disappointed as I was with the first DLC I think I dislike the second one even more. It’s a mishmash of unenjoyable mini-games, and while the music is great the gameplay is not.
Gangs of Sherwood was fun for 15 minutes. Every second after that was a dreadful monotony that I cannot recommend to anyone living or dead.
Saga of Sins looks good. Its use of the stained glass window art style is its only redeeming feature, though. The gameplay is atrocious, and the level design is no better. The voice acting and music are passable at this price point, but I can’t recommend this game to anyone in good faith.
Unless you feel the desire to try every single kart racer on Xbox, you are safe to skip this one and go towards the dozens of better alternatives on the market.
Accident doesn’t look good, runs poorly, controls even worse, and feels like it’s in bad taste more often than not. The basic premise makes little sense, but it does have an excellent soundtrack of all things. If you’re feeling morbid and want to rescue breath a 13-year-old whose mom is dead in the front seat then get help and still avoid this game.
Chasing Static is a boring, slog of a game.
I have enjoyed some action-adventure horror games out there. Limited ammo and health reserves can be a great tool for upping the tension and a great story helps make it worth seeing things through. Scorn has none of that. It is bland, boring, plays poorly, and excels in no areas.
The game’s terrible parry system, lack of variety in its weapons, and incredibly frustrating feather stun move compound into a game that I struggled to enjoy, despite my best efforts.
I have been unable to find out the final price of this title. If it’s under $10 and you have someone to play with it might be worth checking out, though you’ll most likely finish every level in a single night. From the gameplay to the graphics and the lack of variety, there is nothing here that even reaches the level of being mediocre.
Featuring little in the ways of improvements with only the base resolution and framerate changing, and lots in the ways of game-breaking bugs, it’s impossible to recommend this $30 broken mess of a game at launch. Once things are patched up and hopefully working better it might be some couch co-op fun, though only on a deep sale. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II’s “remaster” is a major disappointment.
Rather nice graphics and great music are massively let down by unbalanced and poor gameplay, along with a paint-by-number, creepy as hell story. Technically I might have been interested in what this dev can do in the future, but God damn man. This game is gross.
Dolmen wants to put its mark in the Action RPG genre with a potentially intriguing Space/Horror tale that never really goes to space, and isn’t at all scary. It never feels good to play, broke on me constantly, and was an ugly maze of bland/blocky corridors. Retailing for $39.99 at launch I can’t in good conscious recommend this over almost any other game in the genre.
Embr is a good game, on PC. The console port for Xbox, even on a Series X, isn’t up to snuff. I would keep an eye on this though in case it ever gets a performance-enhancing patch, as the core gameplay loop can be seriously fun. It’s a shame that it is launching in this state on Xbox, but if you have even a mediocre PC and a few friends then you’ll have a good time.
It’s honestly hard to recommend this title outside potentially as an option to keep the kids busy due to the 4 player local multiplayer. As I said earlier, the potential for something genuinely good is buried there somewhere, but there’s just too much lacking in just about every area to recommend forking over $30 to play this.
Until they fix the level 14 achievement, don’t buy this one for a quick 1000 achievement score fix, which is what this series is about. Keep an eye on the user reviews and once it’s fixed this is another mind-numbingly boring $10 Aery game. You know what you’re getting, and it isn’t very good, but at least it’s short.
ACL Pro Cornhole is overpriced, and a miserable slog to play against the computer. The physics behind your shots never feels consistent, it looks terrible, and even in couch co-op, this is simply one I cannot recommend.
It frustrates me that I have to leave Blood Bowl 3 with a middling review, but despite the solid core gameplay, everything around it frustrates me too much for me to continue playing. These issues may be fixed in the future, but at the moment I struggle to recommend this game to fans of Warhammer, strategy, or possibly even the more hardcore Blood Bowl fan.
TopSpin 2K25 is a massive disappointment. Feeling more like beta software, with a lack of modes, players, and fun. I cannot recommend this one at the egregious $70 price point.
Hellboy Web of Wyrd has good ideas and flawed execution. It’s not a looker, becomes repetitive to play after 15 minutes, and has one of the least satisfying rogue-like setups I can remember. If you love the character the story is interesting, but slogging through the title to see it is a tough thing to recommend.
At launch, I cannot recommend The Lamplighters League on Xbox. It runs terribly, while looking ugly, and is a broken and buggy mess. Once this game is patched up and fixed though, it’s a gem. Great gameplay, a deep meta-game, intriguing story, and one of the best videogame soundtracks I’ve ever heard will be there waiting for you (and hopefully still in Game Pass).