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Gear.Club Unlimited 3 is a racing game with some good ideas and a few genuinely enjoyable moments, but it never quite brings everything together. The Japanese setting is a welcome change, the French Mediterranean coast provides a pleasing contrast, and the highway mode adds a different challenge to the usual circuit racing. The car collection and customisation options also give enthusiasts something to work towards. Unfortunately, inconsistent handling, opposition that doesn’t always provide a convincing challenge, repetitive progression and a lack of online multiplayer all hold it back. The presentation has its moments, but it doesn’t consistently deliver the level of polish that would help the experience stand out. There is fun to be had here, particularly if you enjoy collecting cars, upgrading your garage and working through a broad selection of events. Yet the individual elements don’t combine into a particularly memorable racing package, and the experience can begin to feel familiar long before you’ve exhausted everything it has to offer. Gear.Club Unlimited 3 is a perfectly playable racer with a decent foundation, but one that needed more refinement, greater variety and stronger competitive options to make a lasting impression. There’s a good game trying to get out, but it doesn’t quite make it across the finish line.
Many have wanted a successor to Bully for years. Rockstar smashed that experience out of the park, and I feel players will look at Agefield High: School of Rock and believe it can capture that same setting and atmosphere. Sadly, it misses the mark in almost every way. Unfortunately, I can’t recommend this one even if it were priced lower, for several reasons. With its underdeveloped world, frustrating combat and countless bugs, it makes the gameplay tedious to engage with. Whilst I can see what the development team are trying to achieve here, it just comes off as massively underbaked. I admire the passion and ambition here, but I’d steer clear of this one until issues are ironed out or some updates come along to address the shortcomings. If you feel like you still want to play this one after reading all of this, you can pick up a copy HERE.
Control Resonant is a worthy and solid sequel to the original. Building upon the world introduced to us in Control and expanding it tenfold. The game design is tight, sharp and easy to get into. My only minor gripe is that you can find yourself underpowered and ill-prepared for certain encounters, especially Resonant boss battles if you’re not careful, with certain necessary upgrades and abilities requiring a lot of exploring and back tracking. But if you’re like me and go everywhere and do everything this isn’t going to be a problem as long as you take your time. This title has even managed to scratch my openworld power fantasy, not fulfilled since my [Prototype] playing days and made the Control games my second favourite series (still wanting a Quantum Break sequel one day if you’re reading this and are somehow able too Remedy), and although the Alan Wake games are still my personal favourites within the ‘Remedyverse’, Resonant feels like a well polished, thought out and solid entry into the ever expanding series of interconnected games this developer seems to be building. At this point, this is quickly becoming gaming’s version of the MCU with all the references, call backs and interconnections to previously released games. Considering this could be classed as a AAA release, the price point for the Xbox version is only £49.99 at time of release, and the ‘Digital Deluxe Edition’ with extra goodies such as a Digital Artbook and Original Soundtrack for a small price upgrade to £58.49. I find it very easy to recommend you pick up and try Control Resonant. Even if you haven’t played the first one, there’s enough here when you first play to jump onto the narrative and get into the larger overarching story. If you like large, sprawling areas with ‘Metroidvania’ style gaming mechanics and wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey plots then this game is definitely one for you.Try New Games As The Board would probably say… “[Try It/What Have You Got To Lose/Pineapple] or words to that effect.
SPRAWL zero is a first-person shooter inspired by the golden age of early-2000s console gaming, combining nostalgic Y2K aesthetics with fast-paced combat, intelligent enemies and a gritty cyberpunk setting. Drawing inspiration from classics such as F.E.A.R. and Halo, it aims to capture the spirit of an era when the FPS genre was expanding beyond corridors into more ambitious, immersive worlds. Players step into the role of FIVE, a cybernetically enhanced supersoldier under the control of the Junta, tasked with eliminating SILAS, the leader of the radical techno-religious group IMAGO-DEI. As the city descends into chaos, FIVE must navigate a dangerous web of competing factions, uncovering the truth while fighting to survive.
Transport Fever 3 is the sort of game that can quietly consume your time without you even realising it. You sit down intending to establish a couple of bus routes, only to look at the clock several hours later and realise you have somehow built a transportation empire spanning an entire region. That is because the game understands the appeal of logistics. There is genuine satisfaction in taking a problem and finding an elegant solution, whether that means adding another bus, creating a new rail connection, establishing a cargo route or completely redesigning part of your network because your previous plan has become hopelessly inefficient. It is also a game that respects the player. You can delve as deeply into its systems as you want, or simply concentrate on the parts you enjoy most. The campaign helps newcomers learn the ropes, while the sandbox provides the freedom that will keep experienced players coming back for another attempt. The Xbox version does have some controller-related frustrations, particularly when you are managing a huge number of lines and vehicles, but these never managed to overshadow the sheer enjoyment I found in building and managing my networks. Transport Fever 3 is a fantastic addition to the Xbox simulation and strategy library. It is deep without constantly making you feel overwhelmed, complex without losing sight of what makes it fun, and surprisingly relaxing despite the number of financial disasters you can create for yourself. If you enjoy watching a plan slowly come together, there are few things more satisfying than seeing your first humble transport route evolve into a huge interconnected network. Transport Fever 3 makes that journey incredibly rewarding — just make sure you keep an eye on the bank balance before you decide that building a railway through a mountain is a brilliant idea.
Active Matter is an incredibly ambitious extraction shooter that feels a bit different from the others out there. With its mind-bending atmosphere and anomaly-driven gameplay, it is a consistently tense rollercoaster. I found this to be one of the more punishing shooters I’ve ever played, but the setting and exploration kept drawing me in for more. If you’re big into extraction shooters or even shooters in general, then you may find lots of hours here. Co-op crossplay allows you to dive in with friends if you don’t want to go it alone. With the bonus of Xbox Play Anywhere, you can play this anywhere your Xbox library allows. Fancy picking up a copy for yourself? You can do so HERE.
MXGP26 is a game I have genuinely enjoyed playing, and that is important to stress because my criticisms come from wanting to see it do more with what it already gets right. The handling offers a satisfying challenge, the dynamic terrain gives races an interesting extra dimension, and the official circuits and bikes provide a solid foundation for fans of motocross. When you find your rhythm and start tackling the tracks with confidence, there is plenty of fun to be had. It is not without its frustrations, of course. The learning curve could be handled better, the physics occasionally produce some questionable moments, and the presentation lacks the atmosphere that would help turn individual races into memorable events. These are areas where further refinement would make a meaningful difference, but they are not the reason MXGP26 falls short of its potential. That honour belongs to the missing career mode. I simply cannot understand why a modern racing game would launch without such an important feature, particularly when its core gameplay gives developers so much to build upon. Championship racing is enjoyable, but it cannot replace the feeling of developing a rider, earning opportunities, progressing through the ranks and working towards the ultimate prize. A proper career mode would give the entire experience greater purpose and provide a compelling reason to keep playing long after the first few races. For now, MXGP26 is an enjoyable motocross game that gets enough right to make me hopeful for the future, but it feels like a foundation rather than the finished article. I would happily spend more time with it, and I would be even happier if there were a meaningful career waiting for me when I returned.
Gears of War: E-Day is set during Emergence Day, fourteen years before the events of the original Gears of War, as Marcus and Dom, along with a host of other Gears, face off against the first wave of Locust. They’ll have to fight and survive against the unknown as they scramble to save civilians scattered throughout the city. Gears of War: E-Day is a third person action shooter where players will be able to use a myriad of weapons to take the fight up to the Locust. Returning players will notice that The Coalition have made a few tweaks in terms of controls. Given that our protagonists are younger, their movement is a bit more nimble. Running has been delegated to pressing the left joystick instead of holding A. Marcus and company can now jump and climb up reasonably high surfaces. There’s also a useful slide mechanic to dodge enemy projectiles.
Minecraft Dungeons II is a fantastic example of how to expand upon a successful formula without losing sight of what made the original so appealing. The move towards a connected world is a brilliant decision, jumping gives exploration considerably more freedom, the Sift is a genuinely exciting new dimension and the expanded gear and enchantment systems provide more opportunities to create a character that feels like your own. Most importantly, though, Minecraft Dungeons II remains fun. That sounds obvious, but it is something that can get lost in action RPGs as they become increasingly obsessed with complexity and endgame systems. Mojang and Double Eleven have resisted that temptation here. There is greater depth for those who want it, but the game remains wonderfully approachable for everyone else. And then you add four-player co-op to the mix and the whole thing becomes even more enjoyable. There are some repetitive moments, the occasional difficulty spike and a few areas where the visual chaos can make it difficult to follow exactly what is happening. Players looking for the deepest action RPG on Xbox may also find the systems a little lightweight. But Minecraft Dungeons II isn’t trying to be that game. It wants to be the action RPG that you can play with your family, your friends, your partner or simply on your own after a long day. It wants you to chase better loot, experiment with ridiculous builds, explore strange new places and occasionally forget what you were supposed to be doing because you’ve discovered something interesting off the beaten path. And in that respect, it succeeds brilliantly. Minecraft Dungeons II takes the enjoyable foundations of its predecessor and builds something considerably bigger on top of them. It is more ambitious, more exploratory and more mechanically interesting, while retaining the welcoming personality that made the original so easy to love. For me, it doesn’t quite reach the level of perfection, but it comes remarkably close. Minecraft Dungeons II takes everything that worked about the original and gives it considerably more room to breathe. With a bigger world, deeper character building, a brilliant new dimension and superb co-op, this is a sequel that feels genuinely worthwhile rather than simply bigger for the sake of it. It isn’t perfect, but when you’re sitting alongside friends, surrounded by mobs and fighting over who gets the best loot, it’s very difficult not to have a huge smile on your face.
Seafarer: The Ship Sim is an ambitious maritime simulator that occasionally finds itself caught between what it wants to be and what it currently manages to deliver. When everything comes together, it is an incredibly atmospheric experience. The open ocean looks fantastic, the ships have a real sense of scale, the career system provides a reason to keep progressing and the variety of cargo, rescue, firefighting and patrol operations means you’re not always doing exactly the same thing. The full release has also benefited from the game’s journey through Early Access, with additional missions, progression adjustments and the introduction of co-op helping to make the overall package feel more complete. But there are still moments where the seams begin to show. Some missions can become repetitive, ship handling isn’t always as precise as I’d like, and the career systems don’t quite have the depth or interconnectedness needed to make this feel like the definitive maritime simulator. Even so, there is something here that I really like. Seafarer doesn’t constantly demand your attention. It doesn’t need explosions around every corner or dramatic events every few minutes. Sometimes it is happy to let you sail, watch the waves and enjoy the journey. When combined with the more involved rescue and emergency missions, that creates an experience that can be surprisingly relaxing while still giving you enough to work towards. It may not quite have mastered life at sea yet, but Seafarer has certainly found its sea legs. Seafarer: The Ship Sim is an ambitious and often wonderfully relaxing maritime adventure that gets many of the important things right. It looks great, the ships feel substantial and there is genuine satisfaction in building a career and watching your responsibilities grow. It still has some rough waters to navigate, particularly around repetition, handling and career depth, but there is enough here to make setting sail well worth the journey.
We had a fantastic summer of World Cup action, and after a short break, the beautiful game is back. With a brand new season, my team, Manchester United still performing terribly; it's almost like nothing has changed. That said, it's part of life I can't live without, and one window I always look forward to is the annual release of the most popular football game in existence. EA SPORTS FC 27 has finally dropped onto Xbox Series X/S and even the trusty old Xbox One. Also available to players on Playstation 4/5, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC, with full cross-play functionality. Now, I know many always say the same thing: it's the same game every single year, and on the surface it may come across that way. However, this couldn't be further from the truth, and there have been some fruitful additions and changes in comparison to the previous couple of years. With 21,000+ licensed players, 800+ clubs and national squads, 140+ stadiums and 35+ fully licensed leagues, it just grows bigger every time.
Garfield – Escape From Monday isn’t going to blow adults away. Although it is fun, colourful, and entertaining, it is repetitive, easy, and the soundbites are ridiculously annoying. However, it is enjoyable for kids. The stage design, limited violence, and easy to master action are perfect for younger gamers. Accordingly, it’s a family-friendly affair, and I recommend grabbing a copy from the Xbox Store!
The Relic: First Guardian has been available on PC and PlayStation for a while. Accordingly, I’ve been waiting patiently to give this a go on Xbox. With Souls-like elements, unusual mechanics, and a rich and dark lore-filled story, this appealed to me. However, there are plenty of performance issues and bugs that hold it back. Project Cloud Games has developed this action-adventure, Souls-like title. It is a semi-open world game that encourages you to investigate every building, ruin, and cave you encounter. However, you must stay frosty throughout as monsters roam everywhere and danger is around every corner. This single-player affair focuses on bitty lore, impressive passive abilities, and seamlessly never-ending boss battles. The huge and often hideous bosses test your skills as you dodge, weave, block, and slice your way to victory.
NASCAR 26 isn’t the giant leap that completely transforms the series, but I don’t think it needed to be. What it needed to do was take the promising foundation of NASCAR 25 and prove that iRacing Studios understands where the series needs to go. For the most part, it does. The driving is the strongest part of the package, with improved braking, tyre behaviour and track evolution making the cars more enjoyable to drive and giving longer races a greater sense of strategy. When the AI joins in and everything clicks, there are some genuinely fantastic NASCAR battles to be had, while the new Chase mode and improved career progression give you plenty of reasons to keep coming back. The visual presentation has also moved forward, and cross-platform multiplayer is a particularly welcome addition that should help keep the online side of things populated. There are still frustrations, and the inconsistent AI is probably the biggest one. Career Mode also feels like it is one substantial layer of personality away from being something truly special, while damage modelling and the occasional technical issue remind us that there is still work ahead. But compare that to where we were with NASCAR 25, and the direction is encouraging. Last year I gave NASCAR 25 an 80/100 because it felt like the beginning of something. NASCAR 26 earns its 82/100 because it feels like that something is beginning to take shape. It may not have crossed the finish line just yet, but the car is certainly finding its groove. NASCAR 26 builds intelligently on the foundations of NASCAR 25, delivering better racing, more interesting tyre and track behaviour, improved presentation and more ways to enjoy the NASCAR experience. It isn’t without its problems, but the important thing is that iRacing Studios continues to move the series forward. There is still plenty of room for improvement, but NASCAR 26 is another promising lap in the right direction.
The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival is a pretty mid run of the mill beat’em up that feels a bit slow, outdated and 10 years too late. I really did try to like this, but the issues kept killing my enjoyment. This game should’ve released about 8-10 years ago during the peak of the franchise. While the upgrade mechanics are a nice touch to the genre, there’s really no reason to buy this. There are so many better, more fluid beat’em ups than this. Unless you’re a die-head fan of The Walking Dead or you must play every beat’em up in existence, this is an easy pass.
Dune: Awakening is an ambitious game, and ambition can sometimes be its greatest strength and its biggest weakness. There is an enormous amount to see and do across Arrakis, and Funcom has successfully turned one of science fiction’s most recognisable worlds into a survival playground that feels dangerous, atmospheric and genuinely worth exploring. The survival mechanics work because the environment itself is such an important part of the experience, while crafting, building, combat and character progression give you plenty of reasons to keep pushing further into the desert. The new single-player mode is perhaps the most important addition for Xbox players. It makes the entire experience considerably more accessible without stripping away what makes Dune: Awakening special. You can play alone, take your time and create your own adventure, or you can embrace the social side of the game and experience Arrakis alongside others. There are still frustrations. The menus aren’t always as controller-friendly as I’d like, the game can occasionally suffer from technical hiccups and the sheer number of systems can feel overwhelming. Some of the survival mechanics can also be brutally unforgiving, particularly when you’re still learning how everything works. But when Dune: Awakening gets it right, it gets it very right. There is something wonderfully immersive about standing alone in the middle of the desert, looking towards a distant objective while checking your water supply and wondering whether you can make it there and back. Then you hear the ground rumble. Suddenly, that objective doesn’t seem quite so important. Dune: Awakening is a huge, ambitious and atmospheric survival RPG that makes Arrakis feel like a character in its own right. It isn’t perfect, but for anyone willing to embrace its systems and give themselves time to learn the ways of the desert, there is an enormous adventure waiting beneath the sand.
iRacing Arcade is a game that is surprisingly easy to enjoy because it understands something that racing games sometimes forget: racing should be fun. It takes the iRacing name in a completely different direction and turns motorsport into something approachable enough for newcomers, while still retaining enough familiar racing ingredients to keep more experienced players interested. The driving is simple without feeling completely shallow, the career provides a reason to keep progressing and the Motorsport Campus gives that progression a little more personality. Fuel, tyres and damage demonstrate that there is more going on here than the colourful presentation initially suggests, while the different cars and circuits provide plenty of variety during those early hours. At the same time, I couldn’t help feeling that iRacing Arcade is holding something back. The career could make better use of its more interesting racing mechanics, the difficulty could be more consistent and the management elements could have been expanded further. There are times when the game gives you a glimpse of something deeper, only to pull back and return to its simpler arcade roots. Thankfully, the Xbox version has one particularly important trick up its sleeve: four-player local multiplayer. When you’ve got friends sitting beside you, iRacing Arcade suddenly becomes a wonderfully chaotic little racing playground. The forgiving handling becomes an advantage, the short races work brilliantly for quick competitions and the inevitable first-corner chaos can provide some of the best laughs you’ll have with the game. Ultimately, iRacing Arcade may not have quite enough depth to satisfy players looking for a serious long-term racing experience, but that isn’t really the audience it is chasing. This is a colourful, accessible and enjoyable arcade racer that wants to make motorsport fun rather than intimidating, and for the most part it succeeds. There is definitely more that could have been done, and hopefully the developers continue building on what is already a solid foundation. As it stands, though, iRacing Arcade is an enjoyable little racer that is particularly good fun when shared with friends, even if it occasionally leaves you wishing there was just a little bit more under the bonnet.
Speedrunners 2: King of Speed retains all of the qualities that the previous game mastered, but it hasn’t really evolved much either. But for serious fans, that probably won’t matter much. Replayability is there, with online multiplayer staying pretty active and the game available on Xbox Game Pass, which should boost server numbers. With cross-platform multiplayer also a feature, it should have good longevity for a good while, yet let’s just hope the developers at tinyBuild Games don’t leave it too long before the next one. If you’d like to pick up a copy for Xbox Series X/S, then you can do so HERE. If you’re on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, however, you can download and play as part of your subscription at the time of writing.
Train Sim World 7 is a fascinating example of a sequel that doesn’t need to reinvent its entire formula to feel worthwhile. Instead, Dovetail Games has concentrated on making Train Sim World more welcoming, more flexible and, in several areas, more immersive. The three new routes provide plenty of variety, with Yorkshire, Germany and Florida each offering their own distinct flavour, while Freight Hauler is the feature that could have the greatest long-term impact. There is still work to do. Some of the technical problems at launch are frustrating, and Freight Hauler in particular feels like a feature that will benefit enormously from continued refinement. But the foundations are extremely strong, and the willingness to continue updating the game gives me confidence that some of those rough edges will be smoothed out. Most importantly, Train Sim World 7 understands what makes this series special. It isn’t about rushing. It isn’t about constantly chasing the next objective. Sometimes it’s about leaving a station on time, watching the countryside disappear behind you, listening to the locomotive working and simply enjoying the journey. Whether you’re a railway obsessive or someone who just fancies seeing what all the fuss is about, Train Sim World 7 makes climbing into the cab remarkably easy. And once you’re there, you’ll probably find yourself saying the same thing I did more than once: “I’ll just do one more service.” That’s when you know a simulation is doing something right. Train Sim World 7 is a superb railway simulation that manages to make the series more accessible without sacrificing the depth that existing fans love. The new routes are varied, Freight Hauler is an excellent addition and Live Weather adds another layer of immersion. There are still some technical bumps to iron out, but when everything clicks into place, Train Sim World 7 delivers exactly what a great train simulator should: the freedom to slow down, sit back and enjoy the journey.
I adore a melancholy experience. It makes you reflect on life and brings you closer to your emotions. Woodo does just that with its excellent storytelling, fine visuals, and slow gameplay. It’s not going to be for everyone. However, if you want a change of pace and something that’ll touch your soul, this is the game for you. Tiny Monk Tales developed this artistic, diorama game. It is a single-player experience that is as supportive or hands-off as you want. Each of the levels has multiple layers that must be explored if you wish to move on. Furthermore, there are plenty of secrets to discover. Woodo is a story of reflection. Looking back on your life is something we all do. Occasionally, there is regret, but most of it is experienced through rose-tinted spectacles. The result is a warm feeling that leaves you smiling. This is exactly what happens when you play Woodo. It taps into that sense of nostalgia that keeps us all in a good place. You play the role of a cute and fluffy animal called Foxy. They are looking back at key moments in their life. However, their memory is fuzzy, and they need help to piece together key elements. As you drop the jigsaw pieces in place, the memories become animated. This simple layer of energy is cute, and I loved every second. Piecing things together. I’m not normally a massive fan of jigsaws. Nor do I like to search for the most minor of details. However, Woodo does this so well that it doesn’t feel like a chore. Instead, it has a magical edge that is rewarding and relaxing. Each of the levels asks you to build more complex pictures of the protagonist’s life. Friends come to call, geese become aggressive, and things get a little out of hand. However, at its core, it is beautifully calm and reflective. On top of this, the story punctuates key moments to great effect. The result is a gentle game that tells an amusing and touching story. Woodo looks great. Each stage starts out as a bland and colourless canvas. As you drop in pieces, you build up a new and vibrant world. Items can be interacted with, and creatures start to walk. The simple animation is truly fantastic, and I loved the cute and secretive moments. The audio is where Woodo thrives. The narration is warm and reassuring. Furthermore, it captures the on-screen vibes perfectly. Each level feels unique and personal. Although they are complex, they are never overwhelming or a chore to complete. The control system is understandably simple. You must rotate the camera, grab pieces, and work through the puzzles. It demands accuracy, but this wasn’t a problem. If you struggle, there is a hint system, and you can get automatic help as well. Replay value is sadly limited to achievement hunters. I flew through the levels, and I’m unlikely to return for more. If the developer incorporates new DLC, I would definitely want to dive back in. Woodo is fantastic. Woodo won’t be for everyone. It is too relaxing, calm, and deep for lovers of short, sharp action. However, if you want something that is reflective, wholesome, and safe to play, this is the game for you. I think it’s brilliant, and I recommend grabbing a copy from the Xbox Store!