Xbox Tavern

• XONE
• 7.5 / 10
• États-Unis

Koa and the Five Pirates of Mara is a very cutesy platforming game that does it’s job surprisingly well. The “speed tech” taught is simple but effective and the variety of level types was a pleasant surprise. The art style and the story are nothing to write home about and certainly won’t appeal to all but platforming fans who admire gameplay are encouraged to give the pirates a run for their money. It doesn’t really overstay it’s welcome (underwater levels aside) and the levels feel bite-sized which was nice. A fun game to just pick up and play for bits at a time.

• XSX/S
• 7.8 / 10
• États-Unis

Insomnis is a short lived affair, preferring to stake it’s thrills on tense atmosphere building and jump scares than combat or hide and seek scenarios. The tale it tells is entertainingly sad enough to pull us through the 2 hour runtime, and for the most part the puzzles are just on the right side of not quite too easy to make them enjoyable to complete. Some control issues and a mumbling protagonist sour things slightly, but on the whole we enjoyed our time with the game.

• XSX/S
• 6.3 / 10
• États-Unis

Writing this conclusion brings a tear to my eye; on one hand, Layers of Fear looks beautiful, controls well and does give you a sense of horror. But then there is the gameplay loop – as I started playing I noticed more and more that Layers of Fear relies more on walking and looking than traditional horror gameplay. After about 30 minutes of picking notes up to “read” (the voice acting was excellent), I was disappointed. I wanted/thought more would happen. My interest did pick up once we got the lantern, however, that was short-lived. Some of the puzzles were good but overall I was left very short-changed and rather let down by what I got (or didn’t get) out of it.

• XSX/S
• 7 / 10
• États-Unis

• XSX/S
• 7.5 / 10
• États-Unis

• XSX/S
• 9.1 / 10
• États-Unis

Underwhelming ending aside, Amnesia: The Bunker is an excellently crafted survival horror, with plenty of tension, dread, near misses and clever puzzles to keep us coming back for more.

• XSX/S
• 7 / 10
• États-Unis

Rollercoaster management games are few and far between these days but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some great games out there for the category. Luckily Park Beyond is coming out swinging as this is a really fun entry in the management genre. It offers some crazy impossibilities to the theme park rides that make the experience so much fun. Unfortunately the launch hasn’t been the best for me with crashes and technical issues with the AI, however I have the upmost confidence they will be fixed in the near future. You know if this type of game is for you and if it is, Park Beyond isn’t a bad one to take a try on.

• XSX/S
• 9 / 10
• États-Unis

• XSX/S
• 9.7 / 10
• États-Unis

Blizzard has proven that AAA games CAN launch in a ready state and be a game of the year contender straight off the bat. It’s going to have to be something special that beats Diablo IV to the top of my list.

• XONE
• 9 / 10
• États-Unis

I had a bloody excellent time with The Tartarus Key. It hit me hard with the nostalgic presentation, and hooked me in with clever, well-crafted, and almost perfectly pitched puzzles throughout.

• XSX/S
• 8.9 / 10
• États-Unis

Camera control aside, Tin Hearts has been an utter joy to play. It’s charming, clever, looks and sounds lovely, and has just the right puzzle difficulty to have us looking forward to coming back for an hour or so each night.

• XSX/S
• 9.5 / 10
• États-Unis

Overall, Inscryption is an innovative must-play game for anyone who enjoys card games, puzzle games, or horror games. The game’s creativity, different styles of gameplay, and mechanics that are easy to learn and fun to master make it a standout title that is sure to keep players engaged for hours on end. I hope this is the first of many games developed by Daniel Mullins to appear on Xbox consoles, as he’s definitely an indie developer to keep an eye on.

• XONE
• 2 / 10
• États-Unis

With a dizzying number of poorly thought-out design decisions, and punishing level design. War Mongrels should be taken out back and shot.

• XSX/S
• 8.5 / 10
• États-Unis

Mia and the Dragon Princess is another solid effort from the teams at Wales Interactive and Good Gate Media. The cast all put in some excellent performances, the story is brief but also full of interesting twists and turns, and it had us laughing far more than expected to with some classic British humour. For our money, this is one of the best live action adventures out there.

• XSX/S
• 7 / 10
• États-Unis

Disney Speedstorm has the potential to be something great. The driving is smooth and fluid, the maps are vivid, and I love the characters and how they’re made to perform. But let’s be real here, gacha mechanics shouldn’t even have been considered for a racing game. This won’t be the last action racer we’ll see and I don’t expect any of them to be the next Mario Kart killer. I do expect them to at least not be a cash grab hidden behind a mask of beloved iconic characters, cool power-ups, flashy tracks, and cool funky music.

• XONE
• XSX/S
• 6 / 10
• États-Unis

There’s enough here for fans of the Sherlock Holmes style detective games, though for me the constant back and forth between menus and uneven movement through the world left me uninspired to continue playing.

• XSX/S
• 4.7 / 10
• États-Unis

Artistic expression is what will strike the biggest chord in Strayed Lights. There are lovely moments of beauty to unearth, and you will no doubt find a game ignited with a love for tranquillity and colour. However, empty spaces make Strayed Lights world feel uncomfortably abandoned at times, and the combat is based too heavily on precision and colour matching to engross. Thankfully, Strayed Lights is short, but it runs out of momentum too soon despite some impressive boss encounters and some gorgeous skies. Give it a whirl then, but you won’t feel like Strayed Lights is anything but a shallowly gentle gust that will blow by without the force it needed to stick in the mind.

• XONE
• 5.5 / 10
• États-Unis