With the game pass being Microsoft’s Netflix for games. With hundreds of games to choose from it can be difficult to know where to start. New titles are added monthly. How about starting with a few must-play favourites. 

Subnautica. When you crash land on a water-covered alien planet you’re forced to plunder to survive for as long as possible. 

Hollow Knight. Exploring a vast interconnected world as a silent protagonist, fighting monsters with devilish challenges and learning new skills to uncover the story behind the civilisation’s decline. 

Ori and the Will of the Wisps. The idea of escaping to a fantasy land is always appealing. As an alternative to Animal Crossing seeking a lost friend and a way to restore balance to a woodland being attacked by beasts and bugs. All in all, it’s a rewarding adventure. 

Redout 2

16th June 2022

A tribute to a classic arcade racing game. “where racing through the dystopian wastelands of a semi-abandoned Earth is one of the galaxy’s most popular sports.”(redout.games) Key features – Speed and Control, Extensive Career Mode, Competitive Multiplayer and Comprehensive Customisation. 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge

16th June 2022

Based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Franchise a beat-em-up video game. Capturing rosy nostalgia in a pixelated cartoon brawler. Game design that takes you back to the 80s. Up to 4 players simultaneously. Old school gameplay with super fresh mechanics. 

The Quarry

10th June 2022

An interactive drama horror video game. Approx 10 hours of gameplay. Fun cast of characters, interesting scenes and sequences,  and excellent visuals in place. The reviews for this game have not been favourable suggesting there are more cons than pros. 

Hugecalf Studios have revealed a new fast-paced, arcade-style game called Turbo Golf Racer. This multi-player game takes golf to the next level by putting golfers into cars and seeing who can get their oversized golf ball into the finishing hole first. 

You are not simply driving a regular car either, these are modular cars meaning you can bolt together your own unique vehicle meaning your boosts, shields, and wheels are not the same as any other racers. You can even choose your own paint job!

You can even customise your golf ball so that you could be playing with a glitterball instead of a standard golf ball.

Don’t fancy driving on the fairway, why not take to the sky with your race car and fly through wind tunnels and find power boosts.

Turbo Golf Racing will be heading to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Xbox Game Pass later in 2022.

If you have upgraded your Xbox 360 for an Xbox One, you may be wondering if you can save money by playing your old games on your new device.  The good news is that you can, due to the backward compatibility feature that Microsoft built into the Xbox One system.  This means that even the original Xbox games can be played on the Xbox One by simply inserting the disc or downloading the older game.

Any achievements you have unlocked on your Xbox 360 within a game will still be there when you transfer the game to the Xbox One.

Essentially what you have with the Xbox One is a 3-in-1 console.  This also means that you can purchase some of the older games at a lower second-hand price and still play them in full, and some of them play and look better on the Xbox One than they did initially. 

The Xbox 360 was released in November 2005 and was only the second game console released by Microsoft, the first being the Xbox in 2001. It was released to compete with the Nintendo Wii and Sony Playstation 3. Microsoft continued selling the Xbox 360 until April 2016.

Before Microsoft decided on the name Xbox 360, a few other names were in the running, including Xbox 2, Xenon, Xbox Next and NextBox. 

Over the 11 years the Xbox 360 was on the market, there were six other versions of the Xbox 360 released, including the Core, Arcade, and Elite. 

Over 70 million consoles have been sold worldwide – do you still have your Xbox 360?

More than 1000 Xbox 360 games are created and marketed, enough to ensure you never get bored, with Call of Duty 2 being the most successful game on the platform when it was launched in 2005.

The overall most successful game on the Xbox 360 was Kinect Adventures which sold 16.7 million copies.

When you play on your Xbox, you have two options: download the game or purchase the disk itself.  But which is better?  What are the pros and cons?

If you have a fast Wi-Fi connection, downloading a game is easier and quicker than going into the local town or ordering the disc from an online retailer. If your Wi-Fi connection is slower and you want to play the game straight away, you may feel that you need to purchase the game locally to play that day.

Some games are available to download earlier than purchasing them.  So whilst some people are queuing at midnight in the cold to pick up their game, you are at home in the warm already playing.

Some Wi-Fi providers have a download limit.  We all know that games contain a lot of data, so ensure that you have enough data to finish the download.

With a physical disc, you can lend the game to friends and family, certainly not something you can do with a download.

Developed by Robot Entertainment, Orcs Must Die 3 is the long-awaited sequel in the Orcs Must Die series and is released on 23 July 2021.

Orcs Must Die 3 is set 20 years after Orcs Must Die 2.  The War Mage and Sorceress have rebuilt the order and have trained new apprentices, but the Orcs are back.

The game takes orc-slaying to a whole new level with new war scenarios delivered on a massive scale. 

Robot Entertainment has equipped this game with all new traps and weapons to help you in your quest.  There are 6 playable characters, including Max (The War Mage) and Gabriella (The Sourceress). 

The game developers will be undertaking future updates, which may see the return of characters from Orcs Must Die 2. However, the developers have said that characters returning as heroes would be the same due to how their abilities work in the game.  They hope they can incorporate them in some way into the game.

Since the release of the Xbox Series X & S and the new ability of mobile gaming for Xbox, those who have yet to try it, are probably wondering if the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is worth it. In the UK the Game Pass Ultimate typically is being bought for £10.99 a month with several options to buy just a 1 month, 3 months or even 12 months worth of subscriptions, at a time. This pass allows access to over 100 high-quality games for console, PC and Android mobile devices. This includes newly released games at no additional cost from the day they launch.

This incredible access to the best and most popular Xbox games leaves many hard-core gamers saying, Yes! The Game Pass Ultimate is totally worth it! If you have been on the fence about trying it, you can always test it with a 1-month subscription to see if it is worth it to you. Subscriptions can be bought online through multiple outlets, including Curry’s PC World and Amazon.

The prosperous enterprise that is Grand Theft Auto has captured the attention of innumerable fans for going on 24 years now. It’s latest game in the series, GTA 5, which was released nearly 8 years ago now, has been receiving some recent attention due to a GTA fan, and his discovery of a GTA secret, that he has been broadcasting over Reddit.

One great past-time of any GTA fan is achieving a five-star wanted level and then attempting to stay alive as long as you possibly can. But, no matter how hard you try, it is inevitable that the Los Santos Police will get you. There is absolutely no way to escape them, as many have learned over and over, regardless of how far you are from the nearest police station. The reason you cannot go long in the five-star status is because the game generates a special police-spawning portal near your location in the game that will send a random but consistent stream of police and police cars through.

The GTA fan managed to capture a visual of the special portal and watched as hordes of police proceeded out of this unseen snare. Being able to capture this finally gave an explanation as to why the police become so incredibly efficient and effective at the five-star level. Unfortunately, knowing this quirky little trick of the trade will probably still not save you from being arrested or killed, but it seems this the first time, it has been noted and captured for wide-spread social dissemination.

The continued success of GTA 5 has been astronomical but many are still wondering when GTA 6 will be released. The answer remains a mystery as Rockstar Games focuses on an upgraded version of GTA 5, to be released specifically for PS5 and the Xbox Series X. The development team promises to create a GTA 6, once this other project is complete. Hopefully in the later part of 2021, GTA 5 upgrade will finally be released.

In celebration of the 35th Anniversary of Super Mario, Nintendo has offered a special release to commemorate this incredible classic. September, 2020 saw the release of the Super Mario 3D All-stars which included an omnibus collection of Mario games that were originally released for either the Nintendo 64, Gamecube or Wii. Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy can be purchased as one package either in a physical or digital version, for Nintendo Switch, but is only available until 31 March 2021!!

Other note-worthy Mario releases from 2020, are the Super Mario Bros 35, which is designed like a Tetris 99 model and pits other players against each other in a battle royale. This game is free to NSO subscribers and offers a fun new way to ‘Mario’ and Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit. This Mario Kart version is similar to the Mario Bros 35 in that you are also competing against other players and like 35, offers a fun new remix of a classic game.