Xbox One launch titles fail to impress

It's still a few days until the Xbox One officially goes on sale in most territories, but the first reviews for the launch titles have already started to appear and for the most part, while there's a couple of solid entries, some of the biggest and baddest just aren't that impressive.

They're not horrendous by any means, but in CVG's roundup of the main reviews, it's clear that if the Xbox One had had a bit more oompf and if the developers had had perhaps a bit more time, things could have gone a lot smoother.

Dead Rising 3 for example. It was supposed to usher in next-gen with a big open world and thousands of zombies to destroy. It does do that for the most part, but according to most reviewers it struggles to even maintain 30FPS at 720p and doesn't look that great either. The writing gets called out too, as well as the lack of innovation in the gameplay. If you want to kill zombies then great, but otherwise look elsewhere – where you'll probably find better games about killing zombies.

Killer Instinct has seen more praise than the above title, with good visuals, a solid fight mechanic and a great tutorial system. But it only ships with six characters, five of those locked behind a pay way. With no single player and a lack of any really different game modes, it means you're going to be stuck playing against the same characters (especially the free one) over and over online, which means you'll probably get bored quite fast.

Wait, didn't we fight just two minutes ago?

Crimson Dragon looked phenomenal in early trailers, but it's reviewed horribly. A few sites had it at just 4/10 on their rating system, with almost everyone citing the barren nature of most of the environments and the heavy handed controls that make nuanced play difficult, as their main concerns. Similarly, there's issues with the game's innovation, which just seems to be slapping a dragon skin over Lylat War's gameplay.

Less anticipated launch titles like Zoo Tycoon and PowerStar Golf have more mixed reviews, suggesting more of a personal preference with parts of them, but pretty much everyone hated LocoCycle. It's just not a worthy game to buy with your new Xbox One.

KitGuru Says: There are a few good ones out there. Need for Speed Rivals is supposed to be great and it even runs at 1080p on the Xbox One. There's just a few real duds it seems. The point of this piece? Do your research before buying guys. 

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