Slime Rancher (Xbox One) - Preview

Slime Rancher is available now through the Xbox One Game Preview Program and is priced at £15.99.

I quickly used the one hour trial for this game during the summer holidays, it looked like the perfect game to enjoy with my kids and I really wasn't wrong! Don't be fooled by its bright and colourful appearance though, this game offers a rich enough experience for the adults to enjoy too.

Slime Rancher takes you to a faraway planet inhabited by different slimes. These slimes happen to have valuable shit. Literally, you are now going to make a living selling poo. Congratulations on your lucrative new career.

It's an extremely simplistic concept that has been executed perfectly in my opinion. You have a gun of sorts which allows you to suck up the slimes, food, poo, water and chickens and deposit them somewhere else. You buy different enclosures on your ranch like corrals for keeping your slimes safe, gardens to grow crops and coops for your chickens. There are different slimes to be found in the various areas, all of which have a different colour poo which all vary differently in their worth. And whatever you do don't put all of your slimes in one corral. It ends badly. See my recent Twitter pic if you don't believe me (https://twitter.com/danniekitten). Why can you not save some space? Because slimes are disgusting creatures that will eat each others poo. They then become "Largos" and if they eat another different poo they become Tar and you can wave bye bye to your lovely ranch. Don't say I didn't warn you. There are a few other tips I could give you for when you start your ranch but I don't want to ruin it for the purists out there who like to go in knowing nothing. If you ever want advice, shout at me on Twitter.

The money you make from selling your slimes offerings can go towards upgrading your ranch or extending it. There are also upgrades for your gun, that later especially will prove invaluable. There are new areas to explore and areas that have little builders signs up, which show that there are plans for more spaces as the game progresses.

Slime Rancher is a game I have no qualms recommending now, even in its unfinished state. I've had a few crash problems, but honestly that's probably down to how much I was trying to do at once. This game is just so fun! And I've heard a whisper that any achievements you unlock in game will unlock on your Xbox One when the game does get fully released. Win win.

The Solus Project (Xbox One) - Preview

The Solus Project is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £11.99.

The Solus Project is another addition to the Game Preview Program on the Xbox One, which features games that are not yet fully finished. Most of them lack a little polish, some campaign or even whole modes when they first enter the Preview Program but they're constantly updated until launch. I have to say The Solus Project is one of the most polished games I've played on the Preview Program yet. Graphically it is superb, with no jagginess or drop in frame-rate encountered, by me at least. The Solus Project is also the first Preview Program game that released on Xbox in the the same window as it did on Steam, something I think it should get a lot of credit for, let's face it that couldn't have been the easiest week of the devs life.

So The Solus Project is a survival game. Yep, another one of those. I for one happen to love survival games, so I was very excited to get hands on with this. Unlike many other survival games there isn't a constant stream of nasties ready to off you in a moments notice, instead with The Solus Project you get a more pure survival experience, with you having to keep an eye out for things like dehydration, starvation and exposure instead of yet another gang of rabid animals out for your blood or whatever. Another thing that sets The Solus Project apart is the fact it actually features a strong, intriguing narrative - unlike many survival games that see you set out just to see how long you survive, The Solus Project sets you on a fairly linear path towards one ultimate goal meaning you actually have a reason to root around in dark caves and explore the furthest reaches of this alien planet. You still have plenty of scope to explore, but for now at least once you've explored an island or cave your only option is to travel to the next, but with this game only being in Preview still it could possibly become much more open as development progresses.

The Solus Project is a really well-made, atmospheric survival game that I thoroughly enjoyed. I am really looking forward to future updates, and I will come back here and update this review when I can. As always with a Preview game I am loath to give it a star rating right now, it is still an unfinished game after all. This isn't to say that I don't recommend it though - I wholeheartedly do - it's more about being fair. If I gave it say, an eight, now then where would it be able to go to from there? I'm hoping for many more excellent updates in this games future, and I want the score I eventually give it to reflect that.