It's got great graphics, solid animation, quirky characters, an original central theme and, for just the second time this year in a triple-A title, a strong female lead.
Recore should be a reason for Xbox fans to celebrate. After all, it's the first major Xbox game to be released after the Xbox One S upgrade, and its blinding desert scenes and furious action sequences make full use of the new console's graphics capabilities.
At first, Recore's gameplay is insane fun too. As Joule Adams, you tear around the futuristic planet of Far Eden with your robodog sidekick Mack, searching caves and deserts hellbent on tearing out the throbbing hearts - or "cores" - of anything that moves.
Mostly, those enemies are giant mechanical beasts in the form of evil spiders, spitting bats and fire-breathing wolves. Joule needs to attack them, bringing their damage down until their cores are exposed. Then you can latch onto them, tear them out and make them explode in a kind of tug-of-war dual.
