A Minor One-Button Blip for the Collection, However Nonetheless a Fascinating Experiment
You need to hand it to Xitilon, ABA Video games and m1s3ry: they’ll actually churn these one-button compilations out. One Button Video games 5-in-1 vol. 5 is the third quantity that they’ve launched in 2026 alone.
However slightly than being a backhanded praise, we imply it as a front-handed one. You’d think about there can be some compromises to attaining three video games in three months, however no. These could also be curious experiments, however they’re worthwhile ones, and the standard is roughly constant throughout all three of the 2026 releases.
Let’s waste no extra assessment house on banter. Let’s get onto the video games you’ll discover in One Button Video games 5-in-1 vol. 5.
R Wheel – the very best of the bunch
R Wheel – 4/5
As is customary, the very best one-button video games get shunted to the entrance. The headliner is R Wheel, and it’s a doozy.
It’s, successfully, Flappy Chook in a hamster wheel. Or an ouroboros countless runner. Your little runner chap is in an endlessly rotating barrel, and you may faucet A to leap over any spikes that head your method. You can too faucet A to constantly bounce within the air: a form of double, triple and quadruple bounce.
You’ll assume that the countless leaping would make the sport trivial. You simply maintain bobbing away in the midst of the hamster wheel. However no, R Wheel is just too intelligent for that. The spikes develop larger the extra you bounce, and – by advantage of rotation – the stalagmites you bounce over quickly develop into harmful stalactites. You need to watch out to not spit-roast your self on the spikes above.
It’s devious, more-ish, and very effectively thought out. Love a little bit of R Wheel.
Divarr – 3.5/5
Subsequent finest is Divarr. It’s a kind of video games the place watching somebody play is a hypnotising, disorienting expertise. It might look extra like an early ‘00s screensaver than a sport.
At its coronary heart, Divarr is Missile Command (which is able to get referenced as soon as extra on this assortment). Bombs fall to the bottom, and also you’re a missile battery that wishes to cease the bombardment. However your missiles are each sophisticated and devastating: each time you press the A button, the missiles cut up into 4, travelling within the 4 cardinal instructions. Preserve tapping A and you’ve got a display screen of tiny missiles. I can consider a number of autocrats who wish to get their arms on them.
The splitty missiles would make issues slightly simple if it wasn’t for the “Don’t hit me!” guys. There are folks falling down the display screen for causes that I can’t fathom. You’ve received to allow them to attain the ground slightly than explode them, so it’s a must to maintain the missiles beneath some type of management.
It’s a neat idea that’s solely barely undone by the chaos. It may be very troublesome to maintain observe of your internet of missiles, and it’s too simple to blow up the falling dudes earlier than they’ve even appeared on the display screen.
Throw M could be very a lot center of the highway
Throw M – 2.5/5
Throw M is emblematic of the broader One Button sequence as a complete. It’s an amazing concept that doesn’t fairly coalesce right into a sport that you just’d play for greater than two minutes.
Your character bounces round on the appropriate aspect of the display screen with a balloon hooked into their pants, and you may press A to lob axes. There are different dudes with balloons, chucking arrows at you, so the axes are crucial. The longer you maintain A, the extra highly effective and high-arcing the throw. Faucet A and also you do a limp little axe-lob.
Urgent A additionally pauses your balloon chap, so there’s a defensive use for the one button. If an arrow is heading on your head, you may wait a second for the hazard to cross.
Throw M sounds nice, however the inaccuracy of the axes, blended with the maelstrom of arrows, could make it an unsatisfying expertise. It’s inordinately troublesome and calls for persistence if you wish to grasp it. We discovered it troublesome to construct the keenness to trouble.
Wiper – 1.5/5
Now we’re into the dregs.
Wiper is extra an idea than a sport. What in case your ship in a SHMUP was a windscreen wiper? Er, sure Barry, however how does that truly work?
Not very effectively, because it occurs. You faucet A to set off the left wipers then A to set off the appropriate wipers as they alternate. However there are many left wipers and many proper wipers, all in various positions round a semi-circle. So, you’re anticipating which wiper you have to to destroy a falling meteor that’s on the farthest left or proper.
You see, at the same time as I write this, I’m solely 90% certain that’s how Wiper works. It’s not notably good at informing you which ones wiper is in play at which period, and the meteors fall at such velocity that you would be able to’t react shortly sufficient anyway.
Wiper’s a little bit of a conundrum. Exterior of constructing a sport out of windscreen wipers, I couldn’t inform you what it was making an attempt to realize.
D Missile 1/5
At the very least Wiper works. I’m not satisfied that D Missile does.
It’s a easy previous bean. But extra bombs drop down, however this time your missile battery has remotely managed missiles. You maintain A to rotate the missile clockwise, making an attempt to information it into the bombs the place it explodes.
Tapping A releases one other missile which, in principle, opens up a wealth of choices. You would have a number of missiles in play without delay, or wait until your earlier missile goes growth. However it by no means occurs that method. Generally, I’ll faucet A and the missile gained’t launch. Different occasions, it’ll launch once I’ve been holding A, not tapping it. If the missile explodes offscreen, my missile operators will surrender and go for a fag break. They gained’t let me do something.
I MUST be lacking one thing in D Missile. There’s a rule that I’m neglecting. However when the intro display screen solely says “Maintain A to Flip, Faucet A to fireplace”, I don’t have an enormous quantity to work with.
Ah, D Missile…
Someplace within the Center of the One Button Pack
Totting up the scores and evaluating with One Button Video games 5-in-1 vol. 3 and One Button Video games 5-in-1 vol. 4, it is a slight downturn. It comprises the very best excessive (I’m a flag-flying fan of R Wheel) but additionally a few of the lowest lows, with one sport that I’m pretty assured doesn’t work as meant.
However I nonetheless carry the identical feeling that I do from vols 3 and 4: One Button Video games 5-in-1 vol. 5 is an enchanting exploration of what you may obtain with one button. The consequence sounds gimmicky, and in just a few circumstances it’s. However when it comes off, the consequence really scratches the score-attack and achievement searching itch.
Vital Hyperlinks
Push It With One Button Video games 5-in-1 Vol. 5 – https://www.thexboxhub.com/push-it-with-one-button-games-5-in-1-vol-5/
Purchase, Optimised for Collection X|S – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/video games/retailer/one-button-games-5-in-1-vol-5/9PB0GHL8Z2Q3/0010
There’s an Xbox One model too – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/video games/retailer/one-button-games-5-in-1-vol-5-xbox-one/9NQ7GJPV9FSB/0010
Need to play on Home windows PC? – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/video games/retailer/one-button-games-5-in-1-vol-5-windows/9NM2KQFCCTH9/0010
