“Free” games for April on XboxOne and Ps4

Yes I know these are not really free you have to subscribe to the appropriate yearly pass. Okay, we got that disclaimer out of the way who won the month. Well, it isn’t as if either company was trying all that hard.

This is PlayStation’s second month with their only two games release schedule, and Pollyannaish predictions that the games would get even better clearly have not come to pass. In reality, the games have seemingly gotten worse, (Last year the Ps4 got five games including Mad Max.)

Conan Exiles may be a flawed game, but it at least gives me the warm and fuzzies. It is the perfect free game as it is something I probably would never think of buying but would not mind trying. And while the market has been pretty full or survival games I confess only a few have made it into my backlog and none as appealing as this one. It fills a niche.

The Surge is a Dark Souls style game that got a relatively lukewarm reception. I have no shortage of Dark Souls style games in my backlog including a couple that are named Dark Souls. Also, we got Bloodborne for free not that long ago, and some of us have not managed to try that one out yet either. The Surge looks like it is going to the back of a very long line.

Meanwhile, Xbox again focuses more on its Game Pass leaving Games with Gold feeling more and more like an afterthought.

Like Conan Exiles above The Tecnomancer piqued my interest when it came out but was too flawed for me actually to go out an buy it. The setting on Mars and the fact it cribs heavily from Bioware is a siren song that could make one forgive a lot of sins. Plus I am one of the few people that actually enjoyed their previous Mars: War Logs.

I played a bit of both the original Outcast and the remake Outcast Second Contact. Maybe I have to be in the right mindset, but this is one clunky game. It seems even more dated than it should like when you try to play the original Witcher.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 for free would be great news if this were 2006. Thirteen years later (OMG it has really been thirteen years.) not so much. Some games age better than others. Games that are best known for their multiplayer age very poorly. No doubt I will take this for a spin, but I doubt I will spend more time on Battlefront than I did on Jedi Academy or K.O.T.O.R.

Hey, I already own Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2. I must have picked it up for one of those three for ten dollars used game sales at Gamestop. I am going to keep telling myself this because otherwise, I would have to explain why this has been in my backlog unplayed for… let’s call it a while. Anyway, it is an appealing shooter that doesn’t have a lot of the fluff that distracts in its more modern counterparts. Plus this is a game that if I start, I could actually finish within the same month.

The winner is Xbox this month through sheer numbers really. Conan and Tecnomancer are basically a tie between two interesting but flawed products. The Surge and Outcast look both a bit sloggy. So it is the Backward compatible 360 games (Particularly Tom Clancy) that at least seem worth an afternoon look and put Xbox over the top. Speaking of backward compatible when is the 360’s Conan going to be backward compatible. I really liked that game.