Yes, I know these are not really free since you have to subscribe to the appropriate yearly pass. Okay, we got that disclaimer out of the way who won the month.
Our winner is Xbox. Playstation has a strong game collection with Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection and also has Goat Simulator, which is an interesting choice. Xbox moves from strength to strength with four solid games Styx: Shards of Darkness, Batman: The Telltale Series, TEKKEN 6, and Lego Star Wars 2. Not a bad game in the mix.
From Playstation Plus
Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection
Even though I own Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection in disc form and have for years. (No, I haven’t played it yet… I have been meaning to though.) I am happy to see it on the list. It is a good collection of solid games and the fact I don’t have to fiddle with discs might get me to finally bite the bullet and take it for a spin.
All that praise said this is a collection of remasters (Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception) of PlayStation 3 games. This late in the console generation one might have hoped for Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.
Goat Simulator
Okay, this is a bit ugly. I mentioned Goat Simulator a few weeks ago in my mini preview of Untitled Goose Game. I said “Untitled Goose Game is the Goat Simulator of 2019” . Much like the teenager in front of the mirror saying Candyman or Bloody Mary three times I have called upon a demon out of the past to haunt us once again.
A demon from 2014 I might add. You know Sony you have all these people with new Playstation 4s under the tree and enjoying their first month of Playstation Plus you are not exactly putting your best foot forward with remasters from the previous generation and a game that looks like it belongs on Jim Sterling’s worst games of the year list.
All that said, Goat Simulator is fun for a few minutes. The key word there being few. It is a faffing around game that looked janky and awful six years ago. Plus, I swear Sony gave this one away for free before. I mean it got in my library somehow. Maybe it was a dollar on one of their sales.
From Games with Gold
Styx: Shards of Darkness
Did you enjoy The first Styx game Styx: Master of Shadows? Do you enjoy stealth games like the Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell series? Then this is an easy decision.
Bigger, prettier, and with some good quality of life upgrades Styx: Shards of Darkness improves on its already very good predecessor. The Styx games never really got their due. Being an AA budget game it never really caught the imagination of the gaming media.
This makes Styx the perfect game to include in Games with Gold, as it will introduce this surprisingly fun stealth game to a broader audience.
Batman: The Telltale Series – The Complete Season
Telltale Games demise was a sad day for video games. I know everyone does those platitudes (I feel for all those people losing their jobs, etc.) But I will admit I mourn Telltale’s passing for more selfish reasons. I really wanted a sequel to The Wolf Among Us. Still my favorite of the graphic adventure games.
With Batman, you get the ever more creaky Telltale game engine with very solid writing. I am happy to see Batman get released with all the episodes. For all the craft and some great games, Telltale had a broken business model. Expensive licensed games with episodic releases that would go on sale for five dollars for the entire series about two weeks after the last episode dropped and then would appear free on one of the services a few months later. Telltale trained it fans never to buy the games until all the episodes released and then suffered the consequences.
TEKKEN 6
With pretty graphics and forty playable characters Tekken 6 is a very solid fighter. Not a button masher however. So my wild Dead or Alive skills (Punch Punch Kick) will be of little use here.
There is also a beat em up campaign mode and plenty of costumes. The campaign mode plays differently than the fighting portion for a nice change of pace.
LEGO Star Wars II
Lego Star Wars 2 is one of the best Lego games out there. Primarily because it takes place during the original Star Wars trilogy ( Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi). This source material is a creates treasure trove of wonderful cut scenes done with that Lego style.
Some quality of life features of later Lego games are missing and the cutscenes are not voiced (which honestly I prefer). The graphics are fine (It’s a Lego game) and Lego Star Wars 2 seems less buggy than many later Lego offerings.
The best feature is a create your own Star Wars character mode where you can create and name a new character and insert him, her or it (Do droids even have a gender?) into the gameplay . So if you want to create a granddaughter for Emperor Palpatine and insert her into the story have at it.
[…] Batman: The Enemy Within is one of the strongest Telltale Games and a nice improvement over the already accomplished Batman: The Telltale Series–The Complete Season that was given out with Games with gold in January. […]