Xbox Live Games With Gold in March-still inferior to PS+

Now on one hand Rayman Legends is delightful and has a mariachi version of Eye of the Tiger, on the other hand it has murphy who holds back what should have been a great platformer, to a good one.

Now some of you are thinking at the least Solidty can't do his "only 1 game this month" essay thing because you guys got 2 games in march? Well that would be a lie, because you guys got IDARB last month. It's pretty fun for what it is. So another month, another one game, another well deserved essay rant because it's another month where Microsoft chooses to do less, way to go guys.

But, no seriously if you're looking for a platforming fix you can do a shit ton worse than Rayman Legends, good game.

Will have to give Rayman a download, I heard nothing but great things about that game.

The first free game on the NG consoles that interests me in some way.

I beat 2013's Rayman Legends already but it's 1000x than IDARB so I'm glad for this shake up. I came away quite disappointed last month after booting that IDARB trash up. Rayman Legends is fantastic, I only wish I never played it before because it's a great platformer.

Too bad they are still doing this one a month dealio on Xbone. This will mark the 12th game for Xbone's GWG program.

The last gen 360 titles are nice titles. I'm not a fan of TR, but I know SW digs the TR games. Bioshock Infinite is nice although a bit easier than expected. Truth for subscribers of both GWG and PS+ know though that both Bioshock Infinite (Jan 2014) and Tomb Raider (March 2014) were "free" on PS+ over/approx a year ago. Good scoring games though, but it is called Games with Old for a reason...but the flipside is you can keep these 360 games at least. That was the trade off on 360, you get the games way late, but you can keep them when your sub runs out.

There is no trade off or explanation I can make for the Xbone GWG though since you don't keep Xbone GWG games after the sub runs out. I will say this is probably the BEST GWG game ever released on Xbone, unfortunately M$ are still being cheap delivering these Xbone new GWG games at a snails pace.

I've covered quality in the past as well. GWG drops the ball in quality big time as well. This month the quality is great for Xbone though, although just the one new game dampens the experience when you look across the pond and see the quality (metascores) and quantity PS+ consumers are getting by comparison.

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EDIT:

I wonder why the signage says April when these games are active in March? Kind of odd, right? They are doing a deal in April but these games are for March. Oh well, I wonder if this means four games on Xbone in April or two.

I already own it on WiiU... Might as well download it to give the game a proper go. And you're right, the Murphy levels are not cool.

Would argue that PS+ has been better than shit, in fact given the library it has had to work with it's been quite good. Plus getting indie titles like Velocity 2x, Apotheon, and this one is more rumor than confirmed Hell Divers next month for free during their launch month is good work on Sony's part. Velocity 2x was quite good, and Apotheon is solid so far. Throw in Strider and all those other games and months where Sony did have multiple offerings including cross gen stuff I would argue they've held up their end with PS+.

But, I'll humor it lets say PS+ is shit, there is a level of respect that the PS+ shit can at least attain here due to effort. It's not trying to be shit, it's working with a poor library of games, but between the constant releases, the attempts at releasing games day one for that program, and constantly making it multiple games a month has been admirable. You can at least see where when the library starts filling out, and it will, that PS+ will more than justify itself. Games with gold has inherent shitty trends it needs to cut down on.

I'd have posted this first but my battery was dying and I'm at the cardio ward in a hospital with my daughter and I had to charge the phone in the meantime. Anyway, Tomb Raider and Infinite weren't free in PS+, in GWG for 360 you get to keep them at least. And Rayman is a fantastic game that scored 90+ on Meta. I've wanted to buy it for years and I regret I didn't buy it during last sale. I hope this, from now on, will be the lowest calibre of offered games on X1 GWG.

Confirmed yet?

If true then fair's fair, this is probably the best GWG month since it started.

Double in April leads me to believe that MS really doesn't want holiday buyers selling their Xbones out of total remorse.

ill give rayman a go, good excuse to turn the console on

This will be the first GWG game I get. Sucks it's still only one game, but at least it's a good one.

TR on 360 works for me.

I'll pick up Legends, but with reservations because I didn't really like Rayman Origins.

you missed out on good stuff. Super Time Force, Volgar the Viking (though hard as hell), and Guacamelee were pretty good. I'd say so was D4 in a totally bat shit insane sort of way, but that shit is about as much fun to play as a Telltale game.

If you felt some of Origins levels fucking drag and go way longer than they should and the boss segments aren't good=then Legends fixes those short comings. Because I agree on those accounts (still meh boss fights here and there, but the good ones make up for them for once). The music levels themselves are a delight to play in Rayman Legends, even if they aren't as inherently satisfying as the chase the treasure chest levels.

Murphy sucks though, he ruins a lot of levels.

Who was saying XOne was getting 2 games in March?

MS have been offering one new XOne game each month for a while now. And they keep last months game available as well.

As for the games, don't really care about platformers and I'd rather be playing through the HD remaster of Tomb Raider. Definitely be downloading Infinite though, been thinking about doing another playthrough recently but don't own it.

Awesome that Rayman is there, great couch co-op game. I don't feel short-changed in the slightest. 1 free game per month is more than enough for me, and despite the competition giving out more, XBL fee was not about the free games at first, it was about the service. The free games thing came later to compete with PSN.

What I expect to get from the XBL fee I pay every year is the same I have gotten since I've been a 360 owner, a robust online service that is constantly updated and refined, with minimal downtime. Things like improved voice chat quality from the 360 to the Xbox One, 300k dedicated servers, etc. only to name a few is what I am paying for. The free game thing is just icing on the cake, and to be honest I would not even mind if they stopped those and diverted the money to improve XBL even further.

Another thing is, and this is more about my personal habits, I sometimes purchase games that I download for free on GWG, because I like supporting some of those indie developpers when I feel they did a great job. I did that with Chariot, I had gotten it for free on GWG but I felt it was such a charming little game that I went ahead and bought it the next month to support the devs(and my fellow Canadians !) . Anyways, that's just my 2 cents and in the end, both services offer good value and have their own pros and cons.

Looks like a solid month. Those trashing #idarb need to try it..............@SolidTy. A great team based, smash em up sports game.

Who cares who said they would do 2? They are doing less than the competition. I know such a wild thought process here acting like Sony and Microsoft compete or something.

@FoxbatAlpha: I agree. #iDarb is awesome!

PS+ is still light years ahead of GWG regarding its "free games" though.

More free games on Live, awesome! On PS+ not so much.

@FoxbatAlpha:

Yeah I played IDARB this weekend with a friend of mine and it's a cool little game. You can have 2 players local go online....fun and hectic is how I would describe it.

Also, considering how I often see people on this board post metacritic scores(when it suits them of course...), I'll take the initiative with IDARB here, it's gotten good critical reception overall and has an 80 score on Metacritic. Not bad for little game like that.

@Alucard_Prime: Metacritic only matters when

-Proving the PS4 library is superior to the XBOX One library.

- Gamespot scores a Sony exclusive lower than the average. (See TLOU)

Any other time Metacritic is evil and hurts the industry. (See The Order 1886 aftermath)

Yeah thought IDARB was already part of GwG but it looks dope.

Tomb Raider is great, I liked Legends a lot, and BioShock Infinite is the worst game I've played in the past half decade.

@GoldenElementXL: Lol

The game it partly ripped off got 87, should hope so.

What? I tried IDARB! :) It was awful imo. Didn't you read my post above? I said I played it. I DL EVERY GWG game that has ever released. Why wouldn't I play what I took the time to DL? I was interested...until I played it.

It was a lame sportsy soccer game that has no SP mode. I don't sports games, it requires online or a second controller, and the lack of a good SP mode like NBA Jam ruins the shallow little game for me. Sometimes there was no one online to play at all. I don't blame people for not playing online.

That game has no future maintaining an online community and with the little community that it has, I was bouncing around by myself a few times. Just horrible.

I found it boring as all hell. People that like sports games may find some fun, but I thought it was probably the worst GWG game I played, and I played them all even Crimson Dragon. It was the first game I downloaded and deleted from my Xbone HDD actually. That's how much I disliked it.

I'm glad you enjoyed it though? I recognize it's not horrid in the sense that other games are (mechanics were sound, decent metascore), but it wasn't for me. Factor in a tiny online community, something this game relies on, no Single Player in case there is no one to play with at all, incredibly shallow gameplay, and a genre I almost despise....It was a terrible experience.

Either way, it's lame IDARB is being used for two months in a row taking up a GWG slot. Like it or not, you got it, I got it, and it shouldn't be re-used again for March GWG.

Glad I didn't spend $10 to purchase Rayman Legends on PS4 two weeks ago. ^_^

Infinite is that bad? That is surprising considering I liked the first two Bioshocks.

well infinite was awesome but that's for the relics...

Or the exact reverse of any of those points.

Metacritic only matters when

-Proving the Xbone library is superior to the PS4 library (See Sunset Overdrive or Forza 5)

-Gamespot scores an Xbox exclusive lower than the average (See Halo MCC aftermath)

Any other time Metacritic is evil and hurts the industry...

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Generalizations about entire factions of users like that are very unappealing on either "side".

Waaah Cows! Waaah Lems! Sobs Sheep! LOLS Hermits! Cows are always...Lemmings keep on...Sheep never...Those kinds of posts are useless and almost always inaccurate.

Metacritic is the better of two evils, the other evil is just using a solo site and pretending that score is above all others. One site's scores is only good for the metagame. However, for truly intellectually honest discussions about a game's quality, when personal experience is deemed too biased or too anecdotal and vetoed, metacritic is better than citing a single reviewers opinion as edict.

Rayman is a killer game if you have never played it.

Games for Gold is really poor though, I think Rayman is the first retail title on the Xbone games for gold.

Tomb Raider and Bioshock was already offered on PS+ like 8 months ago.

Never really got the whole idea of these free games on either console. I have no interest in old games I've most of the time already played or indies that if where any good I've most likely got or failing ones that then get given away for free.

I certainly didn't buy/wouldn't buy and Xbox One/PS4 for the free games I'd get.

It is.

It cuts down the weapon limit to two, constantly gives you ammo for weapons you don't have, has extremely limp shooting, an incredibly poor sense of pacing, tries to dive into racial tensions but forgets almost entirely midway through, looks lifeless on consoles, has awful boss fights, boring combat scenarios, and can be extremely stop-and-pop on Hard which is annoying when facing the game's inexplicable amount of turrets.

The story was quite hyped, but it's actually really bad if you take ten minutes to actually think about it, plus at one point it literally resorts to magic because reasons.

I was this game's target audience and I thought it was shit.

I have it on 360 and vita... Great game, good light hearted time sink.

As for the sentiment that quantity of games reflects more worth in the service, meh.... I choose to look at them both as, "who has the game I'm willing to sink the most time into..." some months it's psn and others it's xbl... I don't really subscribe to the notion that more = better...

With that said, I think psn usually offers more games I either haven't played yet or are more interesting for me.

Problem is that the Xbone needs more Indie games. They need to get rid of that parity clause if they have it because it will not work this Gen. This is good for me though cause I've never played a rayman game and would never have spent my own money on it.

Guess I'll give Rayman a try.

That's actually a fantastic selection for 360 owners. I never played Infinite, so I know to wait instead of paying for it.

Yeah, I got it at what I thought was a fantastic deal $14.99 some time before Christmas and since I lost interest about half way through, I wish I had waited for this loll.

Protip: When any multiplatform games are given away on PS+, it will probably be free on GWG a year later...but you can keep them later on (on 360 only though). I've seen the reoccurring pattern over and over and over. It helps that I sub both services so it's easier to notice repeat games I'm getting.

Kewl, eh, my biggest problem is having time to even play the games I DL for free these days. I've got boatloads of gaming to do just with the massive content in games like MCC, FH2, SO, Destiny and GTA5 for X1 plus all the miles long backlog on my 360.

Life is funny like that. When you are young you have all the time in the world for games but no income. When you are older, you get the income but lose the time.

There are worse problems in the world than backlog problems though, it's a good prob to have.

@SolidTy:

Too true and still life is good my friend. :)

Edit: You likely know this but even back in say 2006 - 2010 or so I was still an older gamer but my biz and life was much slower leaving me lots of time for gaming but since then sheesh, just too much to do and not enough time to do it lol.

If only we could get that time back...:P

I read your post. I was typing quickly on my phone. My point was try it with more people. Friends you know. No I didn't read this last book you wrote.

I could care less about free games. I might have downloaded four at the most. If I want to play it I get it. Sometimes one I am on the fence on surprises me and I take advantage. It is not really a area that I would boast about on either side.

Lol @ the part about the essay. I think you'll still get an essay regardless. Some people just need to use more words to try really hard to get a point across and boldness to seek attention really hard to what was written I guess. Now regarding this expectation of GwG getting 2 games per month for Xbox One, it was only an expectation because of a user's lies and false claims of MS promising that month after month until more users started believing this incorrect non-sense, since MS never promised anything. Since the user have been corrected, slowly but surely this false expectation will be put to rest in coming months or unless MS officially confirms 2 new ones for the One.

As for MS should be doing more, I'm guessing you're just looking at one portion of the subscription and that's the number of GwG games for Xbox One rather than the complete benefits of the subscription. Let's look at what's being offered, Rayman Legends. This is a full retail game which received a 9 or AAA review here. And when we include Bioshock Infinite which is also a 9 or AAA full retail game and Tomb Raider an AA 8.5 full retail game, this month is pretty loaded with quality. Too many or maybe just a few are really stuck in this "I have more than you so I'm better" kindergarten mentality and behavior. When you see someone start counting the total, making lists, making comparisons with so much effort, it exposes the people with this kind of mentality and behavior. Anyway back to Gold and GwG. Gold is the only subscription which consistently rewards you for buying, watching, playing, and doing things on their system thanks to Xbox Rewards. They're doing a lot by giving and rewarding a lot. This is just some of the benefits that get overlooked because some may be too caught up in expecting just a certain number each month.

Only peasants care about free games, if it was worth anything, it shouldn't dine been bought by you weaklings.