{"id":19316,"date":"2015-05-30T06:00:10","date_gmt":"2015-05-30T13:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/?p=19316"},"modified":"2015-06-22T14:45:37","modified_gmt":"2015-06-22T21:45:37","slug":"games-gold-june-lineup-just-cause-can","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/bens-bytes\/games-gold-june-lineup-just-cause-can\/","title":{"rendered":"Games with Gold June Lineup: Just &#8216;Cause We Can"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>Microsoft&#8217;s free Games with Gold June lineup is, frankly, anemic at best. It doesn&#8217;t quite match up to the enormously crowd-pleasing\/promotional goldmine that is <a href=\"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/bens-bytes\/free-playstation-plus-games-june-2015-edition-aaa-stealth\/\" target=\"_blank\">Playstation Plus free games next month<\/a>. Oh well. This is where we say &#8220;free is still free&#8221; and somberly gaze across the street at the happy families and their ice cream cones.<\/p>\n<p>Okay, it&#8217;s not that bad. Save for a repeat, the other three titles are worth your time. Probably. Maybe. Here&#8217;s the list, courtesy of <a href=\"https:\/\/majornelson.com\/2015\/05\/28\/xbox-live-games-with-gold-for-june-2015\/\" target=\"_blank\">Major Nelson<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Xbox One<\/h2>\n<p>(both Xbox One titles are free for the entirety of June 2015)<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Massive Chalice<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Have no idea what this is? I didn&#8217;t either until a day ago. It&#8217;s a turn-based, squad-commanding game from Double Fine (<em>Psychonauts, Broken Age<\/em>), representing an eerie parallelism between Microsoft&#8217;s and Sony&#8217;s offerings this month. The latter is putting out\u00a0<em>Skulls of the Shogun: Bone-A-Fide Edition.\u00a0<\/em><em>Massive Chalice\u00a0<\/em>is launching for the Xbox One on June 1, which should make downloading it for free on that day all that much sweeter.<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-shortcode\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"620\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GTFiooCFh7Y\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Consider it an\u00a0<em>XCOM: Enemy Unknown<\/em>-lite, swapping between the macro and micro strategies of managing your units. The most compelling feature &#8211; you can mate your units and create new fighters generated from their &#8220;genetic code.&#8221; With permadeath on thsoe units a prevailing feature as well, you&#8217;re bound to encounter some tragedy along the way.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Pool Nation FX<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Somebody at Microsoft really, really likes billiards. Or really, really hates billiards. Either way,\u00a0<em>Pool Nation FX<\/em>, now in its <a href=\"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/bens-bytes\/microsoft-scales-back-games-gold-may-offering\/\" target=\"_blank\">third month<\/a>\u00a0as a free Games with Gold offering, goes for realism in billiard simulation. I think we can officially put it down as a running joke, too. Nevertheless, it&#8217;s a decent pool simulator for all those people without a table in their basements.<\/p>\n<p>Fair warning to Microsoft: next month the adjectives won&#8217;t be so kind.<\/p>\n<h2>Xbox 360<\/h2>\n<p><em><strong>Just Cause 2 <\/strong><\/em>(available free from June 1 to June 15)<\/p>\n<p>If\u00a0<em>Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes\u00a0<\/em>is Sony&#8217;s promotion monster leading up to E3,\u00a0<em>Just Cause 2<\/em> is most certainly Microsoft&#8217;s. Avalanche Studios has two massive games on the horizon, both based around a familier open-world, destruction-happy framework, both with an IP to live up to. The obvious one is\u00a0<em>Just Cause 3<\/em>, with the other\u00a0<em>Mad Max<\/em>. Putting out\u00a0<em>Just Cause 2\u00a0<\/em>for free is a smart move for the developer. It&#8217;s a great, pure escapism kind game.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Just-Cause-2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-19319\" src=\"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Just-Cause-2.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Just Cause 2 Xbox 360 Games with Gold June\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Just-Cause-2.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Just-Cause-2-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Just-Cause-2-1024x576.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Just Cause 2<\/em> is an open world game that wasn&#8217;t made by Ubisoft, which automatically makes it unique. But it&#8217;s better than that. You can blow up most buildings, grapple hook and parachute your way anywhere and generally wreak havoc in a tropical paradise\u00a0that isn&#8217;t populated by privileged white people (that was a jab at Ubisoft&#8217;s <em>Far Cry<\/em>). So we don&#8217;t lose sight of what&#8217;s really important, here&#8217;s a trailer for\u00a0<em>Just Cause 3<\/em>, just &#8217;cause (I&#8217;m going to make that joke until I die).<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-shortcode\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"620\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RRBA6Vo_srk\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><strong><em>Thief<\/em> <\/strong>(available free from June 16 to June 30)<\/p>\n<p><em>Thief\u00a0<\/em>was a disappointment. That&#8217;s a fact. Maybe it will feel like less of a disappointment when its free.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Thief-Xbox-360.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-19320\" src=\"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Thief-Xbox-360.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Thief Xbox 360 Games with Gold June\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Thief-Xbox-360.jpg 1920w, https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Thief-Xbox-360-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Thief-Xbox-360-1024x576.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This long-gestating reboot for the first-person stealth franchise (which was a revolution at the time of the original&#8217;s release) suffered from the dichotomy of high expectations and little room to maneuver. It needed to be a good\u00a0<em>Thief\u00a0<\/em>game, but the only good\u00a0<em>Thief\u00a0<\/em>games could have ever existed when the original came out. Now the concepts are outdated, but the new team couldn&#8217;t afford to alienate the expectations of the built-in day-one purchasers.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, a bummer of a position for any designer, and an unfortunate misstep. To leave things on a brighter note, here&#8217;s why you should just play\u00a0<em>Just Cause 2<\/em> instead.<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-shortcode\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"620\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/M9TQkFXoKYQ\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft&#8217;s free Games with Gold June lineup is, frankly, anemic at best. It doesn&#8217;t quite match up to the enormously crowd-pleasing\/promotional goldmine that is Playstation Plus free games next month. Oh well. This is where we say &#8220;free is still free&#8221; and somberly gaze across the street at the happy families and their ice cream [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":19319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1261,25,378],"class_list":["post-19316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bens-bytes","tag-games-with-gold","tag-video-games","tag-xbox-one"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19316"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19318,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19316\/revisions\/19318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}