{"id":27784,"date":"2017-03-12T15:13:16","date_gmt":"2017-03-12T22:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/?p=27784"},"modified":"2017-03-12T15:13:16","modified_gmt":"2017-03-12T22:13:16","slug":"xboxs-games-with-gold-for-march-scare-up-lots-of-firepower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/bens-bytes\/xboxs-games-with-gold-for-march-scare-up-lots-of-firepower\/","title":{"rendered":"Xbox’s Games With Gold For March Scare Up Lots of Firepower"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sort of like one of the bigger titles they\u2019re offering this month, Microsoft has a team of three trigger-happy shooters squaring off against one drastically different, somewhat menacing type of game for March\u2019s Games With Gold.\u00a0 Two possess more conventional first-person controls as they focus upon hunting down a monster and collecting weapons on a futuristic desert planet, while the third \u2026 well, it involves firing bullets at the sky in a military setting.\u00a0 The fourth, however, features no combat whatsoever, standing alone as a spooky survival-horror experience that embraces its atmosphere and premise.\u00a0 In all, it\u2019s a rather solid month for the Xbox, so let\u2019s get into the fray.<\/p>\n

Click Here to Grab\u00a0a 12-Month\u00a0Xbox Live Gold Subscription\u00a0at Amazon<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Layers

Bloober Team<\/p><\/div>\n

Xbox One<\/h3>\n

Layers of Fear (March 1-31)<\/h4>\n

Like successful horror movies, entries in the horror genre can vary when it comes to the urge to revisit the experience. Largely, that’s because the viewer already knows what scares are coming around the corner. This can be particularly tricky for games that focus more on the atmosphere than the actual fun of controls, ranging from ;the clumsy combat of Silent Hill 2<\/em> to the total concentration on avoiding attacks in Amnesia: Dark Descent<\/em>.\u00a0 Bloober Team\u2019s combat-free dark mystery Layers of Fear<\/em> borrows from both of those experiences in its depiction of a crazed painter who goes to outlandish extents while creating his masterpiece, tapping into twists on metaphysical and psychological perspectives as the player moves through an ever-shifting, seemingly haunted house. Like its influences, it also contains several endings depending on one\u2019s choices and play style, adding incentive to completing this painting over again.<\/p>\n

Evolve (March 16-April 15)<\/h4>\n

Turtle Rock Studios, the makers of the wildly popular team-based multiplayer shooter Left 4 Dead<\/em>, had a stroke of brilliance when they came up with the concept for Evolve<\/em>.\u00a0 Have you ever wanted to ditch the thrilling heroics of military \u201cdudes\u201d, in the vein of Alien(s)<\/em> and\/or Predator<\/em>, and instead embody the powers and strategies of the monster they\u2019re trying to hunt down? This novel, lopsided hybrid of cooperative shooter and head-to-head competition does precisely that, allowing players to take on the role of the monster(s) and square off against bands of weapon-packed soldiers aiming to wipe them out \u2026 and vice versa, of course.\u00a0 The goal of the hunters is self-explanatory — to track and kill before being killed — while the goal of the monster is to evolve into something greater and more intimidating, making them more difficult to take on. The theory is sound and the gameplay received acclaim, but critics have pointed to Evolve\u2019s level design and progression structure as hindrances to the beastly experience.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Borderlands

Gearbox<\/p><\/div>\n

Xbox 360<\/h3>\n

Borderlands 2 (March 1-15)<\/h4>\n

It\u2019s tough to dispute the influence that the Borderlands franchise has heaped upon the gaming industry since the original\u2019s release in 2009, spawning imitations that range from quasi-MMOs like Defiance<\/em> to current-gen shooters like Bungie\u2019s Destiny<\/em>. This isn\u2019t so much for the atmosphere they\u2019ve created, essentially a colorfully cel-shaded futuristic\u00a0spin on Fallout, but in the raw gathering of endless gear and a consistent dose of levity in its attitude. Borderlands 2<\/em> can be, and has been, deemed \u201cmore of the same\u201d in relation to the original: exploring vaults, checking off missions, and gathering randomly generated loot. But that\u2019s okay, especially in how well the folks at Gearbox tightened the bolts and rubbed the polish on what already works, which gives the Vault Hunters another raucous adventure to complete on Pandora and the players an endless supply of single-player and multi-player shooter shenanigans to pursue.<\/p>\n

Heavy Weapon (March 16-31)<\/h4>\n

PopCap\u2019s Heavy Weapon<\/em> just recently celebrated its 10th<\/sup> anniversary.\u00a0 Around the time that it was released, the side-scrolling military arsenal game struck a chord as an alternate example of what donwloadable arcade console games could do, and not because of its complexity or innovation.\u00a0 For a reasonable price, it offers fluid, classic arcade-style controls involving a tank firing shots at airplanes, inbound missiles, and other aggressors in an incredibly familiar setting. It also\u00a0comes equipped with 4-player online co-op play.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t a complex game, but it\u2019s a brisk reminder of how addictive this pick-up-and-play style of game can be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sort of like one of the bigger titles they\u2019re offering this month, Microsoft has a team of three trigger-happy shooters squaring off against one drastically different, somewhat menacing type of game for March\u2019s Games With Gold.\u00a0 Two possess more conventional first-person controls as they focus upon hunting down a monster and collecting weapons on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":27786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1261,25,372,378],"class_list":["post-27784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bens-bytes","tag-games-with-gold","tag-video-games","tag-xbox-360","tag-xbox-one"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27784","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\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27784"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27797,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27784\/revisions\/27797"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}