{"id":31715,"date":"2018-03-09T12:35:32","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T20:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/?p=31715"},"modified":"2018-03-09T16:01:10","modified_gmt":"2018-03-10T00:01:10","slug":"xbox-lagging-behind-march-brave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/bens-bytes\/xbox-lagging-behind-march-brave\/","title":{"rendered":"Xbox Lagging Behind with March’s Not-So-Brave Games With Gold"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Most of the time, the titles made available through the Games with Gold program on the Xbox have enough substance and interest to extract at least some compelling talking points about their inclusion. Sometimes, that can be the germ of a unifying theme or subversion of a genre, or perhaps the different games compliment one another as examples of the balance between big-budget and indie experiences. \u00a0Honestly, that\u2019s fairly difficult to do with this cycle of releases for March, which features zero AAA offerings, esoteric indie efforts, and middling movie tie-ins. Granted, two of the titles are intriguing enough to consider a download, but it’s a rough month if that’s the most enthusiasm one can muster.\u00a0 Let’s take a closer look.<\/p>\n

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

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\"trials

RedLynx<\/p><\/div>\n

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Xbox One<\/h3>\n

Trials of the Blood Dragon (March 1-31)<\/h4>\n

The name \u201cBlood Dragon\u201d will likely trigger thoughts of the standalone open-world game from the folks responsible for Far Cry<\/em>, in which a blatant \u201880s aesthetic gets slathered atop a somewhat short but visually and viscerally captivating romp.\u00a0 Trials of the Blood Dragon<\/em> borrows a similar neon-punk aesthetic as it tackles the Trials<\/em> formula, adopting an atmosphere more similar to Sunset Overdrive<\/em> as the descendants of\u00a0 Rex Power Colt Man — Slayter and Roxanne — engage the franchise\u2019s unique platform and timed racing mechanics.\u00a0 A few new surprises are worked into the mix, such as shooting mechanics and actual 2.5D third-person controls, but critics have noted that these new moving parts don\u2019t fully click with the core Trials<\/em> experience.<\/p>\n

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

If you\u2019ve ever played a difficult first-person shooter game, you\u2019ve probably engaged a specific level or stretch of obstacles between save points, learned what challenges lurk behind different corners, and then adjusted your strategy according to progress beyond that point. With its minimal, polygon-driven art style, SuperHOT<\/em> takes the seed of that concept and morphs it into an in-game mechanic, in which time in the game doesn\u2019t pass until the player moves the main character. This allows for a strategic analysis of the levels\u2019 layouts to occur, which are tied to a meta-level story in which completing these levels gets the player closer to unlocking the SuperHOT experience.\u00a0 Novelty of its concept and visual design overcome its relative simplicity of gameplay, dropping it among the better crowd-funded indies out there.<\/p>\n

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\"Brave

Disney Interactive<\/p><\/div>\n

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Xbox 360<\/h3>\n

Brave: The Videogame (March 1-15)<\/h4>\n

The inclusion of Brave<\/em> in this month\u2019s Games With Gold is particularly odd.\u00a0 There isn\u2019t a lot to the experience, functioning much like other licensed games in its straightforward third-person take on the tale of Merida, a Scottish princess whose desire for independence inflicts mystical consequences upon her family.\u00a0\u00a0 The archery aspects and level progression are standard stuff for tie-ins, which were popular upon its release due to the prominence of the Hunger Games<\/em> books and movies, proving to be sufficient enough to satisfy its intended audiences \u2026 and little beyond that.\u00a0 Brave<\/em>\u2019s only real distinguishing trait, beyond the Pixar characterization, ended up being the Kinect functionality with its \u201carchery range\u201d mode \u2026 which is no longer pertinent since that device has essentially been decommissioned.<\/p>\n

Quantum Conundrum (March 16-31)<\/h4>\n

While Gabe Newell usually receives props for the successes of Valve\u2019s original game productions, it was designer Kim Smith and her team who were responsible for Portal<\/em>, the first-person puzzle game that gave birth to the idea of \u201cthinking with portals\u201d.\u00a0 Quantum Conundrum<\/em> is Swift\u2019s latest production, under the Airtight Games development wing, which again finds a silent protagonist manipulating environments — and dimensions — to reach the end of a level. While the concepts may share some similarities, the differences lies in the setting, in which the pre-teen nephew of a prominent physicist most fix an experiment gone awry that resulted in a foursome of dimensions to be created. Once the character gains access to a special glove, inventive physics tap into a similar puzzle-solving creativity and fluidity to Swift\u2019s prior creations, producing a tweaked, bubbly outing that’ll probably get the player “thinking with dimensions”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most of the time, the titles made available through the Games with Gold program on the Xbox have enough substance and interest to extract at least some compelling talking points about their inclusion. Sometimes, that can be the germ of a unifying theme or subversion of a genre, or perhaps the different games compliment one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":31716,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1261,25,889,372,378],"class_list":["post-31715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bens-bytes","tag-games-with-gold","tag-video-games","tag-xbox","tag-xbox-360","tag-xbox-one"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31715","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=31715"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31740,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31715\/revisions\/31740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}