{"id":34852,"date":"2019-05-15T10:51:54","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T17:51:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/?p=34852"},"modified":"2019-05-15T10:51:54","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T17:51:54","slug":"xbox-games-gold-may-hole-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/bens-bytes\/xbox-games-gold-may-hole-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Xbox Games With Gold For May Far From a Hole In One"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>In our recent monthly videogame release update \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/features\/dark-desolate-days-ahead-for-mays-video-game-releases\/\">\u201cDark, Desolate Days Ahead for May\u2019s Video Game Releases\u201d<\/a> \u2013 the topic was brought up about the hesitation of getting big titles on the market right at the beginning of summer season. \u00a0Well, the thinking behind that observation also applies to the free games offered by the subscription services, especially so for Microsoft and their Xbox Games With Gold for May. It\u2019s almost as if the selected titles are engineered without the core gaming audience in mind: families will give one a shot, relaxing parents will gravitate toward another, and the legacy titles aren\u2019t going to generate much more than a shrug and a possible \u201cdownload for later\u201d attitude. It\u2019s one of those months where the goods are being held back for a later date, and while it\u2019s honestly tough to blame \u2018em for that, what <em>is<\/em> here hasn\u2019t been well-received by either critics of players &#8230; something that usually isn&#8217;t an issue for Microsoft&#8217;s offerings. Let\u2019s delve into the titles.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span class=\"button green\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Xbox-Live-Month-Gold-Membership\/dp\/B002VBWIP6\/ref=bensbargaicenter\" >Click Here to Grab\u00a0a 12-Month\u00a0Xbox Live Gold Subscription\u00a0at Amazon<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_34853\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-34853\" class=\"size-full wp-image-34853\" src=\"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/golf.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"golf club xbox\" width=\"620\" height=\"349\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/golf.jpg 620w, https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/golf-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-34853\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">HB Studios<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Xbox One<\/h3>\n<h4>Marooners (May 1-31)<\/h4>\n<p>The excitement of variety and unpredictability tends to be the thing that draws people to party video games, whether we\u2019re talking about <em>Mario Party<\/em> and <em>You Don\u2019t Know Jack<\/em> to more action-oriented titles like <em>Castle Crashers<\/em> and <em>Smash Bros<\/em>. <em>Marooners<\/em> tries together the exhilaration of the action titles with the randomness of other party games.\u00a0 A group of marooned pirates, divers, and explorers piloted by friends either locally or online (2-6) barrel through exotic tropical locales collecting items and racing to specific points on the map.\u00a0 And then, once someone\u2019s reached a point, the location abruptly changes and drops the players in an entirely different spot with different objectives: dodging inbound rocks, collecting coins, digging underground, etc. Chaos seems to be its calling card, to such a degree that critics of <em>Marooners<\/em> seem like the chaos frustrates early and quickly grows monotonous.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>The Golf Club 2019, Featuring PGA Tour (May 16-June 15)<\/h4>\n<p>The legacy of the Tiger Woods-branded videogame series from EA ran long and strong, for over a decade and a half starting in the late-\u201890s; however, after a failed attempt to rejuvenate the franchise by switching over to Rory McIlroy as the face of the series, the PGA-supported line closed up shop. A few other golf games have made their way to the market \u2013 arguably the most successful of \u2018em being the Hot Shots!-esque <em>Powerstar Golf<\/em>, a surprisingly decent golf simulator with a cartoonish overlay \u2013 but none have been able to fill that void.\u00a0 One of those less successful simulators, <em>The Golf Club<\/em>, landed the support of the PGA Tour, tweaked their methods and unveiled <em>The Golf Club 2019<\/em>.\u00a0 With a PGA Tour career mode, customization of characters and courses, numerous familiar game modes and a simulator framework hinged on realism HB Studios gets closer to the hole with this overhaul, though critics have cited the realism as a burden and the graphic presentation as not meeting those immersive standards.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_34854\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-34854\" class=\"size-full wp-image-34854\" src=\"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/edf.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"earth xbox\" width=\"620\" height=\"348\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/edf.jpg 620w, https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/edf-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-34854\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vicious Cycle<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Xbox 360<\/h3>\n<h4>Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon (May 1-15)<\/h4>\n<p>One of the best ways to describe <em>Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon<\/em>\u00a0might be to say that it acts kinda like a different take of the warfare aspects of <em>Starship Troopers<\/em> \u2026 y\u2019know, had those bugs been real bugs causing trouble on this planet. Story isn\u2019t a chief concern for this entry from Vicious Cycles Software &#8212; which closed first thing in 2016 &#8212; as the primary objective centers on the player mowing down as many waves of bugs as possible from both a first-person aerial vehicle perspective and from a third-person shooting viewpoint. With jetpack strife movement that comes across like a slower, watered-down version of the gameplay in <em>Vanquish<\/em> and little substance to invest in the B-level narrative behind the attacks, <em>Insect Armageddon<\/em> unsurprisingly didn\u2019t leave much of a mark upon release.<\/p>\n<h4>Comic Jumper (May 16-31)<\/h4>\n<p>Finally, there\u2019s <em>Comic Jumper<\/em>, a side-scrolling and quicktime actioner from Twisted Pixel Games. \u00a0The subtitle for the game, <em>The Adventures of Captain Smiley<\/em>, should be something of an indication about the tone going on here, where a blue-and-yellow muscly superhero \u2013 think of a mix of The Tick and Doctor Fate \u2013 barrels through realistic-ish levels that look like the setting of a comic book come to life.\u00a0 With <em>Batman \u201966<\/em> style of text coming up with every bang, crash, and thud and with Captain Smiley physically jumping from panel to panel, the game exudes attitude from top to bottom. That said, much like other gimmicks, critics and players both have cited the humor as trying too hard and the gameplay as repetitive, making it one of those experiences worth jumping into in small doses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In our recent monthly videogame release update \u2013 \u201cDark, Desolate Days Ahead for May\u2019s Video Game Releases\u201d \u2013 the topic was brought up about the hesitation of getting big titles on the market right at the beginning of summer season. \u00a0Well, the thinking behind that observation also applies to the free games offered by the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":34853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1261,25,372,378],"class_list":["post-34852","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\/34852","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=34852"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34856,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34852\/revisions\/34856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}