{"id":35346,"date":"2019-07-13T11:12:11","date_gmt":"2019-07-13T18:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/?p=35346"},"modified":"2019-07-13T11:12:49","modified_gmt":"2019-07-13T18:12:49","slug":"xbox-cloaks-players-in-darkness-with-julys-games-with-gold-freebies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/bens-bytes\/xbox-cloaks-players-in-darkness-with-julys-games-with-gold-freebies\/","title":{"rendered":"Xbox Cloaks Players in Darkness With July’s Games with Gold Freebies"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Summer tends to generate thoughts about the brightness of the sun, to such a degree that eventually one might start to think that they just want to linger in the darkness for a while, away from the glare.\u00a0 If you\u2019re wanting to do this on a gaming level, the Xbox Games With Gold for July are prepared to shroud you in the shadows with a pair of welcome arcade titles.\u00a0 One\u2019s from a renowned indie platform maker, while the other\u2019s a recognizable retro staple that\u2019ll be more than welcome in just about anybody\u2019s library.\u00a0 The other two titles \u2026? Well, they mostly linger back in the shadows without enough of a presence to stand out, a tolerable twosome of children-oriented games that\u2019ll keep \u2018em occupied before you brood in the darkness.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a closer look at what\u2019s on deck.<\/p>\n

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

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\"xbox

Playdead<\/p><\/div>\n

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Xbox One<\/h3>\n

INSIDE<\/h4>\n

Danish developer Playdead made some serious noise with their gloomy German expressionist-inspired platformer LIMBO<\/em>, an elegant yet sneakily violent experience where a young boy navigates deadly obstacles in an other-worldly grayscale atmosphere. INSIDE<\/em> achieves a similar feel to their freshman effort, yet instead of silhouettes and an absence of color, it\u2019s an actual 3D young boy scrambling through dusty, dimly-lit locations in a bleak reality. Similar to LIMBO, the boy solves environmental puzzle to progress through the areas, utilizing mind-control equipment to navigate the movements of other living beings obscuring his pathway.\u00a0 And like Playdead\u2019s first adventure, the boy can die in some pretty grueling ways, adding tension and drama to the puzzle-solving experience. Some counterpoints mention that the game could use a little more difficulty and perhaps a little extra length, but the overall consensus remains that the fruition of Playdead\u2019s ambitions is one of the better platformers ever made.<\/p>\n

Big Crown Showdown<\/h4>\n

There\u2019s a level of tension and immediacy created by side-scrolling games that close in on the player that\u2019s difficult to match in almost any other game, big budget or not. If you aren\u2019t ready for an obstacle, that\u2019s too bad: get ready for what\u2019s approaching, because there\u2019s no going back. Big Crown Showdown<\/em> funnels that idea into an updated, yet still retro-feeling medieval design space, where the familiar multi-colored knight selection \u2013 hard not to recall Castle Crashers<\/em> \u2013 lends itself to multiplayer gameplay as up to four characters can charge forward through mazy, hostile exterior layouts. Flames, steam vents, and of course openings in the ground that spell immediate death clog up the players\u2019 progression, while reward chests along the way provide just enough temptation to distract one from more carefully assessing the danger of the scrolling level. Critics have mentioned bugs being an issue, though, which ca be a big hamper on gaming experiences built around this kind of limiting side-moving motion.<\/p>\n

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\"castlevania

Konami<\/p><\/div>\n

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Xbox 360<\/h3>\n

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night<\/h4>\n

Koji Igarashi recently released his long-anticipated spiritual follow-up to his Castlevania legacy, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night<\/em>, and I\u2019m sure that has absolutely nothing<\/em><\/strong> to do with Xbox including the iconic, revered classic Symphony of the Night<\/em> among its free downloads this month. While Bloodstained<\/em> weathers some iffy reception to its bugginess, sluggish controls, and general lack of refinement in areas, Symphony of the Night<\/em>\u2019s there to remind someone of exactly how quick, brutal, dark, atmospheric, and absorbing the concept can be. As Alucard whips his way through gothic landscapes and unnerving sights and sounds, the player\u2019s treated to the age-old Metroidvania concept, where certain areas can only be explored after the player unlocks certain abilities or weapons. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night<\/em> is among those games that has been re-released a bunch of times across many platforms, yet it\u2019s also one of those titles worth downloading because it\u2019s aged so well and remains a stellar experience with revisiting.<\/p>\n

Meet the Robinsons<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over a decade ago, the film Meet the Robinsons<\/em> just barely edged out a positive rating over at Rotten Tomatoes, and since then it has amassed just under a 7 rating on IMDB.\u00a0 Therefore, it\u2019s the kind of non-Disney movie that\u2019s reputable enough and has its fans, but never garnered a substantive audience in the vein of Shrek<\/em> or The LEGO movie<\/em> or others of their ilk, the ones that amass such a charisma that younger audiences will absolutely want to keep playing in their storylines. \u00a0A tie-in videogame was crafted for Meet the Robinsons<\/em>, though, and much like other tie-ins, it keeps the controls and premise simple and to the point. Whether that\u2019ll work for certain family-friendly audiences will depend on the older player\u2019s threshold for easiness, as critics have noted that the somewhat anticipated ease of play can take away from the appeal of how the game brings Meet the Robinsons<\/em> into a gaming space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summer tends to generate thoughts about the brightness of the sun, to such a degree that eventually one might start to think that they just want to linger in the darkness for a while, away from the glare.\u00a0 If you\u2019re wanting to do this on a gaming level, the Xbox Games With Gold for July […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":35348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1261,25,372,378],"class_list":["post-35346","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\/35346","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=35346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35349,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35346\/revisions\/35349"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}