{"id":39120,"date":"2020-07-21T12:59:18","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T19:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/?p=39120"},"modified":"2020-07-21T13:33:53","modified_gmt":"2020-07-21T20:33:53","slug":"ps-celebrates-10-years-with-adequate-aaa-titles-for-july","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/bens-bytes\/ps-celebrates-10-years-with-adequate-aaa-titles-for-july\/","title":{"rendered":"PS+ Celebrates 10 Years With Adequate AAA Titles for July"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sony\u2019s PS+ subscription service is celebrating its 10-year anniversary this month, and, frankly, it\u2019s kind of a big deal for any company in the video game industry to continue doing the same thing for a decade. This is a cause for celebration that should, in theory, drive Sony to dig up some of the best of the best in free game downloads for the month: a way of celebrating the service\u2019s past and showing off with where they\u2019re at now. There\u2019s an effort here that\u2019s built around anniversaries of highly popular franchises, but one can\u2019t help but still feel short-changed by the pair of selections for this particular \u201ccelebration\u201d. Despite both being AAA-caliber titles, one\u2019s a middle sequel that\u2019s been around for several years now and the other\u2019s a sports franchise entry that earned ire for its loot box issues. \u00a0Let\u2019s take a look, but before we do, don’t forget to Grab a One Year PlayStation Plus Subscription Card at Amazon<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"tomb<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Rise of the Tomb Raider<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Even though the franchise has spread out to other consoles over the years, you don\u2019t get much more \u201cPlayStation\u201d than Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider<\/em> franchise. It took the reboot a little time to finally arrive on Sony\u2019s platform due to exclusivity deals, but once it did, PS4 players could enjoy the Definitive Edition out of the gate with all the bells-\u2018n-whistles. This reboot of the franchise transformed Lara Croft into a more realistic, flawed, down-to-earth heroine whose talents with survival and spelunking narrowly get her through challenges, unlike the guns-blazin\u2019 superhero from the early PS days. Shortly after the successful initial release of this overhauled Tomb Raider<\/em>, with a similar exclusive release window, this sequel Rise of the Tomb Raider <\/em>arrived on the scene to celebrate the character\u2019s 20th<\/sup> anniversary on the small screen, and it does so by refining every aspect of the game into a tighter, more exhilarating and fully-formed experience for Lara Croft and her journeys into perilous landscapes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NBA 2K20<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The first release of the NBA 2K <\/em>series arrived on the Dreamcast in 1999, and it hasn\u2019t missed a beat in releasing a game every year since then. 2K20<\/em> stands as the product of two decades of persistent, annual refinement of 2K\u2019s approach to the NBA, evolving across consoles into the standard bearer of the basketball subgenre \u2026 even above EA\u2019s NBA Live<\/em> series that dominated for so long. Therefore, it seems odd that 2K Sports would elect to go down a controversial path in celebration of their 20th<\/sup> anniversary. While the core NBA 2K20<\/em> game itself remains of predictably high quality, both the polished basketball games themselves and the assortment of game modes and legacy features, 2K20 introduces some loot box ideas that come under fire for being too close to digital \u201cgambling\u201d for its own good. Some of those mechanics get involved with real money microtransactions, while others are just quirky elements of game selection activities. Regardless of being a fine basketball game, NBA 2K20 took its eyes off the ball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sony\u2019s PS+ subscription service is celebrating its 10-year anniversary this month, and, frankly, it\u2019s kind of a big deal for any company in the video game industry to continue doing the same thing for a decade. This is a cause for celebration that should, in theory, drive Sony to dig up some of the best […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":39122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2262,1538,401,2261,25],"class_list":["post-39120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bens-bytes","tag-nba-2k20","tag-playstation","tag-ps4","tag-tomb-raider","tag-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39120","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=39120"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39123,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39120\/revisions\/39123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensbargains.com\/thecheckout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}