Games for Gold November Review

Every month, Microsoft offers 4 free games for Xbox live gold members to download. Two of these games are exclusively for Xbox One and the other two are backwards compatible Xbox 360 games. That’s 4 free games for Xbox One players, and 2 for Xbox 360 players.

For Xbox 360, the two games are “Monkey Island: SE” ($9.99) and “Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon.” ($14.99) The two games are basically polar opposites, but both are fantastic and can cater to any specific player.

Monkey Island was originally a point and click adventure game made in 1990, but with Monkey Island: SE (special edition), the game has been overhauled. It’s got better graphics, a new soundtrack, and it’s optimized for the use of a controller. The original game was critically acclaimed for having an excellent story, with a mixture of comedy and interesting characters. To play to the nostalgia of the original game, there is even an option to switch back to the original game.

Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon runs off the same engine as Far Cry 3, with the same gameplay and physics. But the difference is, Blood Dragon has a completely different atmosphere. It takes place in a cliche 80’s VHS scientific fiction world. There is no sun, everything is glowing with bright red lights and you fight cyborgs. While the game runs on the same engine and has the same mechanics, it is a stand-alone game and doesn’t require Far Cry 3 to be played.

For the Xbox One, the two games available are “Super Dungeon Bros” ($19.99) and “Murdered: Soul Suspect” ($19.99).

“Super Dungeon Bros” is a top-down hack and slash dungeon crawler. The dungeons are referred to as “depths,” but they work the same as any other dungeon. After looting and slashing through enemies, you use money to buy new weapons, aesthetic things, and even soundtracks. The game can be played in single-player, but it’s selling point is multiplayer. While this is a big part of the game, the multiplayer hardly works, and the servers are slow, lag out, and the game freezes when too many enemies appear on the screen. This game is a decent single-player dungeon crawler, but has issues when playing multiplayer.

In “Murdered: Soul Suspect,” you play as a detective who was killed by a murderer at the start of the game. After a life of crime, the main character Ronan O’Connor marries into a family of police, and then becomes a cop and slowly works his way up to detective. After a string of murders around Salem, Massachusetts, Ronan encounters this murderer and then kills himself. You play the rest of the game as a spirit, trying to help figure out the secret of this killer.

If you haven’t played these games before, now is a great time to pick them up since they’re up for grabs this month. With a games like “Monkey Island: SE” and “Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon” there are classic games, and newer games for a good variety.