The old saying goes that you should never look a gift horse in the mouth, but one has to wonder what happened with this month’s selection of free titles for Xbox Live Gold subscribers. Earlier this morning, Microsoft announced the lineup of “Games with Gold” titles and I’m at a loss for words. Nothing here is “bad,” but this really isn’t anything to write home about.

The biggest get is Red Faction 2, which originally launched on PC, PS2, Xbox, and GameCube back in 2002. Following up on the rather successful and interesting original, the general reception was so bad that the series was put on ice for half of a decade. Guerrilla would revive it, but then the failure of THQ would basically cement the death of what could have been a direct competitor to Half-Life.

From there, the only other interesting game is MX Unleashed. This is a similarly old game, but it was one of the best off-road racing games of its era. The series might have fallen from grace in recent years, but you can’t go wrong with this original installment.

The other two titles, both available for Xbox One, are fairly obscure. Nothing is wrong with indie games, but I’m not sure how many people are clamoring for Portal Knights or Override: Mech City Brawl. I’ve heard some okay things about the former, but this is starting to make me wonder why Microsoft doesn’t dump the free games for Game Pass.

Xbox One

  • Portal Knights - Available August 1 - 31 Override: Mech City Brawl - Available August 16 - September 15

Xbox 360

  • MX Unleashed - Available August 1 - 15 Red Faction 2 - Available August 16 - 31

Much like I’ve been saying with Sony for the last year or so, it would be nice to know what Microsoft intends to do with this service once the Xbox Series X is in the wild. The company has done a pretty solid job with offering a decent range of titles on Games with Gold, but clearly it can’t keep up the same pattern. Will we start to see next-gen titles being offered, or will the price of Live Gold go down to make way for Game Pass?

Source: YouTube

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