Contents
Slayaway Camp: Butcher's Cut -
Xbox One, from 1st to 31st October Maid of Sker - Xbox One, from 16th October to 15th November Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy - Xbox backwards compatible, from 1st to 15th October Costume Quest - Xbox One and Xbox 360, from 16 to 31 October We are new to the free games of Games with Gold, in this case for the month of October 2020, with the usual contribution of the four titles to be downloaded freely reserved for subscribe to Xbox Live Gold or
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate always according to the classic scheme: two games for Xbox One and two backwards compatibility titles that can be used on the console in question but coming from previous generations. We are always the same: the famous speech on the general decadence of the quality level of the games offered through this initiative by
Microsoft is always valid, especially if on the other side you have an Xbox Game Pass that really does not stop throwing new games at us at a disconcerting pace. , in considerable quantity and quality.
The talk about the possible elimination of Xbox Live Gold, which is still there in its immovable place, has been faded , we just have to take note of how Games with Gold continue to live by, sometimes with good releases like the titles
of September 2020, other times with more subdued games as we have often seen. And this October 2020? The evaluation is not easy, because it has peculiar characteristics: in the face of genuinely negligible games such as the old Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy we find a title that basically came out just over a month ago, that is Maid of Sker, and an old game that always nice to find as Costume Quest. In short, nothing that changes your mind on the fact that it cannot be said that Games with Gold are not exactly the main argument for subscribing to Gold, but this month is not the worst.
Slayaway Camp: Butcher's Cut - Xbox One, October 1st to 31st
In case Slayaway Camp: Butcher's Cut reminds you of something it's because, in fact, the Blue Wizard Digital team seems to want insist on the same game structure, exploiting it in various rather similar declinations. To tell the truth, this was the progenitor of the horror puzzle genre with a sliding character, with Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle released later but perhaps more visible thanks to the important license it carried with it. In any case, it is the same particular puzzle game-like structure seen for the other title as well: we find ourselves controlling a bloodthirsty killer coming directly from the horror imaginary of the 80s within various levels built with a cube-like graphic style and humorous, which decisively soften the somewhat macabre tones of the game. The whole mechanism of the gameplay is based on the fact that the killer, instead of moving normally in the maps, slides on these in a straight line, blocking only if he encounters an obstacle: the aim is therefore to try to set the "route" each time in order to reach the unfortunate victims, exploiting obstacles and elements of the scenario to ensure that the latter are precisely in the trajectory of the protagonist. It's a simple idea but it works really well, and the fact that Blue Wizard Digital has become famous to us demonstrates this quite clearly.
Maid of Sker - Xbox One, from October 16 to November 15
Released only at
the end of last July, Maid of Sker represents a rather rare case of launching the game in Games with Gold shortly after its debut on the market, especially since it is a title that does not seem be part of some particular agreement such as Game Preview or direct launch on Microsoft services. In any case, it is perhaps the most interesting introduction of this, this free titles delivery in October: it is a first-person survival horror, and this already makes it quite interesting, with the particularity of being inspired by folklore and legends. of Wales, which also gives the whole a very particular characterization. The gameplay of Maid of Sker incorporates various elements of stealth, as befits the new school of first-person horror, with a particular emphasis on the contrast between noise and silence. Inspired by the haunting tales of Elisabeth Williams, the game requires us to investigate a suffocating family secret inside a creepy hotel lost in a forest, where we
will have to try to survive by dealing with the Quiet Men, nightmarish individuals who react to sound. but that can also be affected with this.
Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy - Xbox in backward compatibility, October 1st to 15th
Since 2004, Microsoft has recovered Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy (mysteriously translated into "Sphinx and the bungling mummy" in our area) to propose it to Xbox Live Gold users, with a rather bizarre move. Dating back to 2004 on the first Xbox, the game is not really a mummy but almost, considering the standard maturation times of video games, so the choice may well be appropriate, from this point of view. For the rest, it is not clear precisely the need to exhume such a title, just to stay on the subject: it is an action adventure with a 3D platform-like structure, a genre that is actually in short supply nowadays and of which he misses a lot, but perhaps before arriving at Sphinx he could try other titles of greater interest. However, with this we do not mean that the game in question has no elements of interest, on the contrary: the return to an obsolete genre like this is always pleasant and the characterization, with the story that sees us engaged in an adventure between the earthly world and divinity in the role of the demi-god Sphinx embodied in the undead Tutankhamun, is certainly particular.
Costume Quest - Xbox One and Xbox 360, October 16 to 31
In case you've never played it before, you really should take this opportunity to retrieve Costume Quest, a kind of Halloween classic. Not for nothing, it will be made available in the second half of October until the end of the month, or just in time to play it during this holiday. Costume Quest is actually a Halloween-based RPG, which sees a group of kids going out in the evening, each with their own costume, for the typical trick-or-treat round, only this soon turns into a real one. epic adventure. A monster kidnaps the brother of the protagonist and from there the journey in search of the missing child starts, which takes the appearance of an RPG with turn-based combat where you control a party of boys / fighters with weapons and characteristics that depend on the costume used. by the various characters. Developed by Double Fine, Costume Quest came out ten years ago but its charm has remained perfectly intact and in case you have never tried this strange adventure, the advice is to do it now: its old school spirit between Saturday morning cartoon and adventure 80's cinema really deserves to be experienced in full.
