Games With Gold Vs Playstation Plus: The August Review Face Off

With another month upon us, well the mid-point of it anyway, and another bunch of  "free" games having dropped for the Xbox and the PlayStation I thought I'd take some time out of my busy rock-star lifestyle (OK, playing video-games and watching Simpsons marathon's on Channel 4) to cast my critical eye over what's available and pass God like judgement on who's won this month’s giveaway.

It's Games With Gold.

It's always Games With Gold.

For the past few months now Microsoft has been knocking it out of the park with the likes of Goat Simulator, Costume Quest 2, Sunset Overdrive, Borderlands and so on and so forth, pretty much leaving the PS Plus offerings in their dust and this month is...well, it's ALMOST no exception.

WWE 2K16

There's not one bad game on the Xbox list this month, from the hack and slash of Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate to the smackdown laying WWE 2K16, the kooky charm of Beyond Good and Evil HD and the almost impossible-to-complete-but-addicitve-as-hell Spelunky, the Xbox comes up with the goods in its usual impressive way and normally this is where I'd say "To hell with my PS Plus subscription, I think I'll just renew my Xbox Live account when they both run out" like I seem to be doing each month at the moment BUT the PlayStation seems to have some life left in it yet.

And that life is Yakuza 5 for PS3.

I love the Yakuza series and own all four previous instalments of the main series as well as the Dead Souls spin-off, so you can imagine my delight when I found out that I would be getting the missing link for "free" and it doesn't disappoint.

It's an epic, sprawling beast of a game that does justice to one of the most underrated saga's in gaming history and it's enough to convince me that Sony might still be able to get back on track and start to show that they can hold their own when it comes to charging you money for the pleasure of having stuff given to you each month, but that won't happen until they up their output for the PS4.

Yakuza 5

There hasn't been a quality release for PlayStations next gen console since Tropico 5 back in May and this month is no exception, whereas we get WWE 2K16 for the Xbox One we get the awful Tricky Towers and the I'm-not-an-Elite-knock-off-honest Rebel Galaxy, that does actually show some promise if you are willing to put the time and effort into it.

And there in lays Sony's problem.

For every Wolf Among Us that Microsoft hands out, the PS Plus seems to think it's alright to dole out the likes of Galak-Z or, even worse, Broforce.

I mean, I get that not every game can be an Injustice: Gods Among Us but once in a while it'd be nice to look forward to the new content arriving instead of reading the list, rolling my eyes and hacking my way through yet another indie title.

But, with the exception of the aforementioned Yakuza 5, that's excatly what I did this month...and last month...and the month before that...do you see a pattern developing here?

So all hail Microsoft and their ability to keep me entertained each month and a pox on Sony until they can sort their shit out, after all this is a company who claims they are "For The Players" yet over the past three months I have seen very little in the Playstation Plus Catalogue to suggest that's actually true.

Maybe it's time they changed their slogan.

How about "For The Fact We Like To Drain 40 Quid Out Of Your Bank Account Each Year Because We Like Money"

Catchy, don't you think.

Overall Ratings:

Games With Gold: 10 SmackDown Laying, Hack And Slashing Points Out Of 10

PS Plus: 5 Yakuza's Out Of 10

Neil Gray | @neilgray007