This month, I actually completed both Xbox One Games with Gold in the month they were released.  For those unfamiliar, as part of paying for the online service, Xbox gives you 2 Xbox One and 2 Xbox 360 games per month. This month, the Xbox One games were Gone Home and The Turing Test, two indie darlings I had never tried or even thought about until they were ‘free’.  Some quick thoughts on both after completing them.

Gone Home.  1000 achievement points. That’s the only redeemable thing about this game.  I have no idea why people lavished it with praise.  It’s a game that feels like a horror game, but isn’t.  It’s not even really a game.  You move around a house, after returning home, and poke around in every nook and cranny of the house and learn about what your family has been up to.  Which is a great premise for horror honestly, but no, it’s just boring predictable nothing.  There is a ‘reveal’ about your sister, but it’s so telegraphed that it’s like ‘this is it?’ It doesn’t even resolve anything or accomplish anything.  Even at free, I’m not sure I got my money worth.

The Turing Test. Man, this game was good.  It’s basically a puzzle room game like Portal. You wander from room to room, solving puzzles that continually ramp up in difficulty, obscurity, and logic.  There is even a story about why this is happening that is pretty interesting based on the titular theory.  Graphically it’s no slouch either.  This is a game I would have felt good paying for, despite a relatively short play time.

Thanks to Xbox for giving me two radically different game play experiences as part of the service I was already paying for.  Wonder what’s coming next month…