Low Budget Gamer: Xbox and Playstation Freebies for February Announced

With January wrapping up here in two more days, another month brings another batch of freebies to both Xbox Live Gold and Playstation Plus subscribers. As usual, current-gen console owners can expect a decent amount of indie love, while the last-gen offerings range from the awful to the fantastic.

Since I already have my finger on the X key, let’s start out with Xbox, shall we?

Xbox One:

• #IDARB – Part platformer, part soccer (or whatever you call it overseas, we don’t care about it either way), part live-stream troll simulator, #IDARB is an odd pill to swallow. It’ll normally run you $15, but you can enjoy this ridiculously entertaining indie for free all month long.
• D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die – As usual, the new game last month remains in the line-up the following month, so D4 has been available at no cost for weeks now. It’s an amazing episodic adventure game, in which you control David Young as he dives in to people’s memories to solve mysteries. This one just happens to be the murder of his wife. Ouch.

Xbox 360:

• Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons – Perhaps one of the greatest indie games of all time, Brothers is a twin-stick adventure game with an emotional, heart punching story that may or may not bring you to tears. It’ll be available from the 1st of February until the 15th.
• Sniper Elite V2 – Available on February 16th, this game has you snipe people in the testicles with a pretty awesome slow-mo cam. It’s not very good, but you’ll find ways to entertain yourself with it.

As usual, the Sony camp proves that Playstation Plus is not only worth every penny, but is the superior option when it comes to freebies. This is due in part to Sony tossing in brand new games every month (please stop recycling, Microsoft) and offering more ways to play their freebies through cross-buy.

Playstation 4:

• Transistor – The team behind Bastion treads familiar ground here, but this isometric RPG offers stellar combat, a meaningful upgrade system, and one of the best soundtracks of all time. If you enjoyed Bastion in any way, you owe it to yourself to play Transistor.
• Apotheon – The Gods of Olympus have abandoned humanity, leaving you to perish without their benevolence. Take up arms against the Gods, climb Mount Olympus, and take their divine powers for yourself to ensure mankind’s survival! I totally copy/pasted all that from the Playstation blog, as I’ve never played it myself.
• Rogue Legacy – This 2D roguelike RPG is actually available on all three Sony platforms in February, thanks to cross-play. It’s extremely addictive, punishingly hard, and absurdly random, as your characters are randomly afflicted with game changing traits like ADHD (to move faster), or colorblindness (making the appearance monochromatic).

Playstation 3:

• Yakuza 4 – Explore the dark side of Tokyo’s red-light district as 4 different characters in this entry to the underrated action/adventure series. When you’re not beating the crap out of everyone, take a break and enjoy the company of lovely ladies at host clubs, partake in card games, or even the age old tradition of karaoke!
• Thief – Generally a disappointment to any fan of the original series, the Thief reboot from 2014 takes everything you loved about the original and throws it out the window. The entire cast is as forgettable as the story, and the last-gen version of Thief are hate crimes to anyone with eyes. But hey, maybe you’ll enjoy it? It is free, after all!
• Don’t forget about Rogue Legacy!

PS Vita:

• Kick & Fennick – Soon after waking up in a desolate but colorful world, Kick meets a small flying robot named Fennick. When Fennick saves Kick from a menacing guard robot, they find out Fennick’s battery is broken. Together, they embark on an adventure to the Core Tower to find Fennick a new energy core. Another copy/paste here, as I’ve never played this one.
• Another reminder not to forget about Rogue Legacy!

So there you have it. You still have a couple of days to pick up Worms, The Witcher 2, inFAMOUS: First Light, and The Swapper, but February is almost upon us!

Bradley Keene is the Executive Editor here at What’s Your Tag?, generally handling reviews, public relations, and our social media communications on Facebook and Twitter. He’s an aspiring video game journalist, Baltimore native, and an aficionado of bizarre indie games. If it’s weird and pixely, he’ll like it. If he’s not writing, he can usually be found glued to his OUYA and Xbox One, or knee-deep in an MMO. Get in touch with him by e-mail at the address above, or follow him on Twitter.