PlayStation Plus vs. Games With Gold November 2016 Edition

This past week both Sony and Microsoft announced their free games lineup for November 2016 on PlayStation Plus and Games With Gold. Both are offering some good games although neither is as strong as we have seen them in the past. This could be because it’s the holiday season and they know most gamers will be buying many of the new AAA games coming out and will be too busy with them. When you look at both services though this month how do they stack up against each other?

Xbox Games With Gold Analysis:

If you have Xbox Live then Games with Gold on Xbox One is giving you the brand new Day 1 indie game Super Dungeon Bros as well as Murdered: Soul Suspect. On Xbox 360 and playable on Xbox One via backward compatibility you are getting Monkey Island: Special Edition and Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. Now looking at money value Super Dungeon Bros is $20 both digitally and at retail. Murdered: Soul Suspect is $20 digitally but can be found for far less at retail as Microsoft Store has had it pretty frequently for $5. Monkey Island: Special Edition is $10 and Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is $15. In total you get $65 worth of games this month if you don’t count the cheaper price you can find Murdered: Soul Suspect for at retail. That’s a pretty good value but are the games good?

Looking at the Games With Gold lineup critically we can only talk about three of them. This is because Super Dungeon Bros has yet to release so there are no reviews out currently for it. Murdered: Soul Suspect has a 51 score on Metacritic which isn’t kind but some who have played it think it’s better than that score suggests. Monkey Island: Special Edition has a an 88 Metacritic score making it one of the higher scored games we’ve seen on Games With Gold. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon has an 80 Metacritic score making it another great game in the lineup. So critically you’re getting 2 pretty good 360 games and one mediocre Xbox One game with the verdict still out on Super Dungeon Bros. Not bad at all. Again every gamer has different tastes so these scores don’t necessarily apply to you.

PlayStation Plus Game Analysis:

Moving over to the PlayStation Plus lineup for the month of November you have a total of six games with 4 of them being playable on PS4, 3 playable on PS3 and 2 playable on PS Vita. On PS4 you’re getting Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture and The Deadly Tower of Monsters. On PS3 you get both Dirt 3 and Costume Quest 2. On the Vita you get both Pumped BMX+ and Letter Quest: Remastered. Pumped is also playable on PS4 and PS3 and Letter Quest is playable on PS4.

Now value wise Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is $20 and Deadly Tower of Monsters is $15. Dirt 3 is $20 digitally which is pretty good as trying to find it at retail will usually cost you more than that. Costume Quest 2 is $15 while Pumped BMX+ and Letter Quest are both $10. In total you are getting $80 worth of games on PlayStation Plus in November.

When it comes to critical reception Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture has a 78 on Metacritic while The Deadly Tower of Monsters has a 72. Dirt 3 has a 87 while Costume Quest 2 has a 74. Letter Quest has a 73 and Pumped BMX+ has a 56. Overall that is a solid list of games with all but one of them scoring an average of 70 or above.

Comparison:

When you compare the two both are offering pretty good value and pretty good games for November. Money wise you are getting $65 worth of games on Games With Gold and $80 on PlayStation Plus. You have to take into account PlayStation Plus gives 6 games compared to 4 on Games With Gold so that plays a part. Critically both services are giving a game scoring in the 50’s in Murdered: Soul Suspect and Pumped BMX+. Games With Gold gives you two games scoring in the 80’s in Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Monkey Island versus just one on PlayStation Plus which is Dirt 3. PlayStation Plus does give you 4 other games scoring in the 70’s though which is pretty good. We still don’t know how Super Dungeon Bros is so that verdict will have to be made later.

Final Verdict:

Overall after comparing the two I’d have to say that PlayStation Plus probably wins the month of November. While the two Xbox 360 games are good Murdered: Soul Suspect is just a so-so game and I simply can’t say either way about Super Dungeon Bros right now. Neither service is particularly great in November but I’m sure we’ll all be playing the hot new games to really care. Hopefully both services step it up again in December.