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Get ‘Crazy Taxi’ and assassinate in 2D with February’s Xbox Games With Gold

Though January has the release of two behemoth titles in Monster Hunter: World and Dragon Ball FighterZ, you might find February to be a bit lacking in terms of new games. But Xbox Live’s Games With Gold program has you covered with action-packed free games, including an all-time classic for Xbox 360.

For the entire month of February, Xbox One owners will be able to grab Shadow Warrior for free. The first-person shooter draws some inspiration from old-school shooters (including the original 1997 game), with a campy mix of monsters to defeat and swords, magic, and guns to dish out the damage.

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From February 16 through March 15, Xbox One owners can also download Assassin’s Creed Origins: India for free. The game has been compared to Klei’s Mark of the Ninja in the past, and the China episode was previously given away for free through the program back in 2016.

Xbox 360 owners — and Xbox One owners through backward compatibility — get two very different racing games in February. From February 1 through February 15, they can download the arcade racer Split/Second, which originally released in 2010. Reviews praised it for its fast pace and made comparisons to the Burnout series, which is something nearly any game developer would take as a compliment.

From February 16 until the end of the month, the Xbox 360 version of Crazy Taxi will also be free. The game is an all-time arcade classic, with players driving passengers to their destination as quickly as possible, often with blatant product placement for Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut on display. The Xbox 360 version doesn’t add too much, but it’s hard to mess with perfection.

At $69 in value, February’s Games With Gold freebies offer a nice mix of titles across several genres, but it’s still a little disappointing compared to January. This month offered Ubisoft’s survival-horror game Zombi for free, as well as Tomb Raider: Underworld. We hope Microsoft has something bigger planned for March, possibly including a pass to a future beta for Sea of Thieves. We had a blast with the game during its closed beta, finding treasure and blasting our cannons at enemy players who ambushed our ship.

Gabe Gurwin
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
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