Xbox Live's Free Games For December Revealed

Microsoft has revealed the new batch of Games with Gold for December. Xbox One owners will get one new free game during the month while their counterparts on Xbox 360 will get two.

The free game on Xbox One is Worms Battlegrounds. First released this summer, Battlegrounds is a turn-based strategy game in which players use an arsenal of weapons to wipe out the enemy team. The challenge lies in aiming your shots around obstacles and adjusting to the destructible terrain. In other words, it's pretty similar to every other Worms game you've played.

Battlegrounds features 65 weapons, ten of which are brand-new. That means it has the largest amount of weapons of any game in the series. Players can undertake 25 story missions and ten time attack missions on their own, or go online for Deathmatch and Fort modes. The game supports multiplayer clans and leagues to help players find worthy competition.

Starting December 1st, Xbox 360 owners will be able to download The Raven - Legacy of a Master Thief. This crime adventure takes players back to the 1960's. A legendary thief named the Raven has continued his crime spree in spite of being seemingly killed. The player will get to the bottom of this mystery across three chapters. Experienced adventure game fans can look forward to optional puzzles and a scoring system. Newbies, meanwhile, can use a help function if they're stuck.

The free game for Xbox 360 owners from December 16th to the 31st is the 2012 snowboarding game SSX. In this game, players must master nine deadly environments throughout the world include the Himalayas and the Antarctic. They'lll have to outdo opponents, avoid obstacles and rack up high scores with death-defying tricks. The game's environments were created using real data from NASA satellites.

SSX, unlike earlier games in the series, doesn't have local multiplayer. It does allow players to duke it out online, though. For example, players can plant Geotags in hard-to-reach spots throughout the levels and challenge others to recover them. Through online play, gamers earn SSX Credits that enable them to buy new snowboards or gadgets.

The December Games with Gold follow the familiar pattern of Xbox One gamers getting a free indie title while Xbox 360 owners receive older, larger games. For example, the November batch of Games with Gold included side-scroller Volgarr the Viking for Xbox One and Red Faction: Guerilla and Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise for Xbox 360. This trend's likely to continue for awhile due to the much larger library for Xbox 360. Perhaps we'll see more once-$60 games given away for free on XB1 as we enter the console's second year, though.