A new year begins with a new console and a fresh slate of Games with Gold titles! As reported on Xbox Wire, the following titles will be available in January:

• Little Nightmares (Xbox One) – Jan 1-31
• Dead Rising (Xbox One) – Jan 16-Feb 15
• The King of Fighters XIII (Xbox 360 BC) – Jan 1-15
• Breakdown (Xbox BC) – Jan 16-31

I’m always happy to see a mix of games pop up here and apart from Dead Rising these are all new to me. I do have a soft spot for Dead Rising: the original game on Xbox 360 (this is the remaster) was often hard, forced you to save in toilets (!) and was set up to let you fail the first few games until you leveled up. However it also had a lot of replay value, was inherently silly and the alternate endings made it worth a few runs. I remember Breakdown long ago due to it’s first person combat but it’s arrival was quickly overshadowed by The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay which offered a similar experience but with much more impressive production values. Seeing games like this given a second chance is nice to see and may give us a few surprises too if the Xbox team are willing to dive further into that console’s back catalogue.

Will I be one of those who eagerly starts downloading these games once the new year begins? Probably! There’s still plenty more Xbox things going on here before the year ends! 🙂