While Microsoft's "Games with Gold" promotion promised Xbox Live Gold members free triple A titles for free, they haven't forgotten about the smaller scale projects.
Microsoft will be making Defense Grid: The Awakening its next free title starting today and ending on July 15.
Originally seeing an Xbox 360 release in September 2009 for 800 Microsoft Points, the Hidden Path Entertainment developed tower-defense game made its debut a year earlier on PC. An OS X edition would be released on OS X in 2010.
Defense Grid: The Awakening has players defending military bases from waves of aliens attempting an invasion by re-activating defense system with the assistance of a computer.
Last month, Microsoft made Lionhead's 2010 action RPG Fable 3 the first game available in its "Games With Gold" after announcing the promotion at its E3 press briefing in Los Angeles.
The promotion will give a free game every two weeks to those with gold level Xbox Live memberships. Other games to be released in the future include Assassin's Creed II and Halo 3.
According to Microsoft, the promotion was a way to show Xbox Live Gold members gratitude.
"As our way of saying thanks for being part of this community, we're giving all qualifying Gold members two free Xbox 360 games each month for the rest of the year," read a release on Microsoft's site. "Each specially selected, fan-favorite game will be available to download only for a limited time, so grab them before they're gone and keep them no matter what."
The move by Microsoft is similar to what Sony has been doing with its Playstation Plus service for quite some time. Playstation Plus members have enjoyed free Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita downloads of games including, Saints Row: The Third, Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception, Vanquish, The Cave, Little Big Planet and more.
As Microsoft plans to move into the next-gen with the Xbox One, the hardware maker hasn't forgotten the Xbox 360. Last month saw a redesign launch in US, UK, Canada, Ireland and Australia in three different models.
