Yoku’s Island Express, which will be available to download from 1st-31st May is a strange but successful blend of platforming and pinball that Eurogamer’s Christian Donlan liked a lot when it released back in 2018, calling it a “wild-spirited adventure to cherish.” Next up, and available to download from 16th May to 15th June, is The Inner World: The Last Wind Monk. This one, developed by Studio Fizbin (responsible for last year’s striking Minute of Islands), is a follow-up to acclaimed 2013 point-and-click adventure The Inner World, and once again follows young, flute-nosed adventurer Robert on a quest to save the world. Hydro Thunder Hurricane, meanwhile, accounts for the first of May’s two Xbox 360 titles, and will be available to Xbox Live Gold subscribers from 1st-15th May. Released in 2010, it’s the sequel to Midway’s 1999 arcade speedboat racer Hydro Thunder and was called a “hyperactive celebration of balls-out, dumbass” videogame-ness in Eurogamer’s 7/10 review. And finally, rounding out Microsoft’s latest Games With Gold line-up, is Viva Piñata Party Animals, the less-than-fondly-remembered party game spin-off of Rare’s much-loved Viva Piñata gardening sim series, which will be made available to Xbox Live Gold subscribers from 16th-31st May. Developed by Krome Studios, Eurogamer slapped Viva Piñata Party Animals with a damning 3/10 in 2007, saying, “There’s very little challenge or strategy, and very little imagination has gone into anything besides the visuals, which were done by other people anyway.”
