Defense Grid: The Awakening is the first free Xbox 360 game for July

As part of its Games with Gold service, Microsoft has revealed what this month’s free games will be. Microsoft’s Major Nelson has revealed that July’s first free game as part of the service will be Defense Grid: The Awakening. The game will be free till July 16, which is when a new free game will pop up.

Defense Grid: The Awakening is a tower defense game that was originally released for the PC in 2008, and then made its way to Xbox Live Arcade in 2009. The game has often been hailed by critics as the best game of its genre.

The plot revolves around an alien invasion that happened over a thousand years ago. The aliens are now back and you have to defend your civilisation against them. Aiding you with this is an ancient artificial intelligence, who, in reality, is the same general who fought the aliens in the previous war.

Considered by many to be the best in the genre

Defense Grid: The Awakening typically costs 800 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live Arcade, which roughly translates to Rs 600.

The Games with Gold service is an attempt by Microsoft to match the insanely popular PlayStation Plus, which gives a ton of full AAA titles for free as part of the subscription.

Currently, PlayStation Plus games include XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Catherine, Uncharted 3, The Cave, Demon’s Souls, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus HD, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, LittleBigPlanet Karting and Uncharted 3 on the PS3, and Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Gravity Rush, Rayman Origins and Sine Mora on the PlayStation Vita.

Last month’s second free game for Xbox Gold subscribers was hack-and-slash fantasy RPG Fable 3 .