If you haven’t preordered God of War III yet, you probably don’t have access to the awesome E3 demo that Sony released as a preorder bonus. If you do, you know exactly how badass and fun this is. I played it at E3 and haven’t had a chance to fire it up yet at home, but I will be very soon.
In case Halo 3: ODST wasn’t filling your time on your Xbox 360, two new demos are now available to suck up your every waking moment. Forza 3 is now available in demo form in all Xbox Live regions. Brütal Legend is available everywhere except India, Japan and Korea.
I had trouble earlier this morning, as both demos weren’t yet showing up on the Xbox 360 Marketplace. I was able to queue them up and get them by going to the Marketplace on Xbox.com. Click here to download the Brütal Legend (1.57GB), and click here to download the Forza 3 demo (1.25GB).
Both games are shaping up to be big sellers later this year, so get your hands on them while they’re hot.
If you are crazy enough to jump out of a plane sans parachute then you are fit for Section 8. Section 8 is about crazy recon troopers who wear bitchin’ armor and jump from orbit to the battlefield. You are said recon trooper, a futuristic paratrooper who is probably slightly unstable and armed to the teeth. The new first person shooter published by Southpeak and developed by Timegate has a few tricks that make it stand out from other titles in the genre.
“Burning in” is the games trademark gimmick. That’s deploying from orbit to the battlefield, allowing the player to select their class and their spawn location. The demo map consisted of three areas to capture or control. These areas have base defenses in forms of Anti-Air and Ground Turrets to lay hate on players attempting to “burn in” or spawn too far behind enemy lines. I call it a gimmick because it is reminiscent of Medal of Honor Airborne, with the exception that the class system in Section 8 is extremely customizable. Vehicles of a few varieties and weapons of the standard pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, machine gun, explosives are available plus a jetpack, which is always fun.
Lost Planet was a surprise hit on the 360 before making its way to the PC and the PS3. An early title in the life cycle of the Xbox 360, Capcom gave us a different take on 3rd person shooters. The game has you killing strange monsters, but you must retrieve their thermal energy to stay alive on the planet which was cold as balls. This concept pitted you against a veritable death clock, which was balanced and difficult at the same time. The story made less sense than ordering a Diet Coke at Wendy’s, but playing as both human and as a Mech (they call them VS suits) was a fun ride. Enough stalling, how is the follow up demo?
NHL 09 was the best sports game of the year in 2008. By far. It was the smoothest, most realistic, and fun hockey experience to come our way since we made Gretzky’s head bleed back in 1993. How can they make an already outstanding game better? Easy. Add first person view fighting and physical play along the boards. NHL 10 looks amazing, plays amazing, and the only way this game would not top last year is if the NHL goes into another lockout and uses replacement players.
Mini Ninjas, that’s pretty self explanatory right there. Right off the bat, this game reminds me a lot of Kung Fu Panda. That’s not a bad thing to me, because I really liked Kung Fu Panda.
Basically, you are a mini ninja, you run around killing mini-samurai that “poof” into a cloud of smoke, and turn into little forest creatures. It’s really PG guys. If you are looking for bloodshed, this is not the game for you. Anyways, there are little cages of forest creatures that you break and set free, just like Kung Fu Panda. There are crates of stuff you can break to get coins, you pick flowers and roots and stuff that you can get “recipes” to mix into magical potions, just like Kung Fu Panda. These potions give you powers in a range anywhere from lighting bolt power to healing power. You will of course, use these powers to attack more mini-samurai. Then there are the weapons. Lots and lots of ninja weapons. Caltrops, Shuriken, Pepper bombs, smoke bombs, and cherry bombs, just to name a few. Couple those with your ninja kuji magic, and you are a killing machine.
The Dark Knight changed the way people are going to make comic book movies. It was only a matter of time before a Batman game came out and thank God it is not based on the stellar movie. Arkham Asylum is based on the comic book universe which is very vast and full of great characters that have all made the cut. Batman: AA is the love child of Splinter Cell and Streets of Rage. It is a tactical sneak game meets a brawler. Batman can go toe to toe with anyone, or hang from the ceiling and pull you into oblivion.
We told you a while back about Madden NFL 10 preorders getting a different demo for the game than the general public. EA fielding too many questions about that, so they’ve decided to clear the air.
On July 23rd, those who preordered the game will be able to get the demo featuring the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals (Super Bowl XLIII rematch) with 5 minute quarters. Again, this is only for people who preordered the game. Then, on July 30th, anyone will be able to download a demo on the Xbox Live Marketplace or PlayStation Network where you can play a night game in heavy snow with the Dallas Cowboys against the New York Giants.
All clear? I personally don’t see any reason to preorder a Madden game. You can walk into any Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, or wherever you want (except GameStop) and pick up the game on launch day. I’ll probably buy Madden this year after I took the ‘09 edition off. I’ll just need to decide whether to get the game for Xbox 360 or PS3.
A little late on the trigger, Media Molecule is prepping to release a demo for LittleBigPlanet on the PSN. The game shipped in October 2008, meaning we’re roughly 8 months past its release date in North America. At this point, why bother?
My guess is that sales are well below what was expected, even though LittleBigPlanet was a critical success and is nearing 2 million pieces of user generated content. Getting a demo out might get some additional sales. How many that will be is anyone’s guess, but I’m not holding my breath on this one.
Personally, I haven’t played LBP in a very long time. Even though tons of new levels are available daily from users around the world, there just isn’t enough variety to keep me coming back for more. Additional costumes and stickers aren’t my thing either, so I haven’t bought any DLC for the game. I might fire it up again soon to see how things are going in the user created level area.
If you head over to GameStop and plunk down $5 to preorder Madden 10, you’ll get an extra special demo. We already knew about the demo bonus, but ShackNews pinged EA to find out what kind of demo everyone else would be getting.
We will also be issuing a demo via Xbox LIVE and PSN that features the Giants vs. Cowboys with 2 minute quarters. The GameStop demo is exclusive in terms of content. For example, the GameStop exclusive demo features a rematch of Super Bowl XLIII featuring the Steelers vs. Cardinals with 5 minute quarters.
I don’t see much point in preordering Madden, especially for a demo. It’s not like you won’t be able to walk into any store and pick up Madden the day of release. For me, I’ll wait it out.
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