Xbox 360 Demos (new)

Dunno, I played both demos for a few days now and I must say that I still prefer PES.

FIFA looks quite a bit better, will have more licenses, the animations are better (what amazed me is how the managed to capture the individuality of the players in motion) and the pace of the game is more realistic, but it still lacks something. Maybe I just suck at the game, but in most of my matches I didn't really manage to create any exciting scenes in front of the goal and neither did my opponent.

Most of the time was spent running up and down the midfield, carrying the ball around and waiting for players to move into good positions for an attack - which hardly ever happened. The AI seems kinda dumb that way. So while the overall pace and feel impressed me, it just lacked any real sense of excitement and even the few goals that were scored felt kinda dull. I'm gonna give it a few more tries though...

PES2008 on the other hand is pretty much exactly the refinement of the series I was looking for. Nothing spectacular, but doing away with many of its predeccessors shortcomings and still featuring the trademark gameplay at its core, which - despite actually being more arcady this time around than FIFA - still captures the excitement and ebs and flow of a real football game like no other.

 

conan and simpsons demos are out.

conan is about 485 MB and simpsons is about 445.

I've heard good things about conan (basically it's a total god of war clone) and simpsons is simpsons.

 

Conan:
This is next gen? Very basic gameplay from what I could see. The presentation isn't anything to write home about either. To me the God of War 2 demo looked and played better.

Simpsons:
Was cool but the genre doesn't appeal to my anymore. Looked and played well though. However, controls could use some fine tuning. I can see this being popular though. Seems like they actually cared to make a good game!

Jericho:
If the whole game is closed spaces like the demo, this will get boring rather quickly. Reminded me of Doom3, which isn't a good thing.....

Edit: played the simpsons demo some more. Time to fire the people incharge of camera and controls. Likely the camera being shit makes the control more difficult but I can't say that for sure, obviously.

 

Bladestorm:
If I see anyone on my friends list playing this, they're going to get removed.........

Crash:
Gameplay was good ole crash but visual should look like Eternal Sonata.

 

RobertR1:
I love your demo reviews. They crack me up.

 

conan: the graphics suck and the production values are pretty low but I actually liked it. the gameplay is really good with the whole picking up enemies weapons things (and the size of the weapon actually matter). It was boring at first but I liked it after the first set of enemies.

simpsons: hated it, not worth downloading. the humor is good but the gameplay is awful. the camera is one of the worst ever and the framerate also lags a little. graphically, it's very close to the simpsons style and I like the (purposeful) cliche they put on the boss but the gameplay just sucked. you'd have to jump around and get perfect shots (I only played it with bart), it took me 24 minutes to do but it says the target was 4 minutes let me repeat, the humor is very good but the gameplay just sucks.

 

The HD animated sequences in The Simpsons was awesome, hopefully it's a treat in every level. Yea the camera is bad. The demo didn't play as good as that Simpsons GTA-style game that came out a while ago but footage I've seen of other areas like the one where Lisa and Bart are in the wooded area look entertaining enough. I'll probably get this game when it hits the bargain bin.

 

Thank the studios who like to dress up a $60 turd oops, $59.99.

 

The PGR4 demo has arrived.

 

The animation in the Simpsons is great, but yeah - the gameplay was rather dull. Still though, if you're a fan of the series there's likely plenty of in-jokes and easter eggs to keep you amused. If it were coming out for the PC at say, $30 or so I'd pick it up, but certainly not full price for a 360 title.

Conan: Uh, this 'aint no God or War competitor. Horrible graphics, and still only 30fps despite that - just couldn't get into it after GoW on the PS2. With a hack and slash presentation and fluidity is very important to me, this has neither.

 

I actually thought conan seemed a litle fun. Just good old fashioned fun that doesnt take it self to seriously. I got retrovibes from that game. Maybe it was the loading screen, reminded me of amiga games for some reason. But what are suposed to do when you´ve killed every one and she tells you to go to the ship?

 

F.E.A.R. Files is up. 585 MB. Is it an expansion?

yeah I liked it too. The graphics aren't good but the combat system is REALLY fluid and the enemy AI doesn't just stand there. You have to remember to use the stuff around you and to pick up the right weapons for the scenario. how many hands you use per blade and how many blades you have and the size of the swords really affects the combos you do, once you get into it it's pretty fun.

 

Speedball 2 , the old bitmap Brothers classic is up on marketplace today

 

The game is not bad, it's just that it's not as realistic as it was. The robotic and orthopaedic animations don't help also. PES 6 was a *masterpiece* in comparison.

They recently admitted that the game is not their best PES to date:

http://www.gamesradar.com/us/ps3/game/news/article.jsp?sectionId=1006& articleId=2007101516386671054&releaseId=2007070616298102084

AFAIK, there are framerate problems on the PS3 version (especially) and I'm pretty sure the framerate is not as smooth as in PES6 for the X360 version also, and adding to that the average animations.., perhaps they didn't do their best PES game.

 

Jericho:
Shit. Didn't Doom3 already teach us that FPS combat in tight spaces is a universal hatred? In an effort to be inventive they added some button sequences to escape the evil demon. I took that as an insult. There is nothing about this demo that makes me even want to spend 5mins with the actual game.

Need 4 Speed: Pro Street
Unless you've rubbed one out watching "Tokyo Drift" stick with Forza2 for your sim needs and PGR4 for your arcade needs. A little self respect will have you deleting the demo after 1 run through.

Virtua Fighter 5:
First one to be able to tell the diff between various 3D fighting game gets a cookie! Atleast give the chick some nice racks in the demo. I think I've grown out of the fighting genre. The 360 Dpad sucking hard didn't help the immersion any either.

 

I would ask the same of every FPS and RTS out there... I would say Virtua Fighter is actually the most unique fighter. It's my favorite fighting series because it doesn't bother with superpower stuff and instead concentrates on martial arts and knowing when to use the right moves in the right timing in different situations. I don't like that shiny plastic look but I can't wait to play the game online.

 

I couldn't agree more. I thought that D3 had more going for it than Jericho does and that's one hell of an insult...

 

Eternal sonata has some of the nicest music I've heard for a while. It's just really crisp and clean.
The use of colour is also fantastic.

And I'm finally getting used to the motorbikes in the PGR4 demo Once you get the hang of them they are immensely satisfying. *eventually* I'll get the full game, it's just I have so little free time the demo is satisfying enough for now.

Prostreet, sadly, just doesn't cut it. :-/ I really thought this one would be a step up for the series. It has the most amazingly unstable framerate.


*btw,
I'd like to download the skate demo, yet it seems to have been removed? Maybe this is just an NZ thing? I guess there is no other way to download it...