Consolation Prize

A demo of Sega Superstar Tennis is now available to download from Xbox Live Marketplace, sized at a reasonable 677MB.

The demo allows you to try out a single player match choosing from either AiAi of Super Monkey Ball fame or Shadow the Hedgehog. Characters play slightly differently to oneanother due to a specialist skill and a signature “superstar” move. For example AiAi can curve shots more easily and can transform the tennis ball into a bunch of distracting bananas which boomerang back to the opponent with a bend “Beckham” would be proud of.

The game controls quite well and on first impressions felt very similar to the Virtua Tennis series of games I’ve played in the past. There are however a few differences to note when it comes to shot selection. The “A” and “X” buttons produce either a fast or slow shot respectively, but if you want to perform a lob or a drop shot then a simple combo has to be pressed, “A” followed by “X” gives you a lob whilst reversing the action will produce a drop shot.

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Turning Point: Fall of Liberty is yet another FPS to be set in that highly plundered period of World War II but promises to offer a new perspective on events. The whole premise of Turning Point is based upon the idea of an alternate timeline. A reality where the then diplomat Winston Churchill hadn’t survived a collision with a New York taxi cab on December 13th 1931, and thus didn’t become the hugely influential prime minister of the United Kingdom. In this timeline the tide of Nazi Germany domination couldn’t be stopped and the United States is about to be invaded.

At the start of the demo you find yourself in New York atop the semi completed structure of a skyscraper during the initial air invasion. Your task is to navigate your way down from this precarious position to street level far below. Unfortunately the first segment of this demo as you immediately get control is flawed, requiring the player to negotiate a series of narrow girders. Although as long as you don’t jump off you can’t really fall to your death, merely grabbing the girder and hauling yourself back up, as an introduction to unfamiliar controls this design leaves a lot to be desired.

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Capcom’s Devil May Cry series has been around since 2001 and the highly anticipated fourth installment is due to be released next month. A demo of Devil May Cry 4 was released onto Xbox Live Marketplace last Thursday (24th) and should be available on the Euro Playstation Network later this week.

In previous games the lead character was Dante, but the demo introduces you to the new character Nero via two playable missions to showcase the different aspects of the game. The first mission “Exterminator” allows you 10 minutes to experience the core of the game as you move from area to area in an opera house plaza clearing enemies with the odd simple puzzle thrown in. The second mission “Executioner” lets you play a couple of set piece battles, firstly against some “Icy Frosts” before the final showdown with the impressively huge flaming boss character “Berial”.

The controls are all fairly straight forward and moves and combos are slowly introduced throughout the demo. Like Dante, Nero has both a sword for melee and a gun for ranged attacks but his right arm is not human and has a couple of “Devil Bringer” attacks that can also be used. There are some great attacks to play around with in the demo. Whether it’s launching enemies into the air or grabbing enemies and hurling them around with his demonic arm when “B” is held down, which is particularly great to watch against the boss “Berial”, all of them look impressive.

Both sword and gun attacks can be charged up for additional damage by either holding down the left trigger or “X” respectively. As with the previous instalments in the series each encounter is graded and the key is to try and chain combos together, not only to dispatch an enemy as fast as possible, but also to get the best rating.

The camera, which for the majority of the game provides a fixed viewpoint of the action, can only occasionally be moved by the player and it does take time to adjust to this, especially as the viewpoint will change as you’re running along or between areas which can cause some disorientation.

The demo of DMC4 looks fantastic, with some great looking cut-scenes, decent character and enemy designs and a great boss encounter. However, the game mechanics all feel very familiar and don’t seem to have changed significantly from its predecessors, which on the one hand will appeal to fans but may alienate newcomers. The demo is well worth investigating and fans will be happy with what’s on offer until the games release.

Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom is a fantasy third person hack and slash action role playing game. A demo of the game is now available from Xbox Live Marketplace and is a rather chunky 1.2GB download.

According to the written prologue, which you can view if you’re really desperate, the world was once ruled by a pair of deities, Nible the lord of light, and Encablossa the lord of darkness. Each lord would take it in turns to rule and shape the world as they see fit and then after an age had passed hand over the reigns of power. However as is usual someone always gets fed up with the arrangement, in this case Nible throws his toys out of the pram and refuses to hand power back to Encablossa, thus igniting a war between the forces of light and darkness.

Upon starting the demo you can choose from one of two selectable characters. The final version of the game features six characters but in this instance you can play as either Leinhart an assassin, or Kendal the paladin. As you’d expect each character has strengths and weaknesses and specific weapons and armour types are only available to certain characters.

There are quite a few controls to get your head round in KUF:CoD but the demo will walk you through both the controls and item management. Different weapons can be assigned to both the “A” and “X” buttons whilst “B” and the right trigger are used for special abilities and the two shoulder buttons reserved for item assignment. Although this kind of configuration allows easy access to attacks, abilities and items as with most RPG’s item management forms an essential part of the game and you will frequently have to re-assign buttons as you find better equipment or learn new abilities. The tutorial can be skipped at any point but it’s worthwhile putting up with it the once before deciding to head off into the unknown world.

Any kind of attack, whether it be melee, ranged, or the use of an ability will cost “SP” points to perform. Your character has a total number of “SP” points available indicated by a blue bar at the bottom of the screen but once depleted the character will no longer be able to attack or use abilities. Although the SP bar does replenish fairly quickly (or via potions) having depleted can leave you vulnerable to attack for a period of time. This is compounded by your characters complete inability to block any type of attack.

Along the linear path that your character travels “idol sanctuaries” will be found. At these locations the player can buy, sell or synthesise items together. Alternatively you can choose to sleep and enter the dream world, a place where you can learn new abilities and discover more about the characters and the story.

KUF:CoD looks quite good. The demo environments all look OK and the main character models are decent enough but there is a lot of screen tearing throughout. Unfortunately I found the AI to be very poor with groups of enemies standing around and quite happily ignoring the player until trigger points are crossed. Similarly when fleeing to a previously cleared area enemies will only pursue you so far and will suddenly break off and return to there original stating location.

The camera is frustratingly poor, needs constant attention, and will frequently get obscured by a bush, tree or other object whilst fighting large groups of enemies. By holding down the left trigger you can change the camera to an aiming view. However this view seems rather pointless because although I could see a group of enemies and fire at them they were invulnerable until a trigger point was crossed. Once triggered the group would be upon you in seconds leaving only enough time to loose off a couple of ranged attacks.

On a positive point the game has a wealth of equipment and special abilities with which to customize your character. Levelling up a characters hit points, sp points, and luck works quite well with a pot of “attribute” points that allocated how the player sees fit.

I wouldn’t say that KUF:CoD is a terrible game, just average. It does quite a few things competently enough but there are some key areas in the demo that it falls down on, not the least of which is that it is repetitive. If you’re a fan of hack “n” slash RPG games then it’s worth giving the demo a cursory glance.

I gave the Guitar Hero III demo that’s available on Xbox Live Marketplace a run through yesterday in preparation for the UK release later this month on the 23rd. The demo offers five different songs to try your guitar thrashing skills on including
“Lay Down”,
“Rock You Like a Hurricane”,
“Even Flow”,
“Hit Me with Your Best Shot”, and
“The Metal”.

Apart from “Even Flow” by Pearl Jam I’m not familiar with the other tracks, but I found them all enjoyable enough to play though and thought they provided a good example of the different styles of music that would be available in the final release.

The fundamentals of the game remain unchanged, adopting the “if it ain’t broke, why fix it attitude”. And to be honest I can’t really see how they could, or would want to change the core gameplay to make it much better. Players still hit notes and play chords as they scroll down the virtual guitar neck using the five “fret” buttons and “strum bar” on the guitar controller. Your performance is measured via a “rock” meter varying in colour from red (poor) to green (good) and if you miss too many notes in a row then apart from being greeted by the jeers and booing of the audience you will also find the “Song Failed” message staring you in the eyes.

The demo includes a comprehensive tutorial on how to play the game covering the basics and advanced techniques, and is well worth a look if you’re new to the series. The tutorials also explain how the “battle mode” works, which is a new mode introduced this time around for “boss” battles and player vs player.

All in all the game is shaping up quite nicely and I’m looking forward to the retail release version as not only does it provide a lot of fresh new tracks to try out, but also I’m afraid I just can’t resist that new wireless “Gibson Les Paul” guitar controller.

It’s approaching that time of year again where one should try and be kinder to their fellow man or woman, turkeys are gazing nervously at the farmer and a new “Need for Speed” title, in this case ProStreet, is about to be unleashed upon the masses.

Ahead of its release later this month you can sample the demo which is now available on Xbox Live Marketplace at a pretty decent download size of 655MB.

The demo lets you try out two game modes, each one with a different track and preset car. “Nevada Highway” is a straightforward speed challenge whereby you, and seven other competitors, have to pass through four speed checkpoints as fast as possible with the winner being the player with the highest cumulative speed total. The other track on offer is “A-54 Interloop” which is a standard two lap race around a street circuit.

When you’ve selected your race you’re taken to the race day menu, which just seems to show some of the car entrants for the race with various people wandering about fawning over the cars but with no real interaction from the player. All you can really do is start the race and I hope the final release utilises this menu screen a bit better.

To help the player you can choose from three levels of driver assists before the race starts (casual, racer or king). “Casual” helps the player by managing the braking with some adjustments to find the best racing line, whilst “King” leaves the driving to the player.

Personally I preferred setting the assistance level to “King” as I found that the other two levels, especially the first, interfered far too much with the driving experience and it just didn’t feel right.

Visually the game looks pretty good at this stage and should be able to hold its own against most of the 360 racers out there although it’s hard to tell from the demo tracks whether it will be top-of-the-class. For me the “A54 Interloop” track was the better of the two available as the Nevada Highway was mainly a series of straights, which is fine for a speed test but doesn’t really present much of a challenge.

If you’re into the “Need for Speed” franchise then it’s worth trying out the demo as a taster of things to come but with so many quality racing titles already available for the 360 we’ll have to wait and see what this offers compared to its competitors as the demo doesn’t really give much away.

The demo for Conan, a third person action hack and slash game, is now available to download from Xbox Live Marketplace. The game lets you try out a single level and provides some mild entertainment.

Initial impressions of the game were not that great. It certainly isn’t the best showcase for the graphical capabilities of the Xbox 360 with OK character models and an uninspiring environment on show. In all departments a game such as God of War 2 on the PS2 is superior.

The games strongest element is the combat. Conan has at his disposal a huge variety of attacks based upon combinations of light, heavy or grappling moves using the “X”, “Y” and “B” buttons. You can also block an attack using the left trigger and if this is timed correctly Conan can perform a deadly counter-attack. The right analog joystick is used to evade attacks but unfortunately because it is reserved for this purpose you have no direct camera control leaving its placement in the lap of the gods.

Conan is a blood thirsty game and doesn’t hold back with the severed arms, decapitations and general blood spilling and soon the level is awash with the spilt blood of your enemies. Hopefully the final release of the game is given a bit of a polish as lurking beneath the negatives and rough exterior is a game that is both playable and quite good fun.

For me, Conan is a game that I may pick up if I had no other games to play and it was found lurking in the bargain basement bin at the local gaming emporium.

I tried out the Sega Rally demo last night that’s now available on Xbox Live. The demo lets you try out two courses and choose between two staple rally cars, either the Subaru Impreza WRX or the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. After you’ve selected the course and car you have to decide on one of two setups to determine if your car is either better on tarmac or off-road segments.

As this game is more an arcade racer, compared to say something like DiRT, you will soon find yourself performing stupendous powerslides as you career sideways around corners without any concern for car damage. The handling feels more akin to something like Ridge Racer with a “hovercraft floaty” feel, although not as extreme, and is perfectly acceptable for an arcade racer which allows players of all skill levels to instantly jump into the action and have a blast.

Graphically it looks excellent. The car models all look very sharp and the courses themselves looked great. One of the first things that caught my attention were the “tracks” left in the mud by the cars themselves. Rather than just looking flat, like most other racing games, they had depth and there was a distinct rumble from the controller when driven over.

As usual there’s an array of camera views to select from with the “bonnet” camera being my personal preference as I felt I had more control and could judge cornering better than if I were to use an external chase camera.

Overall this is looking like another fine addition to the Xbox 360’s repertoire of top class racing games and if you prefer the more “pick up and play” approach to racing games rather than the depth of something like Forza Motorsport then this is definitely something to watch out for.