Clean Up On Aisle 360!

I've been pretty engrossed in other stuff like the recent Transformers movie hype and even more so in all things Harry Potter, so I'd collected quite a few unplayed demos from Xbox Live. 20GB being the gaming equivalent of having a shot glass to drink a pint of Ye Olde English Best, I decided last weekend it was time to play some of these damn demos and get them off my 360's hard drive!

First up on the chopping block was Project Sylpheed. It's been out in the shops here forever, but only recently released in the States. So now Japan gets the demo, too. Huh. Well that makes sense... And people wonder why 360 does so great in Japan (^_^).

I never bothered with Sylpheed when it came out here last winter because it looked like just another anime style cheap cash-in like all those simple 1 on 1 fighters or mecha games that BandaiNamco have been churning out the factory since the Dawn of Tiiiiiime. It's actually a fairly decent, sped up version of Colony Wars with an attractive coat of anime paint. The controls are complicated, but practice makes you less of a Monkian. I probably would buy it were not for Sylpheed handing me my ass back all the time. It takes a lot of practice and retries to figure out what weapon does what, and you can't carry all of them at once, so restarting the mission is required till you can try them all out. It's also hard to tell who the smeg is who in the melee. It's great that Squenix have created these massive space battles, but more needs to be done to make it easier to distinguish targets from friendlies. Maybe I'll pick it up if it's half price. Come to think of it, it probably already is considering how popular 360 is here in Japan!

Do you want to delete this content?

Yes <----

No.

Oh hell yeah!

Next up... Stranglehold, a.k.a. Hard Criscoed a.k.a Charlie Chan and the Creosote Factory. Screw Gears of War (actually, screw GoW anyway, it's not bad, but it is vastly overrated), this sets a new level for just sheer background detail. In this Hong Kong backstreets demo level, there is a megafuckton of shootable objects, market stalls, neon kanji shop signs and scaffolding. The hero, modelled on Chow Yun Fat, is a detailed 3D character but with textures that appear to have been roughly sewn on, similar to (but not quite as obvious as) a patchwork quilt. Probably it's just an odd side effect of the pits and grooves they put on him to make him look worn and dirty. And what's with the graphics engine making him appear to be covered in creosote?!

I thought this was going to be a stupid Max Payne clone, but it's actually pretty cool. I initially laughed at how Tequila bum slid over every fricking' object at waist height - I'd get confused by the sudden acceleration of ass sliding over tables when I didn't intend to, try to change direction and end up repeatedly sliding the opposite way and back again! Could have used that as "looped" footage for a music video with scratching in it!(^_^)

The ludicrously over the top gunplay was satisfying once the controls are gotten used to. Tequila Time was especially fun, as it recharges quicker than the shoot dodge meter in Max Payne. I soon had the hang of shooting and diving, and it made me feel like God in this game. It'd be great if they made a DLC level (or maybe it's already in the full game as an Easter egg?) of the final hospital duel from the original movie Hard Boiled, but at full speed (you go into slo-mo when you use Tequila Time).

That. Would. Blow. My. Mind.

With white doves flying in the foreground...(^_^)

A definite buy, but I'd rather wait for the limited edition PS3 version which I heard has Hard Boiled included. Unfortunately, that means missing out on Achievements! I also need to be able to actually afford a PS3 first! Babies are expensive...

Delete.

Hmm... Viva Pinata demo... well, I just bought the groovily-packaged Limited Edition Asian version on the cheap from Play Asia last month (haven't played it yet, but it was half price, so I had to get it whilst it was on sale!), so not much need for this demo. But I had a quick look to see what it was like in Japanese (I have a habit of hoarding dual versions of games sometimes so I can compare localisations!). Oh. It autodetected my 360 menu settings and set the demo to English... hmm, nice graphics! And a regional British accent... Don't see that everyday in video games... Delete.

4 more to go... let's try... Stuntman Ignition. When I hear the word "stunt", I often am reminded of something that scarred me for life when I was a child - the bearded cross dressing shenanigans of comedian Kenny Everett as his character Cupid Stunt.

Love that name(^_^). Anyway, Stuntman. I remembered the previous games got mediocre scores, so I ignored them, though the idea of trying to drive the prefect stunt sequence through a movie set sounded like a great idea. This was a fairly good demo, with 2 or 3 stages, one seemingly ripped off from based on the execrable movie Volcano. Or Dante's Peak, take your pick. The car drives like one from Ridge Racer in grip mode, so no 360 spins without trying really hard! It's easy to miss a spot or a skid you have to drive through, so I soon earned "fuck up points", too many of which force a restart. There are also some instant "death" restart points, too, such as landing the car in the lava floes. Whoops! (^_^;
Overall, not bad, but not fun enough to make me want to buy it when there's Halo 3, Bioshock and Metroid Prime 3 around! You're outta there! Delete!

So, Blazing Angels 2. Didn't play the first, and I don't think I missed very much by not doing so. The demo was pretty fun, but like Sylpheed, finding targets in the murky countryside, amongst the trees or against the dark blue ocean was sometimes frustrating, especially in the final escort mission of the demo, where you essentially have a time limit (i.e. kill everyone before the flotilla you're escorting gets mullahed). Fun singleplayer for a "free" demo, but multiplayer was boring as hell. Few players over a wide open deathmatch area = falling asleep at the stick! Delete! Now!

And then there were 2... next was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Liked the movie a lot (even went to see it twice!), despite the disappointingly numerous cuts made from the book (GRRR...).
Wow, 1.3GB demo. Must be a pretty long demo, right? Wroooooong. EA, if you're going to make such a humangously(sic) huge demo, please, please, please for the love of (insert religious preference here!) don't put a 5 bloody minute time limit on it. That's just plain asinine. I literally only had enough time to float a couple of school benches around with Wingardium Leviosa, play a quick game of gobstones (but not really get what what I was doing) and walk into the Great Hall before the demo timed out. That's barely enough time to get the controls down, let alone get hooked on the game. I doubt there are many people who haven't already decided if they're going to buy this or not before playing the demo, but 5 minutes for such a large download is ridiculous. I know I'd like to go into the shop having played enough to know I'm buying a game I like, even though I probably would buy this anyway, Harry Potter whore that I am. As it is, despite the good reviews, I think I'll wait to get it 2nd hand or at less than half price to lower the risk. In the meantime, I'd love to replay the demo but for that fucking crass time limit... DELETE!

Last one! Phew! And it is... Beautiful Katamari. I wonder if the Japanese title is pronounced the same or has it been changed to the more common in Japanese "beautifo-".
I love the Katamari series' style. Crazy music and characters, quirky, Kubrick-esque graphics... but what's so great about the gameplay? It's kinda fun rolling sundry crap into a huge ball for 3 minutes... but over the course of an entire game? It'll take more than this demo to convince me. Sorry King of All Cosmos, you're a funny, spandex outfit wearing dude, but... delete.

Sweet. 13.6GB free. Nice!

Thanks for reading this far. I know it was a long journey!(^_^)