So I jumped onto Xbox live the other day and looked around in their demo section. I realized I was a little behind so I downloaded 3 games while watching my beloved Volunteers basketball team get the shit beat out of them by Vanderbilt. Luckily I had these demos to help me forget right? Hit the jump to see my impressions of these demos and what it could mean for the full game.

It may look generic, and it probably is, but that doesn’t stop Battlefield Bad Company 2 (BFBC2) from being a very fun game. Hit the jump for my impressions from the recently released Xbox 360 version of the multiplayer-only demo.

It’s less than 3 weeks until Left 4 Dead 2 is released and a public demo is due out tomorrow. However I was lucky enough to get a demo code for the Xbox 360 version last week and since then I’ve been playing through the demo’s two levels of “The Parish” throughout the weekend.

The demo is very similar to the original Left 4 Dead demo. You are put into one of the campaigns, in this case, “The Parish” and are allowed to play through some of it. The Left 4 Dead demo only gave you half of the second level where as this time the whole of the second level is available, which is nice. However, similar to the previous demo, it also lets you play through this part of the campaign online. However, there is no versus mode, which makes sense considering the demo can be completed in about 20-30 minutes on normal. Choosing to play as Coach/Uncle Phil on Advanced, I was ready to kill some zombies.

I was a big fan of Dragonball Z when I was a kid. Like any childhood cartoon, it seems a little silly looking back but as long as I had my daily dose of Toonami and people with gravity defying haircuts throwing each other through canyons then I was happy. So whenever I get the chance to play a new game based on the Dragonball franchise, I’ll usually give it a go. After all, it’s a perfect candidate for a fighting game, with the number of locations as well as the huge number of filler characters than no one care about. So when I saw a demo for the upcoming Dragonball: Raging Blast on Xbox Live, I gave it a go. After all, even though I hadn’t even heard of the game up until this point, it was only 281MB and it was Dragonball, so it couldn’t be too bad.

One download later, I booted up the demo and I was presented with the title screen accompanied by a delightfully cheesy and DBZ-esque theme song. The demo lets you pick from Goku, Piccolo and Raditz to fight 1 on 1 on a random valley of rocks, boulders and all of the typical scenery you’ve come to love in an episode of Dragonball  Z. The demo also lets you choose from two costumes for each character as well as letting you pick between regular Goku and Super Saiyan Goku. The costumes changes were laughable, with virtually no difference between the two. The worst was Goku, who’s second costume is just the same as the first but with a badge on his clothing. I’d waited enough by now though and it was time to fight.

I remember that when WET first announced, it was a pretty big game. I don’t remember why but I remember there was a lot of hype for the game. Well 2 years later and a publisher change have passed since WET was announced and it looks set to fly under the radar when it’s released next month. However a demo for the game has been released on XBL this week (PSN last week) and I’m willing to try most demos so around 600MB later and it was time to play the WET demo. Hit the jump for my impressions on the short but sweet demo.

Batman: Arkham Asylum has looked interesting ever since it was first announced. Clearly riding on the popularity of last year’s The Dark Knight, Batman: Arkham Asylum sets the adventure in you guessed it, Arkham Asylum. The story is being written by Paul Dini who worked on the excellent animated series of Batman back in the 90s and Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill and Arleen Sorkin all reprise their roles from the cartoon as Batman, The Joker and Harley Quinn. That being said, the game is set in it’s own universe and has no connection to the animated series. That being said, just hearing Hamill’s Joker again is brilliant. Anyway, with the game out at the end of the month, Eidos have put up a demo for the game on 360, PS3 and PC and I’m here to give my impressions on the 360 version. I’m not the only whore who’s played some of the game though and you can read Nikmonroe’s impressions on it here. That being said, let’s get started. I’M BATMAN!

The demo starts at the beginning of the game and gives us a nice cocktease with a beautiful rendition of the buildings and streets of Gotham City as we see the Batmobile driving to Arkham Island. We then cut to our Dark Knight in the car with The Joker next to him, taunting him a bit as he drives. The two get to Arkham Asylum and are greeted by Commissioner Gordon and Batman hands The Joker over to the guards to put him back where he belongs. Batman’s suspicious though, as The Joker gave up all too easily. He was right to be suspicious as The Joker escapes and all hell breaks loose as he takes over the asylum’s security. So begins one night that Batman won’t forget in a hurry.

Google image results for NCAA 10…I SWEAR
Being the only sports gamer(besides Vlambo) I felt it was my duty to write up my recent experiences with NCAA 10 for the 360. Since I decided not to buy 09 because of too many similarities with 08, I was definitely looking forward to the next iteration and to see if they had fixed some of the things that drove me crazy.

EA released the demo about a week ago, but I’m just now getting around to downloading it and trying it out and from the first game I played, and I must say it is a rather nice leap in gameplay over the last two.

Hit the jump to see if the demo is bearing fruit or not.

Overlord 2 is the sequel to the poor selling but critically acclaimed game Overlord which was released in 2007.  The game has you controlling a character known only as ‘The Overlord’ as he rises up from the hellish underground and uses his minions to take control of the land above.  The demo for Overlord 2 was released for  the Xbox 360 and PSN last week.  Hit the jump for my impressions of the game.

You might remember that one of my first posts on MWN was an impressions post for the Red Faction: Guerrilla beta that was taking place at the time. At the time I thought It had potential but it still had a bit to go. Well the game has been worked on since then and so we come to April, where myTHQ users could sign up for free and get the new single player Red Faction: Guerrilla demo for free. Being the loyal, hard working myTHQ member I am, I quickly took that offer and have now been playing the demo for about a week before everyone else got it yesterday. So how does it compare with the beta I’ve played?

Well first off if you’re looking for story then you’re not in the right place at all. Red Faction: Guerrilla may be brainless action, but it’s fun brainless action. So the story is pretty simple. Basically you’re on Mars and part of the Red Faction, a rebel group who is trying to start a revolution against the cliche evil EDF (Earth Defence Force?). We are never told why they’re evil, but they are so they’re the enemy. You also have the help of the miners, who are sick of the EDF’s oppression but are too scared it seems to have their own revolution so it’s up to you and your fellow dirty commies to help them go Viva La Revolution on the EDF’s arses.

You’ve heard me talk about this upcoming game a few times now and when I found out a demo for the game was going to be released last Thursday, I downloaded it as soon as I could. I mentioned in my article about this wrestlefest that while the game had potential, I wasn’t still sure on whether the actual gameplay or controls would be good, at least not until I played it. Luckily my fears have been eliminated. Find out why and more after the jump.

There’s something about demonic, ghostly or crazy little girls than seems to scare the shit out of us. The likes of the game industry and the film industry have noticed and have took advantage of this by including these scary demonic girls in their games and films. From The Shining to Silent Hill, we’ve been made to fear a little girl who also happens to be so deadly that they’d put Satan to shame. The latest little girl to enter the fray was Alma in Monolith’s F.E.A.R, which is a cross between Silent Hill and FPS games, only a bit better than Silent Hill Arcade. Now I never played the game at the time and I still haven’t, but I remember being interested in it when I read about the game one day as I was on a train journey. Well after getting the rights to the name back, Monolith are now close to releasing the sequel to the little girl filled horror, which is known as F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin. They’ve also kindly released a demo for the game on XBL, PSN and PC, for those sitting on the fence, like myself. Hit the jump as I encounter a school that would make Konami proud and punch the blood out of many marines before going Rambo with a mech.

So last Friday, Capcom gave Japan an early Christmas present by releasing a demo for the highly anticipated Resident Evil 5, which is due out in March of next year. The only problem was that you needed a Japanese account and a gold membership for said account.

Thanks to the Internet, I easily found out how to get that Japanese gold account and before I knew it, I was downloading the demo. One thing to note is that this was before the idea of burning the demo to a CD came out. Also, this demo is in English, so it’s strange why Capcom hasn’t released this demo already.

After finally managing to get early access to the Left 4 Dead demo last night, I shut the curtains, turned off the lights and sat down for what I hoped would be a great gaming experience.

Remember looking back on games you played when you were a kid and you think back to how awesome they are? There are a select few that even when you go play them again when you are older and wiser they are still just as awesome, well for me the Banjo-Kazooie series is one of these select few. I remember the first time I played Banjo-Kazooie on my N64 I was amazed and enthralled, I could not put the game down. I was both anxious and excited when Rare announced a third entry in the series was coming to the 360. I just had one concern, can the newest foray into Banjo-land live up to the expectations of the series?

Yesterday after waiting what seemed like an eternity thanks to my internet connection going batshit insane and slowing to a crawl, I got myself the Mirror’s Edge demo off the Xbox-Live Marketplace. To be honest I haven’t really been keeping track of the game, I knew the focus of the game was on parkour (free running) stunts but that was about it. After loading up the demo and giving it a go, what can I say, it’s fun as hell.