Xbox 360 Game Demos

A little over a month ago, I bought an Xbox 360. In that time, I've bought a few games, but I've downloaded the demos for about a million more. Some are a lot of fun, others were a complete waste of time. I'm not going to comment on every game I've played so far, since I don't even remember or have much of an opinion on many of them, but here are my incredibly brief (I hope!) thoughts on most of the demos I downloaded and played over the course of the past month or so:

In no particular order...

Batman Arkaham Assylum
This is fun. The graphics are incredible and the fighting was awesome. But there are too many awkwardly placed puzzles that were more lame than they were fun. What was with the detective vision mode that basically tells you exactly what to do? More fighting, less detective stuff. Or, at least, have puzzles that make sense and are fun to solve. But download this one. It's cool.




Just Cause 2
This is a big GTA clone, but it takes place on a tropical island instead of in a city. Oh, and it's freakin' awesome. The entire point seems to be to blow lots of stuff up and cause as much damage as you can. It's crazy good fun. Download this one and have hours of fun. Someday, I'll probably even buy the real game.

Sonic Racing
Or some such title. It's a rip off of Mario Kart, only with Sega characters (you can even race as the Crazy Taxi or the Shenmue forklift!). The graphics are beautiful and it is a lot of fun, but I can't win a race to save my life. Is this a kid's game? Because it's freaking impossible to even place, let alone win. But other than that, it's fun.

Resident Evil 5
This is just like Resident Evil 4, only not that fun. Who wants a co-op RE game? Especially not with a computer-controlled partner. I just couldn't get into it. But the graphics are about the best I've ever seen in any game. It's truly gorgeous, just not that much fun.

Wolverine
I didn't actually play this, I just watched my girlfriend play it. But she seemed to be having fun, and I had fun watching. The graphics are neat and it's incredibly gory. But it looks like a standard button mashing beat 'em up, albeit one with Wolverine. Worth a look.

Dead Rising
You run around a mall, killing zombies. I'm sure the full game has more to it than that, but this demo doesn't give much more than that. It's... fun. I think this was a launch title for the 360, or close to it. And it shows. Wait for the sequel.

Brutal Legend
You play a roadie for a rock band that gets... sent to some alternate dimension that looks like it was based on some old 70s heavy metal album cover. This demo is super fun and actually had me laughing out loud at all of the jokes. Gameplay is standard beat 'em up style, but it's full of charm. Check it out.

Dirt 2
Rally racing game. Amazing graphics and good control. Check it out if you like rally racing games.

Battlefield Bad Company
Above average squad-based FPS. It was fun to shoot stuff and stuff. I love FPS, so I liked it.

NBA 2K10
Great basketball game. The genre has come a long way since Double Dribble on the NES. Anyway, this is good if you want a Basketball game. But, honestly, I prefer Double Dribble. When a basketball game has more buttons than just "pass" and "shoot," I get confused.

Rumble Roses Double X
Here's the premise: Hot, scantily clad chicks wrestling one another. It's an unplayable mess. Seriously, I wasn't able to get one move in before getting taken apart. Controls suck and the graphics are blocky and unappealing. Just getting to the game from the menu screen was confusing and annoying. Piece of crap.

Rocket Knight
This is an old-school side scroller on the Xbox Live Arcade. It's awesome, retro fun. Check it out if you want to play a cool platformer.

Splinter Cell Conviction
This is the first Splinter Cell game I've played since the first one back on the original Xbox... and it's off the hook! This game is tied with Just Cause 2 as the best demo I've played so far. I'll definitely pick this up for real one of these days. The graphics are amazing, the story seems cool, and it was just a ton of fun to play.

Split/Second
Racing game where you can destroy the environments to take down the other drivers. Beautiful graphics and tight control, but I didn't get it.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
This game seems cool. But are you a good guy or a bad guy? I don't get it. But you have a lightsaber and Force powers, so that's good fun. Seems like a pretty good Star Wars game.

Wet
Looks like a 70s exploitation film that plays like a John Woo movie. I didn't get it. The controls were just too wacky.

Blue Dragon/Eternal Sonata/Tales of Vesperia
It's impossible to judge an RPG based on a tiny demo, but here goes: Blue Dragon seems lame while the other two seem awesome. The fighting was cool and the graphics were amazing in both. If you like Japanese RPGs, they both seem like winners.

Iron Man 2
Unplayable piece of crap.

Dead Space
People love this game, but I didn't get into it. Lovely graphics, but I didn't find it much fun.