The past couple of days have given us some spiffy demos of high profile upcoming Xbox 360 Games. Such games include Stranglehold, Bioshock, and Beautiful Katamari.
Stranglehold is directed by John Woo and stars Chow Young Fat as hot headed cop, Tequila, on a one man mission to take down the Chinese mafia plaguing the streets of Chicago. Stranglehold prides itself on being the best stereotypical action-packed cop B movie game there is. The Demo is pretty much the first level, and you fly through it shooting up Chinese mafia guys.
After playing through the demo again, I've starting noticing the little things that really make this game shine. As said above, it prides itself on being stupid and cliche. As such, you can do numerous amounts of cheesy action moves to kill your foes, which is facilitated by slow-motion gunfire known as Tequila Time. Whenever you're doing a cheesy action move, and have some Tequilla Time remaining, time will slow down, and you can pull off your shots. There's also things in the environment to aid you. You can shoot down Neon signs into enemies, or ignite exploded barrels near enemies.
The Demo can be pretty fun, but it all gets old pretty quick once you've unlocked all the Tequila Time moves. Deep down, the game is pretty stupid, and is saved by the fact of how laughable it is. I don't know why anyone in their right mind would pay full price for this game, let alone, the special collector's editions. dull.
Next up, I played the Bioshock demo. Bioshock is one of the three most anticipating 360 exclusive titles this fall, along with Halo 3 and Mass Effect. It's also the spiritual sequel to System Shock 1 and 2 for the PC. Bioshock prides itself on its immersive gameplay and countless game altering decisions made by the gamer, although you see none of this in the Demo.
The world of Bioshock takes place in Rapture, a Utopian type society underwater away from the world of 1960. You are Jack, who happens upon this world when your plane crashes into the ocean. (haha.. lost ripoff). The world is very stylized in a 1960s feel, too. Something in the world of Rapture has gone wrong, and find yourself stuck in the middle of a war between the Utopians and the citizens. When you get in the world of rapture, the first you need to do is defend yourself, so grab that crobar.. i mean, wrench and start bashing away at aliens.. i mean, crazy people. The intro is very derivative of half-life.
The similarities between Half-life and Bioshock end there, though, and you move through the falling apart city, searching for a way out, guiding by the guy on the other end of your walkie talkie. From what people have been saying about the game, the Demo must not give the game much credit at all. The Demo was actually pretty boring, aside from the 60s style architecture, music, videos.. pretty much 60s everything. I think renting it would give you a better impression.
Lastly, i played the Beautiful Katamari demo, which followed the same lines of mediocrity. Beautiful Katamari offers nothing that isn't present in the previous two or three games. You roll around, pick up stuff, and beat the level. The graphics are tighter, but the controls feel a little weird compared to the Playstation... nothing you can't get used to though.
All in all, these demos are up on the marketplace, so you should check 'em out for yourself. I'd say that Stranglehold gives you the best impression of what the full game will actually be like.
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On the Nintendo side of things, the Metroid preview was updated yesterday, and eluded to some very interesting story elements. The preview indicated the emergence of the Aurora project, which fused organic brain material into super computers. These super computers could be of either gender..
Mother Brain?.. hello
Their whole month of Metroid marketing plan is beginning to make even more sense now. Rereleasing the previous Metroid games which actually dealt with Mother Brain as the main villain. It also gives the impression that these 3 Metroid games are imperative to the overall story of Metroid, and the others were more like side missions. Not to say that, Metroid 2 wasn't important, but just important enough that Super Metroid can tell you about it.
It's rather interesting that the Metroid series forms another parallel to the Zelda series by doing this. I mean, Metroid NES is nothing more than a side-scroller space-themed Legend of Zelda, in the first place. But the most recent Legend of Zelda gave the impression of what games were actually important in the series, and which ones were merely side stories.
Twilight Princess basically told me that there are 4 main Legend of Zelda games: Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, and Twilight Princess. Will Metroid Prime 3 basically tell me that there are 3 main Metroid games? Metroid, Super Metroid, and Metroid Prime 3? I'd like to think they pull Metroid Prime 1 into that list though..
Anywho, check out the new videos on the Wii. 2 more videos are coming on Thursday. ^_^