Marketplace Round-up

Lots of new game demos on the marketplace:

 

Conan - Played through this one once.  It was ok.  On one hand, the graphics look pretty bland.  The water looks laughably bad.  As in PSone quality.  Seriously, I guess after having just played through Halo 3 and Bioshock, I have been spoiled by some impressive looking water.  The water in Conan looks like they didn't even try.  The one thing the game does very well is the animation.  The animation was fantastic.  The lip-syncing during cutscenes was better than I expected as well.

 

F.E.A.R. (Files?  F.E.A.R. 2?  Can't remember the name) - A semi-sequel or expansion pack to F.E.A.R..  I played it only for about 5 minutes, died, and did not feel like trying it again.  The game looked and felt extremely dated.  Again, maybe it is because I am coming off Halo 3 and Bioshock, but this game just looked terrible.  I shouldn't be so harsh on a demo, but it did not hold my interest.

 

Thrillville - I enjoyed playing the one mini-game where you are on a dirt bike and can do stunts.  All the others ones were boring.  Not impressed.

 

Crash of the Titans - Terrible.  Seemed like a very generic, by the numbers platformer.  Did not have any fun playing it.

 

The Simpsons Game - I played this one on the PS3 (it came out before the Marketplace one).  I went in not expecting much and came away pleasantly surprised.  The graphics are very faithful to the show and the writing and dialogue are perfect.  I laughed out loud several times.  I am a huge Simpsons fan, so that helped.  The gameplay seems pretty shallow and it will get boring quickly, but I had a good time with the demo.

 

Jericho - Graphics are pretty impressive (although maybe a bit too dark, adjust the gamma in options).  Gameplay was ok and changing to each character on the fly was unique.  The "Quick Time Event" in the demo, where you need to press controller buttons as they appear on the screen, was way unexpected.  If they are all going to be like that in the game I see players dying the first time, every time.  Gotta be a better way to do it.  Can't say this game is in my purchase radar at the moment, but it looks nice.

 

PGR4 - Downloaded it, but I have not tried it yet.  I really enjoyed PGR3 so I am hoping for the best.

 

Some game from Koei - This is a huge demo, almost a 2 gig download.  And I did not find it entertaining at all.  Of course, these types of games aren't my "thing".

 

There have a been a few more, but I have long since deleted those and cannot remember what they were.  Couldn't have been any good or I would have remembered them.  =)