G-pinions

This month was alright, nothing special. I know the summers are slow in gaming, but you'd think that more publishers would want to demo their fall games right about now, especially since they'll most likely be buried under the flood of franchises otherwise. I know I'll be buying at least ten games this fall, so if a smaller publisher wants to get my attention, now's the time.

Demos:

NBA Ballers - For whatever reason this game never really appealed to me before, even with the pretty positive reviews it garnered. I guess I just can't get into the intense rap culture vibe this game sells itself on. That's not to say it's a bad game though - quite the opposite. The 1-on-1 basketball in the game is very well-done, and shockingly compelling. The gameplay is about as deep as, and somewhat similar to, the NBA Street series, and that's a huge compliment. The controls felt a bit less intuitive than said series, but I'm sure with an hour or so more of playing it I'd have them down cold. One thing that I do need to note is the ridiculously realistic player models. The animation is as good as any other basketball series, but the players themselves look downright phenomenal. For those people who are stupid, having only two players on the court instead of ten means you can put a lot more polygons into each of them; so, roughly, you could say that they are five times better looking than the average game model. When you pick your player in the menu, the image of their head is the most photo-realistic thing I have ever seen in a game. So, yeah, it's a good-looking game. It's also got online play in the final version, which I'm sure is a good time.

Serious Sam: Next Encounter - I'll say this much - it's superior to the X-Box version I recently purchased for $5. The load times are much faster, there are no game-halting glitches, and the combo-based FPS gameplay actually works. The hordes of creatures are much more intelligently placed, actually making it fun to plow through them and build up your combos. Still, saying that this game (as many critics have) harkens back to the good ol' days of simpler times with brainless FPSes is kind of a cop-out. The game is that, but that's not really a good thing. If you're going to make a game about sheer wall to wall killing, you need even more enemies, and even more firepower. Still, the game is fun, in the most mindless of ways. If you can get it for $10 or less, knock yourself out.

Galactic Wrestling: Featuring Ultimate Muscle: This used-to-be-a-Gamcube-game is apparently based on a series of tiny, fleshy wrestler figurines that I used to collect. Well, I remember them being a lot more fun than this game. I can assume something got lost in the translation from Gamecube, but I'm guessing this was more or less crap to begin with. The character designs are mildly interesting, as is the presentation (including the 'Gilbert Godfried with a megaphone' announcer), but the actual wrestling just feels sloppy and broken. You apparently have a decent amount of moves at your disposal, but attempting to pull them off was neither fun nor challenging - your wrestler pretty much does what he wants regardless. Poop.

The Red Star - Tom knows some dude at Acclaim who's working on this game, so I tried to play it with the most open mind possible while scrutinizing as much as I could. It's fun. It's nothing amazing, and only slightly more unique than most stuff I've played recently, but it's certainly playable. It's kind of a 3D side-scroller meets overhead shooter. Kind of. You basically trudge along horizantally in a quasi-3D fashion (think TMNT arcade game), shooting or fighting whomever you encounter. Shooting constantly is fun, but makes the game too mindless and easy, while fighting does the exact opposite. I'd definitely like to see that balanced a bit more before release. The level design was simple, but effective enough, with a consistent flow of bad guys to deal with and switches to flip. The best things about the demo, by far, were the mid-level and level bosses. Employing a pattern-based shooter method, you fight them as you would a boss in 1942 (the game, not the year), rather than the typical thugs that inhabit the rest of the level. The boss fights are fun and challenging, and feel like a 3D Contra done well. The worst thing about the demo was the sluggish walking speed. It really takes away from any sense of momentum the game has going, and just making wandering around a chore. They need a run button at the least if they expect me to play the final game.

World Tour Soccer 2005 - Soccer by 989. Get your shit together. 'Nuff said.

Siren - I don't like playing scary games. I can handle scary movies (unlike some people), but something about being in uncertain control of a scary situation myself just invokes some primal fear in me, and this extends to videogames. I force myself to play the Silent Hill game just because they're so damn good, and the odd Resident Evil here and there, but in general I steer clear. Anyhow, with that said, Siren seems pretty decent. The whole look and feel of the game is very nervous, with dim locales and sparse audio. It plays a bit like SH, only with a gimmick called "sight jacking" added into the mix. Basically, it comes down to you being able to see through the eyes of potential attackers (zombie-like creeps called Shibito - awesome name). it's creepy as shit, albeit not as useful as you'd think. And besides the off-putting 'Asian guy with a British accent', the cinemas as nicely done. If you're a fan of horror games, you'll probably dig it, although it's tough to judge such a game from a demo.

Everything Else -

They have a nice video showing off the camo features of MGS3, though it's a bit boring and looks badly compressed. They have the usual tips and downloads too, nothing special though. The monthly GT4 update is also ultra-lame with nothing but footage (no interviews, etc.). Though I must say, the new polygonal crowds look great. There's also a shitty Driver 3 (I refuse to use the real name) promo thingy video directed by Ridley Scott. It's weak.