This past weekend, anime fans took over the Jacob Javits Center once again for the annual New York Anime Festival. Many anime companies were there such as Tokyo-Pop, ADV, and Bandai Entertainment to name a few. But there was one company that not only was showing off their latest Devil May Cry anime, they were also showing off the latest chapter in their successful Devil May Cry video game. Of course I’m talking about Capcom. And the game of course is Devil May Cry 4.

Check out my hands-on impressions as well as some gameplay footage straight from Devil May Cry 4 after the break.

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In my mind, game demos should do three things: show me what the gameplay is like, give me a little bit of the story, leave me wanting more, and (adding an optional fourth) completely blow me away. Unfortunately, it’s rare that a demo accomplishes more than the first two, and more often than not I wish I hadn’t even bothered playing them. But that’s just what makes the Crysis single-player demo such a treat, since just this one little demo is more fulfilling than a number of complete games I’ve played. It’s honestly more fun replaying this demo multiple times than playing through the entire game of Crash of the Titans…not a difficult feat admittedly, but impressive nonetheless. Read the full article »

PS3 owners got The Simpsons Game demo love last week, but today Xbox 360 owners can get their chance to experience some of the game in action. The Simpsons Game demo is now available for download through Xbox Live, and it gives you a little taste of what to expect from a next-gen game based on America’s favorite yellow-skinned family. So what can you expect? Hilarity and uneven gameplay it would seem. Read the full article »

The demo for horrormeister Clive Barker’s Jericho hit Xbox Live, the Playstation Network, and various websites on PCs today. I’ve become more curious about this game lately as more information is released for it. Besides the creepy setting and enemies, you have a whole squad of characters with different psychic abilities and skills that can be used to devastating effect. So I decided to sit down and run through the PC version of the demo to see if the full game might be worth picking up when it comes out. Read the full article »

Prepare yourselves, ye who purchase The Orange Box, for you may just purchase your next gaming addiction. How do I know this? Because I spent two hours playing the Team Fortress 2 beta last night, even after I initially said to myself, “Man, I should really get to bed.” Thank God for coffee. Yes, Team Fortress 2 is really that much fun and that easy to jump into. I never really played the first Team Fortress, so I can’t really say how it stacks up. But trust me when I say that this game will be a joy for any fan of online first-person shooters. Read the full article »

Overall Rating 8.7/10

Sometimes creativity seems to skip over PSP titles, but this is not the case with Dead Head Fred. Vicious Cycle and D3 Publisher of America’s action game is perhaps one of the most enjoyable and unique titles to come to the PSP. An 8.7 may not seem like a high rating, but there honestly aren’t many PSP titles that go above it.

The Background

You play as detective Fred Neuman, who was brutally murdered and brought back as a bizarre creation of science. You have no memory, or head for that matter. The game instantly throws you into some intense combat as you collect different heads and fight a unique set of monsters and bosses. If you like stories of revenge and redemption, Dead Head Fred doesn’t disappoint. The game case describes the game as “a classic tale of murder, corruption, revenge… and interchangeable heads!” That pretty much sums it up. The story is really the best aspect of this title.
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Steve gave us all a heads up last week, and today was the day the demo for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars was unleashed upon the world to much rejoicing. FileFront has the official demo available for download now, which features the Valley map, one of the largest maps in the game. But you may be asking yourself whether you should bother with the demo, wait until the full release, or just skip the game altogether. So to help you out with that decision, I just spent the past two hours getting to know some of the finer points of the demo. And what do I think about the game now? It’s good…scary good. Read the full article »

New demos seem to be a daily happening on the Xbox Live Marketplace, and today is no different. Sports fans can hop onto the Marketplace today and download a demo of NBA Live 08 (562 MB). After last year’s absolutely atrocious outing, EA Sports really needed to release a solid demo to regain any semblance of confidence in the NBA Live brand.

The demo sticks you on the court for a shootaround with Gilbert Arenas, allowing some time to adjust to the game’s controls and new features before heading into a real game. Playing as either San Antonio, Cleveland or two international teams, you’ll have two two-minute quarters to sample the game before being kicked back to the dashboard – which is incredibly annoying, because if you want to play another game (which, if you’re actually interested in the game, you will) you’ll need to go to the demos area in the dashboard, find the NBA Live 08 demo, and boot it again (with subsequent load times, natch).

Check after the break for my impressions of the demo.

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I should probably preface my impressions of the Bounty Bay Online open beta by saying I’m not really into MMOs. It’s not that I have anything against them; I just haven’t seen one that looked like it could hold my interest for longer than the first monthly fee. But I thought, hey, this one’s got pirates, you get to explore new lands, and the beta’s free. That should be a lot of fun, right? Wrong. I don’t know if it’s my inexperience with MMOs, but I haven’t been this bored with a game in awhile.

You start out of course by creating your character, first by choosing between a scantily or conservatively clad male or female character. Then you choose from several faces and hair colors before hitting the open seas. You have the option of running through a tutorial at first, which introduces you to the basics of the game. By that, I mean the absolute, bare minimum basics of the game. It took only a few minutes to run through, before I was left on my own, totally confused as to what I should be doing. I guess that’s kind of the point — that you can decide whatever you want to do — but why bother. There’s no story driving this world you’re playing in. You’re just some guy trying to make his own way in the world. Read the full article »

Activision recently held an event in a bar / nightclub in Hollywood with Infinity Ward at hand ready to show off the Call of Duty 4 multiplayer beta. The evening did have a couple of glitches, mainly the fact that instead of having multiple multiplayer games going on at the same time, they were only able to have one game up and running due to some router issues. Aside from that, the game experience was one I wish everyone reading this could have experienced.

When players first start the Call of Duty 4 multiplayer, they are only allowed to select from a couple of pre-defined classes: Assault, Heavy Gunner, Covert Ops, Demolition & Sniper. When you reach level 4, that’s when the “Create a class” feature is unlocked in the multiplayer menu, and that’s where this portion of the game really shines. The more you play, the more weapons and perks you can unlock for you to use during multiplayer matches. Infinity Ward made sure to inform us there are tons of unlockables for players to achieve through fighting many a multiplayer battle and created the multiplayer this way in order to introduce players to the multiplayer experience properly, rather than throwing us into the game with hundreds of features without knowing what we really should be doing.

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