First off is a demo of Bodycount, published by Codemasters and made by the creators of Black (Criterion). In a nutshell this first person shooter is pretty much Black 2.0 with a different storyline and setting. The gameplay premise is still similar to Black in which there are lots of destructible environments and you shoot at explosive barrels to kill enemies. As a shooter, Bodycount has some unique ideas such as leaning while aiming with your ironsights at any spot. This mechanic feels a little of sluggish when you're shooting as it should of been something done while in cover, which you can do as well. As a shooter, the core is unoriginal from a pointless scoring system, guns lacking that umph when it comes to sound, and unpolished graphics (then again, its a demo so who knows if the final game improved that). At the end of the day, Bodycount is just another FPS trying to be competitive with the other juggernauts, but you rather play those than this one, which is indeed the case.
The other demo of note to talk about is for Warhammer 40K: Space Marine, which comes out next week. Space Marine is one of the most unoriginal titles for a game yet, but it is not as bad as you think title alone. This is a third person action game with shooting and melee elements as it was known as "Gears of War without cover." Hordes of Orcs will come and attack you as you can easily die if you're not careful. As heavily armored as these space marines are, going guns blazing is a bad idea in this game. There are conventional weapons to choose from a pistol with infinite ammo, machine gun, shotgun, etc. The demo sections are pretty linear, but some areas can be really dark as I had to turn up the brightness to the maximum at one point to keep progressing. Other than that, it is a pretty standard third person game with mechanics seen in similar games such as the ability to go berserk (they called it Fury here) for a limited time, rechargeable health, but you gain lost health by executing enemies Gears style. The jetpack level in the demo is a nice touch allowing the main guy to rock a jetpack to pound on enemies from the air. Space Marine is not really doing anything new, but it is not that bad of a game people think at first.
Other than those two, there's a NHL 12 demo out this week as well, but there's nothing to note other than its hockey and the it is still gonna be the hockey game to get this year (well the only one basically since 2K Sports doesn't make NHL2K anymore). I have the Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 demo as well, which I still need to try out. That demo is also self-explanatory because its soccer and those games tend to control the same as it comes down to you preferring that or FIFA 12, which is arguably EA's best sports franchise now (you can argue for NHL 12 as well, but we'll also see with the Madden reviews tomorrow). Since I don't have Playstation Plus anymore, I didn't play the Resistance 3 multiplayer beta even though I heard bad things about it.
