Old Reviews

I'm away for two weeks, so to fill the gap here are some quick notes on some notable demo experiences I have had in the past few years, before I started this website.

Clive Barkers Jericho (PC) - I thought this was a pretty terrible demo. It stats half way through game where I would think you would be expected to be proficient at switching characters and using their powers. Muddy graphics which made it easy to get lost at points and an uninteresting story aside, it was the tricky Quick Time Event that really put me off this game.

Fight Night Round 3 (360) - This demo made me buy the game. I would never have thought to give a boxing title a second look but this came out early on in the Xbox 360's life and seeing as how I was the only person I knew with the console, I was looking for content to show off to my friends. This was great fun to play with a control scheme that allowed players to jump right in easily but deep enough to take time to master it. And becoming a master had the fantastic payback of being able to pull of some truly devastating punches that the graphics and sound convincingly delivered. One arena and two characters to choose from game you enough of a taste, and even though it wasn't clear there would be any more on offer, (turns out you have to heal wounds between rounds in the full game for example,) it was clear this was a must buy for me, even if it ended up just being pulled out on boozy nights with friends, (which it didn't. I took my character all the way up to the championship!)

BioShock (PC, 360) - People were raving about this title and raising the hype, but it wasn't really on my radar until near release. I played the demo on Xbox 360 first and figured it would be a game I would like. Before buying I then got the PC demo via Steam to see if it would run better there, (FPS's are easier to control with a mouse,) but decided to go with 360. So the demos in this case gave me a controlled method of testing in which format to make my purchase. It ended up being a great game, but I wish I hadn't read so much about it before hand.

Burnout Paradise (PS3, 360) - This is one that I actually helped work on so I was viewing this one from a different perspective. I was impressed with what the team had put together and it was great to talk to other players about what they thought. I hadn't played a Burnout title before but this game looked great, the crashes were immense and the online multiplayer was seemless and fun so I definitely would have picked this one up as a consumer. It would still be in my 360 now if my console were not out for repair at the moment.