Xbox Gamer

Ok I think I might start giving recent demo summaries. For list #1 I will be covering Halo Wars & Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. (both of which are worth checking out by the way). Ok I’ll start off with Halo Wars, the infamous Halo RTS game for the Xbox 360. The demo lets you savor it quite well and proves that the 360 can handle an RTS. I was actually shocked at how well it was pulled off as normally console RTS games are not good at all. If you’re familiar with RTS games the learning curve is not that bad, you just have to remember that it’s not WarCraft!

My favorite part was running over enemies with my Warthog unit. As for the difficulty, I played it on normal and it was fair. Although like all RTS, the real challenge will probably lurk online. Overall I’d say Halo Wars is a solid RTS and will probably not disappoint you if you’re looking for a good Halo themed RTS. As for H.A.W.X., I’m not a big fan of flight games to be honest. However, I did find this game to be somewhat fun. It seems to target both the flight sim fanatic as well as the curious gamer who’s not really familiar with this genre as the learning curve is not that bad. And if you’re wondering how it is compared to the first Blazing Angels, I personally liked H.A.W.X. more, but keep in mind that they cover different time periods as well as goals. H.A.W.X. is obviously more futuristic. I suggest you get the demo for yourself to get a better idea as these flight games are not my strong point.

Another demo worth checking out is the one for Afro Samurai which I did not mention in this post but is still fun as well.

According to MetaCritic.com, this game is currently boasting a score of 93/100!

That’s quite good as normally you’d expect these 2D to 3D games to not live up to the hype, especially since the previous Street Fighter games were actually good. I unfortunately have not been able to play it yet but I do have a friend that recently purchased the collector’s edition so maybe I’ll be able to test it out if he invites me over. He said he was impressed with it, so I’ll have to find out for myself. However, from the reviews, without a doubt this game got good reception from most well known game review sites. IGN gave it a 93 and usually they are pretty accurate from what I’ve seen, although I imagine that if you weren’t a fan of the original Street Fighter then maybe this game won’t be as impressive..

As a reminder, there’s a HD remake of Street Fighter on the Xbox 360 arcade, so if you can’t afford IV yet you might be able to buy the HD remake in the meantime. If any reader has played IV, feel free to leave a comment and tell us how it is!

Uusually I’m not fond of these puzzle type games, but this one was actually quite fun. I was at first expecting the game to let you play as the purple creature, and eat everything in sight, however it’s a bit different than that. From what I saw in the trial, you can only play as the alien creature who controls The Maw via a leash. So technically you’re indirectly controlling The Maw. As for eating everything in sight, that is somewhat true and it’s also where the puzzle aspect of the game is introduced. Some creatures can’t be eaten right away, you might have to do something to them by picking them up with the leash or having The Maw grow to the next stage to be able to eat them. I won’t give away too much as I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who has not played the game yet. I highly recommend giving the trial a download as it’s quite an interesting game. Unfortunately I’ve heard that the full version was rather short, but it does seem like an enjoyable experience. Overall, I’d have to play the full version to give it a more fair evaluation but from the trial it did seem like a good game and hopefully if they do make a sequel, it would be nice to see some sort of multiplayer mode. Perhaps a race to see who’s Maw can eat the most in a certain time span or something of that nature.