Today I am going to be reviewing another 3 demos that were recently released on several platforms and check this out, they are all at least decent quality games.   The demos on the hot seat are, Patapon 2, Wolverine, and Ninja Blade.  Let’s jump right in.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine: So yes, another game based on the movie, but wait there is something different about this game….it doesn’t completely suck! Wolverine is 3-d platformer, for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC, with the most blood and gore I have ever seen in the genre.  This game is definitely not the one you show the kids at home.  The game starts off with Wolverine skydiving down to the jungle scene.  This is one of the few parts of the game that was poorly made.  You control Wolverine through his decent and it just feels really jagged and with this first impression I almost turned the game off.  Luckily, however I stuck through the pain, because his landing is a small piece of the larger pie of greatness that this game offers.  To break his fall, Wolverine lands on an enemy while ripping him to shreds with his blades.  And since the graphics of this game are significantly above par for a platformer, the murder was that much more enjoyable to watch.  Once the landing cinematic has ended you immediately go into combat.  Essentially this is a button mashing game that if you choose, you can learn the special combos to make yourself look “cooler” while killing your enemies, however either way will get the job done.  The difficulty level for the game is on the easy side, at least for the demo. Although I was unable to play any kind of boss, since the demo cuts you off right before the first boss battle, the overall game just seems like a cake walk.  But, what you do see in the demo is enough to make you want to play the full game.  In the demo you will learn certain moves that will allow you to leap onto enemies along with cinematic kill sequences, all of which make the game more fun to play, but also ten times easier to get through.  The game essentially becomes something you get to watch rather than play because the game play itself is repetitive and easy, but the graphics and cinematics are enough to keep you playing for hours, especially after seeing the epic helicopter interactive cinematic where you jump on to a helicopter mid flight and kill the pilot and jump back onto land before the helicopter runs off course and explodes.  So for a movie game, X-Men Origins: Wolverine performs much better than others we have seen in the past.  I give this game [7.5 hijacked helicopters out of 10]

Ninja Blade: Ninja Blade is a low marketed game Ninja that is surprisingly well made.  I know I know, another Ninja game, but this particular Ninja game is one of its kind. The game is based around a story where large mutant insect like creatures have taken over the city of Tokyo.  You play as a ninja, but again I assure you this is not just another ninja game, it’s more bad ass than that.  You start off jumping off from the back of a plane and skydiving (this seems to be a popular opening) your way down to the city.  You come across a few enemies on your way down, which you kill with one button commands in a very bloody and cinematic way. Upon landing, which involves you breaking a few windows of a skyscraper and landing as if you weren’t falling in the first place, you have your first on foot combat.  However, don’t get to comfortable because within 5 minutes you are running down the side of the building away from an over sized spider while killing mutant birds on your way down.  The demo ends with a boss battle which is against the large spider creature.  This may be the only down side to the game.  Although the boss battle is graphically pleasing and action packed, it is also very long and tedious.  It is designed so that you have to learn the pattern of the boss and you repeatedly do the same attacks until he finally dies.  Now there are a few different scene changes during the battle in order to keep you entertained, but it still can be seen as just a tedious task.  The difficulty of the demo didn’t seem hard, however, I could easily see a progression of difficulty as you make your way through the game.  One of the unique things about the game that you notice at the beginning is the game’s understanding of human error.  During one button cinematics, because the action prompt is presented to you very quickly, if you press the wrong button or don’t press the button in time, the game gives you a chance to try it again.  This gets rid of the frustration the game could of caused and also a repetitive cinematic scene.  Overall, the game is very entertaining, the controls are well laid out, and the story seems it could easily hold a plot.  If the boss fights weren’t so tedious this may have been a must have game, however instead I will be giving it [8 mutilated creatures out of 10]

Patapon 2: Patapon 2 is the second installment of Patapon, which was released in February of last year.  Patapon was one of the best reviewed games for the PSP by multiple gaming websites such as Gamespot and IGN.  If you have never played the Patapon series, let me let you in on a couple of things.  Patapon is a rhythm based game in which you play as squiggle like characters that are a part of a Patapon tribe.  Throughout the game you learn different 4 beat rhythms that allow your tribe to perform different actions.  For example, a [ ], [ ], [ ], O beat combo will allow your tribe to move forward, and a O, O, [ ], O will allow your tribe to attack.  So at the start of the demo you are welcomed to the Patapon tribe as a God that helps the tribe conquer all of their enemies. You go through a tutorial session on how to play the game and then you jump in with full force.  You travel through a 2-D world contently charging, attacking, and defending  against enemies by using the beat combos.  The demo allows for about 5 or 6 playable levels in story mode and overall becomes a huge teaser even though it will take you 30 minutes to an hour to complete the demo depending on your experience with Patapon, which is pretty long for a demo on a hand held system.  However, this teaser of a demo does its job.  It grabs your attention and gives you one of the funnest video game experiences in your life so that once you finish your 30 minute session you get up and go to the store and buy the full game.  Personally, I have never played a demo on PSP as fun as Patapon 2.  This hand held game has it all, a great story, addictive game play, and beautiful art.  I give this game [9 tribal beats out of 10]

All of these games have already been released and I recommend all these games atleast for atleast a rental if not a purchase.  I just bought my new copy of Patapon 2.

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