Kane & Lynch: Dead Men Demo
An OK demo. I guess I was kinda interested in this one, just based on the concept of two crazy hitmen forced to team up. Supposedly has 2P co-op, which I'm always up for.

I think my patience for FPS-style controls on a console is just about up. I trained myself to control Warhawk because I really like jumping into one of those fancy planes, but this kind of non-compelling FPS stuff does not inspire me to master it. I mean, I was certainly capable... hiding behind pillars as I led a squad of killers through a presumably corrupt business office... but it was still more of the same not-impressive gameplay that led me straight out of the demos for The Darkness and Timeshift. I bet the story is cool and I would dig it, but I don't feel like fighting the camera to find out.

Games like Kane & Lynch are trying to differentiate themselves from each other, but it seems like the genre hit the ceiling years ago. It's all about fine-tuning the experience at this point, and if you do that well (like, say, Half-Life 2?) you're a hit... but if you don't, it's just another pile of meh.

I did like the odd psychological audio flashbacks that happen as you die (I don't even recall if I was Kane or Lynch in the demo)... you get little snippets of a previous conversation, of some remembered poignant drama with a child, etc. But like the kooky time-manipulation in Timeshift, it's just not enough to make me care about dropping the $60 on the full version.

Devil May Cry 4 Demo
I've been away from this series for a long time. I bought the first one when it went Greatest Hits, which was right when the second one came out. Never finished it because it was really sick hard. This demo plays exactly as I remember, which isn't bad to see, I guess.

It's a timed demo. You have ten minutes to get from wherever to wherever. Had a reasonable amount of enjoyment attempting to do that. Certainly looks fantastic, although once again you keep walking into the same stupid bad guy models every three feet.

Didn't really plan on getting this pre demo, and not sold on it after demo. When it comes to Next Gen Games That Play Exactly Like Last Gen But Just Look Better, I've already hit maximum with Ratchet & Clank. I expect more, people. At this point, I'm more into playing games that look last gen but play differently, like Endless Ocean. Endless Ocean.

Burnout: Paradise Demo
Like I said before, this is a fantastic demo. In fact, it's so great that I actually feel like I've gotten enough Burnout out of it that I don't need to buy it. Don't tell anybody at EA that I said that. I'm hoping that I'll stumble into this on sale soon - like, before they announce a sequel.

I guess I'm getting choosy, because I'd rather pick this up at a discount than be there on launch week. It's just a car game, and I haven't yet seen any review mention that one mythical feature that's going to convince me that I need the full purchase. Has anybody said if you can play your HD-stored music in the game? Seriously, that should be Point One. We're at Target all the bloody time, so I'll probably notice when they drop it to $37 for a weekend.

Fun game, though. I wish more people owned the stupid PSEye camera because mugging for the You Killed Me shots is silly-great.

PixelJunk Monsters
Ooh, ooh, ooh. Great stuff. I guess you'd call it retro simply because it's a one-screen, 2D, small scale game, but it's really good. On sale for $8 through Sony's good-luck-finding-anything-older-than-last-week Online Store.

You're in a forest, charged with protecting your home base full of I don't know what they are, Kids? Townspeople? Sages? Whatever. Waves of various enemies come out according to specific timed intervals, and you have to build towers to kill them all off before they reach your base. The towers come in a bunch of different types (varying cost and ability) but they attack the baddies automatically, so all you have to do is strategize which ones to build and where to put them. My kind of game, the passive-aggressive type.

It's also hard right away. A lot of puzzle games make you burn through 10+ levels of brain-dead-easy levels before getting to the hard stuff. Not so here. I was already failing out on the second Easy level, and at this date, I can't beat the first Medium board. And in order to open new paths, you need to clear a level with no Kid deaths... which is nuts.

So, affably challenging and highly recommended.

Super Stardust HD Demo
If I did not already buy Everyday Shooter, I would buy this one. It's probably better than Everyday, but I can't see spending out again for essentially the same game.

The big advantage on Super Stardust is that you can have it play your own music while you gun asteroids and space aliens and whatnot. This game has been out for a while, but they only posted a demo version a few weeks ago.

I got Everyday during the holiday $5 sale. If Sony drops this to $5, then I'll bite, but $10 is too much... I'd rather put that into Rock Band tracks.