Demos

Lately i've been lost in a sea of demos. Double Dragon Neon has convinced me to give the Playstation Store a harder look, so I did. I've downloaded demos for everything from Blade Kitten to Rochard, and most of what's been sampled is impressive. It's become almost an addiction.

It probably seems kind of cheap to write about demos instead of full games, but I'm still working on playing those six or so I mentioned earlier, and this is what I've been doing otherwise.

If there were two games that stuck out, they'd have to be Rochard, and Sideway: New York.

In Rochard, you're a space trucker and miner who's gone four years without hitting anything worth digging. Eventually, you find a pretty strange structure underground, and all sorts of hell starts breaking lose.

The game is a puzzle/platformer, and the puzzles, at least in the demo, are fun as hell. The main mechanic in the game is a gravity gun, used for some pretty nifty tricks and treats. It works well, and if the game keeps up where it's going, Rochard could easily be something really special.

Sideway: New York is a platformer where you play as living graffiti, and platform inside and around walls and rooftops to save the girl. The game has some really nice visuals, and the controls feel fluid and just plain good. The demo didn't show too much, but I was impressed with what was there.

Others, like Blade Kitten or Rush N' Attack, were fun enough, but they don't grab attention as easily. BK is a platformer in the vein of Run Saber and Strider, while RNA is a stealth/action game focused on dark visuals and, well, stealth.

Either way, demos have proved to be an entertaining, and free, pastime.