Bought the mag yesterday. Read on the way to school and then checked out the demos at home. The two most notables are R-Type Final and Jet Li's Rise to Honor.
R-Type Final is really, really, really nice looking shooter. Tons of effects and is one of the most impressive looking shooters I've seen so far.
I haven't played the other R-Type games so this is my first time with it but I highly enjoyed it and so will shooter fans. The demo isn't a cakewalk but its not that hard either, probably because its the first level. You can customize the 3 ships available by color, missles and bit select before heading out.
So far I only tried 2 ships, one with regular charge bursts and the other with a longer beam canon which ruled. There are 3 sub bosses and one at the end which looks a bit....odd but has the usual pattern based memorization. The actual level revolves around you which is a cool way to use the 3D worlds but I would have liked to see a more stable less moving level.
The music is well done, sounding kind of like Metroid Prime's somewhat creepy techno. This is going to be a fantastic shooter judging from the demo and the movies(it also has a kickass opening intro).
Rise to Honor kicks ass! It has 360 degree martial arts fight system that you can do combos with using the right analog stick. It took me a few plays to get used to it but it works out pretty well for the most part.
My only gripe is that its not as fast paced as it would feel on regular buttons and Jet runs pretty slow but other than that it controls pretty well. I was surprised at how good it was defensively too.
You can also block, counter, grab +throw, use adrenaline attacks(super moves), use stick weapons and at the end of the demo shoot guns which handles pretty accurately, I would have liked a dive button though. There's a part in the demo that sort of plays like a quick time event making you rely on your timing of the context sensitive button.
Graphically its solid, probably a bit better than True Crime since it has all this nice lighting and texturing. The Jet Li model looks so much eerily like him its amazing and he kicks ass in cut scenes. Regus said it before but I also think Despair and action gamers would dig this game if they liked True Crime and Dead to Rights(which I haven't played but DTR2 looks promising).
The other game I tried was Whiplash which was pretty damn funny especially torturing that poor bunny but I was confused at what goal I had to accomplish but I'll play it again to get more out of it.
Other games included are:
SOCOM 2...which never boots up for me when it loads the game..
Desert Storm 2
Disney Skate adventure
Freedom Fighters
ESPN College hoops
TMNT
NCAA Football 2004
Madden 2004
Jimmy Nuetron
The videos weren't that great except for James Bond Everything or Nothing which looks pretty rad.
