New OXBM: Demo movies get the thumbs up!
Some good playable demos this month. 3 football games (Madden, Microsoft's game, and Midway's game), Aggressive inline, Timesplitters 2, and Sega GT 2002. My jaw is still on the floor from the cars in Sega GT 2002. I swear, they're real. Or at least as close to real as I've ever seen. Agressive Inline seems fun, but way too complex for me. Too many buttons! :p The lack of any kind of "support" for the female skaters is so over the top in this one it's kinda' funny. :) By the way, ever get the feeling sometimes that game design has passed you by? In addition to Aggressive Inline, all 3 football games (including the Midway game) felt so darn complex that all I could do way shake my head as I got saked time after time while I fumbled around with the 30,000 usable buttons scattered all over the controller. I know it's me and not the games. 8 year olds all over the country play this stuff with no problem, I'm sure. Thank goodness companies still know I exist and throw me Beach Spikers and Super Monkeyball every now and then. 0-2 usable buttons. Yeah, I can handle that. :) Back on topic.... I might have to actually get Sega GT 2002. Very impressive indeed.
Movies... Ninja Gaiden, DoA Volleyball, and Panzer were already instant purchases but after seeing these movies they are somehow more instant of a purchase. DoA showed actuall volleyball, and damn if it doesn't look fast paced and potentially good. Oh, and everything moves and bounces very nicely, thank you. :) There is no way this game can be anything other than perfect. Ninja Gaiden showed platforming action. Ryu was bouncing/running off walls to get over chasms and good stuff like that. Good to know it won't be confined to just DoA vs more than 1 opponent. Panzer looks like Panzer, only with graphics that would have been amazing for a pre-render back in the Saturn days. In fact, all three games have real time graphics that favorably compare/destroy pre-rendered graphics from the 32 bit era. Great stuff.