kar10

I played the demos and they are all great.


DEMOS:

The Chronicles of Riddick

Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy

Metal Slug 3

Rogue Ops

LIVE DEMO:

Rainbow Six 3

DOWNLOADS:

GTA: Vice City (Save)

James Bond: EON (save)

Rainbow Six 3 (3 new multiplayer levels)

The Suffering (save)

VIDEO SHOWCASE:

Driver 3
Hitman Contracts
MLB Slugfest
Rallisport 2
Sky Captain (Crimson Skies the Movie)
Starcraft Ghost
Unreal Championship 2
Van Helsing

PSI-OPS SNEAK PEAK:

Cinema Feature
Exclusive Trailer
Original Trailer

FEATURES:

Alien Cowboys
Driver 3
Weekend at Wee-man's (The guy from Jack ass/MTV)

mrglass

This looks like a decent demo disc. I'm going to pick this one up...I'm especially interested in the Riddick demo. Everything that I've read about it has been pretty positive, so far.

xmiyux

I actually wasn't too thrilled with Riddick. Granted the menu cube was awesome but the game never really hooked me and i'm not really sure why not.

Psi Ops on the other hand was a blast. I played through that demo several times.

Trigger

Yeah - most sources I've read say Psi Ops is really good...

xmiyux

For someone reason i thought a lot of the previews were saying PsiOps was just kind of so-so.... I could be wrong though. However, the game really floored me on how fun it was. Even when i died because the demo wouldn't let me invert the y axis on my aiming i enjoyed every minute of it. Nothing like mind controlling a guard to shoot a flame barrel near a couple other guards so they all die to really make your day. I also enjoyed levitating things as i stood on them Magneto style.

kegman

The Chronicles of Riddick demo was cool probably pick it up - I know you can run by the guy at the end of the demo but has anyone been able to take him out

kar10

What guy? Do you mean the Robot?

trigun

Riddick got a 9/10 in one of the recent Xbox magazines.

harosa

Demo was a little too short for Riddick, anyone comment on the Sky Captain trailer which I guess was supposed to coincide with the now delayed summer release? I thought alot of the green screen stuff was a little distracting but the underwater dogfight was just too cool.

kar10

I call it "Crimson Skies The Movie"

Seriously doesn't it?

How about Van Hellsing! They should've called it "Vampire Hunter D"

flashburn

I think Van Hellsing's character has been around a lot longer than the character of 'D'.

Then again, with all of the crazy ass weapons Van Hellsing uses in the new movie, I can see how you would draw the comparisons.

kegman

What guy? Do you mean the Robot?


Well there is a guy in the Robot so yeah the robot.

kar10

One shoot on top of the head will do


Climb the boxes and get into what looks like a balcony and just aim and shoot.

harosa

While Van Helsing has been around way longer than "D", this Helsing has coopted "D"'s look.

MasterofDVD

I haven't enjoyed a demo this much in ages and I haven't enjoyed a game this much since Halo first came out.

My friend and I played the Psi-Ops demo over and over again. The training room at the end of the levels better be in the demo. We had more so much fun in that room. I loved surfing over the group of soldiers only to land in the middle of them and light them up. Tossing them around and off of objects made for a very good time.

This game is certainly one I'm watching.

It also made me think of another game I had heard was coming out. I swear this game had a 2 player feature where you could fight on LIVE. The players had powers like in Psi-Ops and you had to battle it out on a city block or other large environments. You could use all the items around you as weapons and you could tear apart the entire environment until nothing was left standing.
Am I crazy or is this a real game that is is development?

mrglass

I think you're referring to Phantom Dust. Up to four people can battle each other on Live.

Gamespy Preview

MasterofDVD

Thanks for the help. Glad to know I'm not making stuff up.

Trigger

I'll tell you this - playing with Riddick at E3 and on this demo disc (which was waiting for me when I got back yesterday from LA) I gotta say that this is one of the most impressive shooters I've played in a long time. Not only that, but it's one of the best games I've played on the Xbox so far. I think it's better than Halo so far from what I've played. The graphics are incredible and the controls are pretty tight. This game pretty much came out of nowhere - usually I know about a game months or years in advance, but this one seemed to slip past me. One of the biggest surprises at E3 for me.

Psi-Ops - the game is pretty fun once you start getting your powers. I hope the story is good enough to match the gameplay. They threw enough trailers and videos in the disc for this one.

Rogue Ops kinda sucked.

xmiyux

Hrm, maybe i need to go back and give Riddick another chance... What specifically impressed you about it? Controls, story, or atmosphere? Something else? Maybe its just me but the demo didn't do much for me the first time but perhaps it was just my mood or something when i tried it out...

el_jer

Well now I am interested in the Riddick demo. If only I could find the time to play my xbox. Picked up Metal Arm 2 months ago and I am barely half way through it. I remember not liking Halo the first time I played. It was mostly getting used to the controls. Oh well, by the time I finish Metal Arms Riddick may be in the bargain bin. Good to see something other than HL2, Doom or Halo2 getting some buzz.

Trigger

Well, the fact that my character casts a shadow is an extra level of immersion not seen in most FPS games. I can look down at my knees when I'm squatting. Just the graphics in general are surprisingly realistic and beautiful. It's effects-heavy which I like. It's by far the best looking console game I've seen in quite some time. It looked as good if not better than Doom3 on Xbox. The thing about that that surprises me so much is that this is a movie license and typically games with movie licenses are sub-par and rushed out the door.

The controls feel really tight and smooth. Also - I like that it takes you to 3rd person when you're climbing or accessing a nanomed center - it makes it more cinematic in some cases and in others it just makes it easier to navigate. On the down-side, it kinda takes you out of the immersion, but then it just sucks you right back in so it's okay. It's like Breakdown done right. I played a bit of Breakdown last night too (it also arrived in the mail while I was gone) and found the controls to be quite herky-jerky instead of smooth and solid. I'm gonna play around with adjusting the sensitivity of turning, but I don't think it's gonna help enough.

I can't say Riddick is the best game ever yet since I haven't played much more than the demo - but if it manages to maintain this level of kick-ass and add in more treats and goodies (that it hopefully has under its sleeve), then it could be my Xbox game of the year. Hopefully the story turns out to be good and full of surprises and whatnot. I'm hoping it's a little different from the movie since I'll probably see that before I finish this game. I mean - it's not perfect by any stretch - there's clipping with my gun going into boxes and sometimes jumping on a box proves to be more challenging than it should be, but all is forgiveable if they deliver on the things I'm liking about it.

Microsoft's booth at E3 had tons and tons of awesome upcoming games, but out of all of them this has become my most anticipated all of a sudden. I'm certainly looking forward to this game more than I am Halo 2. Maybe I have sequel-itis and can't get that hyped over a sequel. Although GTA San Andreas has me excited... (not as much as Riddick though).

Trigger

Also - this game has Splinter Cell elements in it - and then some... stealth mode and dragging and hiding bodies - sneak attacks and the like. I just read that the game takes place before any of the movies and it's pretty much about Riddick's escape from prison - so I imagine during the game is when we get the 'shine job' on the eyes... should be cool.

Not to knock Psi Ops because that game looks like it'll be pretty awesome too. The demo at E3 left me unimpressed, but the Xbox disc demo was alot better. I think it'll be like kotor where you have to stick with it in order to really get into it.

xmiyux

Excellent write-up, and thanks for your thoughts. I liked several of the elements that you mentioned but i guess what kind of wore on me a little was how dark and monochrome much of it looked. Now i fully understand that it is a prison so it's not going to be happy and colorful Mario-land but it just seemed like it would get kind of dreary and dull due to the all browns and rusted metal look. Kind of the same thing that wore on me in Halo - so many times i felt i was going through a slightly different looking steel hallway.

Thanks though, again for taking the time to elaborate on what you liked. I will have to go back and give it another chance based on gameplay.

vinhj

Yeah but Van Helsing copied so many things from so many movies that the amalgamated title would be a whole paragraph by itself

Trigger

That's weird, cuz I thought Riddick was plenty colorful. I can see what you mean with the dreary color sceme of the walls and uniforms and metal walkways and such, but explosions and fire look brilliant and when you're in stealth mode, your view changes to blue. And if you look at the boxes in the room after the first hallway, there are lots of colors represented. Anyway, I hope they don't make all the levels same-y like in Halo... Breakdown has awesome graphics, but really boring and plain level design in many spots. It wasn't as bad as Oni - which could've been a really awesome game except they forgot to make interesting levels and they only decided to make one wall texture and one floor texture and repeat it throughout the game.

I just played through the Riddick demo a second time - the first time I died near the end by that battle armor guy... this time I just snuck past him. I'm still wildly impressed. I'm sure if this game was overhyped like Halo 2 or Doom 3, I wouldn't be as excited about it...

I just remembered another game that impressed me at E3 - Area 51. I expected it to underwhelm me with mediocrity while at the same time I had high hopes for it... I played both the PS2 version and the Xbox version. The Xbox versions graphics were tops and quite good... however, the PS2 version actually controlled better. I couldn't believe it. As primarily a PC gamer, I was reluctant to accept FPS games on consoles at all - Halo was the first one that actually felt right. The staggered thumbsticks made alot of sense and worked well. Any time I played a FPS on the PS2, it just didn't feel right. Now I'm starting to think it had little to do with the sticks, but just with how they programmed the game. The PS2 version of Area 51 controlled so smooth and tight and easy - it blew me away. I only played the multiplayer with it, but I was kicking ass. The Xbox version I played the single player effort and while the controls were still smooth and tight, they weren't quite as good as the PS2. Perhaps with some tweaking in the options menu. Not sure which system I'll pick it up for yet - probably Xbox (and definitely xbox if it has Live!), but we'll see. Unless it's coming to PC - then there's the obvious choice.

Anyway - I digress... Riddick seemed to push the hardware beyond what I thought it was capable of with the amount of shadows and pixel shaders and bump mapping, etc... Looking at Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter (which was supposed to be so awesome 2 e3s ago), it just looks like garbage compared to Riddick.

Ok - sorry, I'm done.