So what have I been up to in my gaming life? Not that there is alot of time for it during the HSC year but what I can fit in is what follows.
My views and opinions are my own personal ones, they don't represent anyone else but myself.

Starting with Demos!

The Demos I've been playing.

Joint Task Force

A very generic RTS. Had 2 levels for trial without so much as a damn tutorial. I think of it like a C&C revamped, with minor hero abilities that are particually usless. I didnt like the feel of this game and even after turning up the scroll speed of the mouse it still had issues of slowness. I had to roate the camera which I believe is stupid in any rts. A map should be made to play on one view without rotation. Very basic with some interesting features. Didnt catch me though.

Maelstrom

Forget this Demo in a moment. There is no tutorial, It dosnt look very good and is plain stupid. Its like a sub C&C game. Its worse than Joint Task Force. There was some serious issues with things such as the fact my tank got destroyed by 3 people with chainsaws...This obviously isnt possible in real life as the chainsaws would have lost all their teeth. But my mission was to deploy something and I didnt get a tutorial so I didnt know how! Like I said forget this game in a moment.

Bad Day LA

Don't get me started. This is a good Demo....for children. Its a cell shaded game with interesting aspects. Made by Amercan McGee it was interesting and had great potential with all these disasters happening in LA in 1 day. I was highly interested and you played the roll of an African American hobo with a severe attitude problem with smart remarks that made you smirk. The begining was good. Then it went downhill from there. The music in the game was object placed. I heard the music coming from cars, it was a cheery piece that was making fun of the moment of a plane crash. But the music dissappeard as I walked away...That annoyed me. And then zombies! and I could cure zombies with a fire extinguisher!? what is the world coming too. I died after much scripted talk and was sent back the beginning of the demo. Forget that.

Now that the crap demos are outta the way lets move on.

Just Cause

Got this today. And I'll be damned as to how awsomely fun this demo was. Think GTA on an island, like replacing the city with tropical and trees. But vamped up and crazy ass action. Put it this way you can go from a car, to bike to chopper to plane to boat and back to car without ever touching the ground. The game features an "action mode button" which enables you to jump from any thing to anything such as car to car and continue with constant action. Its like GTA and Mercenaries combined. It seems like its gonna be a very cool game. Its open ended and has alot of potential. Its also coming to the 360 but who cares about that....

Go get this demo, strongly suggested.

Moving along

Call of Juarez

Suggested through the fantastic amazing and super sexy FragFest forums http://forum.fragfest.com.au/ get here and post away. This is a western themed game. Now there was recently released a unmentional western game that was horrible...(GUN) and failed to live up to any expectation that anyone had of a decent western game. This my friends looks to be a revival of a Western themed game.
You 2 characters in this demo. One a gruff priest that has a blood thirsty passion for killin in gods name and a young indian dude who really isnt that interesting to me.

The game is an FPS and lives up to any expectation of a Western Themed shooter. You can kick out banisters, you have the old fashioned shoot outs on a western street, you have a concentration mode that makes everything slomo to take out multiply targets, you have a dueling system that is so much fun it wants to make you go have a real duel with a random stranger. *slaps glove across face*. Everything from the audio sound effects to the gameplay struck me as excellent. There is even a scene where you come into a western town with the classic tumble weeds and theres no one around like its a ghost town and the western themed music plays it. Really a beautiful scene not experienced much in any game.

Go get this for all your western themed goodness or even if you just wanted to be a cowboy or played cowboys and indians when you were younger.

Now Company of Heroes

Get ready for some serious rantage.

This game is a defining moment for all RTS's out there. Made by Relic the fine men and women who made the DoW:40k series which is an excellent series might I add. But unlike DoW its set in a WWII universe. And yes I can hear it now, "*whinge whinge* ww2 rts have always been crap blah blah blah" ok take my word on this. This game is the best thing that has ever  happend to RTS. It completely redefines stratagey on a RTS battlefields. Where to start.

Ok you can play as Axis or allies. Lucky for me I got a Beta Testing key. As well as now the single player demo. Its around look for it. As either force your infantry are your main bulk of force. They are everything for your army. In the game the map is devided into sectors. And there are 3 resources. Man power, munitions and fuel. Each used for differnt things. Man power being the main. Anyway each sector controls a resource. So logically you have to go and capture the flag of that sector. But it dosnt end there, you cant just run into the battlefield you have to control each sector between that supplying sector to gain the resources. Interesting hm? It opens up the possiblity for "cutting supply lines" which is excellent to destory your enemy.

As you play as well you gain exp points, these can be used for special abilites that over time with more experience points are used for bigger and better things. For upgrades as Infantry they can use off site artillary strikes and things as such as that. Its hard to explain and best experienced.

There is also the notion of defence. Once a flag is capped you must keep it. You have to build defences, bard ware, MG' nests and tanktraps just to name a few. You can practically control the way the enemies men go by making them go around things and when they turn a corner hit a MG nest. Its tactifully brilliant.

Over all this Beta/demo as well as the Singleplayer demo which lets you play 2 levels are amazing beyond belief. I love WW2 and I love it even more now. This Game will be my new love and it'll own at LAN's for multiplayer for a long time I hope to believe. Check it out as soon as humanly possible, it is the best thing ever made.

K now that thats off my chest heres some other stuff to check out

Brothers in Arms 3
Command and Conquer 3 (looking awsome)
Dark Messiah
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
Bf2142
Supreme Commander.

All these games and Demos are worth looking at, at least at a glance, dont touch ones I told you not too. Trust me.


Good night..Sleep time.