On July 27th, we will release a robust Madden NFL 11 demo, featuring full 5 minute quarters, Indianapolis Colts vs. New York Jets (as voted by the fans), full GameFlow integration, the ability to create offensive and defensive game plans, and more.

Below are a few additional details on the demo:

• Release date: July 27th on both Xbox LIVE and PSN
• Teams: Colts vs. Jets
• Stadium: Jets Stadium, East Rutherford NJ – 1:00pm, clear
• Full 5 minute quarters
• All 4 skill levels selectable – Rookie, Pro, All-Pro, All-Madden
• The option to build both an offensive and defensive gameplans

o Unlock “Master Strategist” achievement/trophy in the retail game

• GameFlow or Conventional play call selectable
• CoachSpeak audio and text overlays
• Coaching Tips
• Audio presentation:

o Play-by-play (Gus Johnson), commentary (Cris Collinsworth)
o Stadium music
o Team specific chants – J-E-T-S, Jets! Jets! Jets!

• Share with friends and earn an exclusive Madden Ultimate Team card that is redeemed with full version

Come on, did you honestly think this game was going to be good?  Well that’s exactly how I felt about the game before I had played it but now I cannot wait to buy it on launch day.

The premise of the game is team on team battle or objective based gameplay.  You choose your class (only 2 to choose from in demo) and you hunt down and destroy the opposing team.  The gameplay is tight, aiming and such is spot on unlike some 3rd person games and the arsenal of weapons to use is vast.  You can melee with a sword or giant hammer, transform your character to a vehicle (each has their own unique abilities) and basically rock the house.

There is nothing to not like about this game and it has the potential to be overlooked considering the first 2 Transformers games were terrible.  You owe it to yourself to try this game out if you have an Xbox 360, sorry PS3 guys you have to wait until the game is released to try the demo.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the original Just Cause.  It reminded me a lot of every other open world game out there, the only cool things about it were the limited use of the grappling hook and the parachute.  Still, the game was somewhat of a success for the Xbox 360 and it spurned a sequel which will be released tomorrow 23 March.

In the demo you get 30 minutes to explore the game and it’s content.  If you cause enough chaos you get time extensions and I was able to play almost 40 something minutes.  Just Cause 2 seems to me like a complete overhaul of the original game.  The concepts are the same but the graphics, control and fun factor are all upgraded and well received.

The first thing you will learn is that your grappling hook is a completely integral part of your arsenal.  You can grapple onto almost anything and not only that but you can hook your grappling hook to something and then attach it to something else and let the physics take over.  For example, you can grapple an enemy and then grapple an oncoming car and watch as the enemy is dragged away.  You can also attach your grapple to a helicopter and then to a building and the chopper gets stuck.  There are an unending amount of things to do with just the grapple. My own personal experience involved me shooting at a propane tank and as it propelled into the air I grappled myself to it and was shot like a rocket into the sky.  I then opened my parachute and floated around the world.  It was an awesome experience and it’s things like that that will make this game a playground for anyone who is playing it.

The shooting has also been improved and the hit detection seems pretty spot on.  You can shoot someone in the leg and they react to the shot which I personally find to be important.  There are numerous vehicles to ride in and tons of environments to destroy.  The game is a cross between, GTA/Mercenaries/Crackdown and Bionic Commando (except fun).  I can’t recommend this game enough just based on the demo and it will be a day 1 purchase for me.

Sega just released a demo for Alien Vs Predator which allows players to enjoy an 8 player deathmatch on one of the ship maps.  Players can party up and join a room with up to 8 players.  You can choose from Alien, Space Marine or Predator (while there seems to be a limit to how many Predators can play).  There are also locked options to choose from the class of character you play as.  For now there is a generic Space Marine and a basic Alien.  What is extremely unique about this experience is that each character is truly different from the others.  For instance, the aliens generally crawl on the ground, whip their tails and thrash with claws while the marines have the basic gun load out and the predator has slashing and shooting abilities.  The aliens can crawl all over any surface which can be disorienting at times but can also add a lot of fun to the game.  I have yet to be a Predator but the Marine has a flash light, can’t see well in the dark but his gun is very powerful against all enemies.

From what I could tell the game seems semi-language free.  There is a lot of blood and gore and the kill animations are pretty realistic.  It is definitely creepy to play as a Marine when you are battling alien races and can’t see infront of you.  Bare in mind that this game doesn’t come off as being tactical at all.  It felt more in the realm of Quake or Unreal Tournament where you play fast and die a lot.  If that is your thing than you may really enjoy this game.  The demo is free and you can try it out for yourself.

Have you already played the demo?  Let us know your impressions in the comments.

…Playstation Network Demo scheduled for February 4th.

The Battlefield: Bad Company 2 console demo and PC beta will feature Port Valdez, a new vehicle focused map where up to 24 players (32 on PC) will compete against each other as either the US or Russian armies in the game’s Rush multiplayer mode. Players will have access to five land and three air vehicles where the Russian side can use everything in their arsenal including Main Battle Tanks as well as the fast-moving Quad Bikes and Mobile Armored AA. The fight will also be packed with plenty of infantry combat fought alongside the waterline towards a great oil industrial landscape in the Alaskan mountains.
Have you played the demo?  What did you think about it?  Leave a comment.

Sega is giving away the chance to download the demo for their latest game Bayonetta on the Xbox 360 earlier than the general public.  All that is required is for you to go here and fill out some information for your chance to receive the free demo code.  Registration is from 9-13 November and those selected to receive will be notified by November 16th.  Sega has 40,000 codes to give away, so good luck.

The post-E3 scuttlebutt surrounding Microsoft’s Project Natal is mixed, at best. Some seem to think it’s equal to the Second Coming, while others are less than impressed. The truth of the technology’s potential is somewhere in between: great possibilities, but whether or not Natal can realize them remains to be seen.

While we don’t know precisely how well Natal will work, we already know one piece of software doesn’t quite work as advertised: Peter Molyneux’s “Milo” demo. According to Spike’s Vice President of Content (and Gametrailers’ editor-in-chief) Shane Satterfield, Milo was mostly — pardon my terminology — bull.

Satterfield had this to say about Milo in Gametrailers’ latest episode of Invisible Walls: “All I’m going to say about Milo is that it’s not legit. There were a lot of smoke and mirrors going on there — not the case with the ball demo [Ricochet] and the other stuff, but with Milo there was definitely a little bit of deception going on.”

Satterfield was part of a select group shown the Milo demo behind closed doors. Satterfield says a Microsoft employee was “controlling” Milo behind the scenes. He also says that Molyneux informed the press on hand that Milo’s voice recognition features aren’t as swell as they appear. Milo — and Natal in general, it seems — apparently does not recognize an individual’s voice, but rather his or her tone, and only uses rudimentary open-ended statements that will fit into any conversation a player can start.

It would be foolish to take Satterfield’s word as gospel, but bare in mind he isn’t the only one voicing his doubts about Natal’s true potential. And Satterfield isn’t saying that Natal is  a complete lie, but rather its motion detection works much better than its voice recognition. That isn’t terribly surprising, considering the current state of voice recognition software.

So, we’re forced to consider: if Natal’s technology isn’t as advanced as Microsoft would have us think, just how ground-breaking can it really be? Is this a true evolution of existing technology, or simply a new proof-of-concept? Only time will tell, as Project Natal isn’t anywhere near finished. Hopefully, once Natal is released into the wild, it will be more than ready to live up to the hype.

Sony announced the official release window for God of War III at their E3 press conference today. That window, in case you didn’t bother to read the article title, is March 2010. That keeps in line with the release dates for previous entries in the God of War franchise.

Sony also showed off a gameplay demo, featuring Kratos struggling against Helios, the young Greek god of the sun. I think it’s safe to say Helios’ days are numbered — as well as the entire Greek pantheon.

Said demo will be on-hand on the E3 show floor, so I suspect we’ll hear a lot more about how it plays in the near future. We’ll update as often as possible. Why the special attention? ‘Cause it’s friggin’ God of War III, that’s why!

…

See, we’re not all Microsoft fanboys at HCG. Honest.

If you’re a Final Fantasy fan but not quite nutty enough to pay a month’s salary to import the Japanese Blu-Ray edition of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete, don’t fret. The American version will be released June 2, 2009, and will run for roughly 39 bones. There’s a bevy of extras for fans to sink their nerdy teeth into; but sadly the U.S. edition of the Blu-Ray will be lacking the best one.

Yes, the Final Fantasy XIII demo, included in the Japanese edition of Advent Children Complete, will not be available in the American version. Yoshinori Kitase, producer for FFXIII, explains that due to the difficulties of developing for both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in the West, Square Enix cannot afford the time to work on an English-language demo for the Blu-Ray release. American fans will however receive a new trailer exclusive to the Advent Children Complete Blu-Ray.

Hopefully, we’ll still see a demo — on both PS3 and 360 — in the near future. Some time this century would be nice, eh?

Final Fantasy fans: start salivating. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete finally gets a release date in North America.  Extras include everything from trailers to featurettes.  But the most exciting extra could be the “Exclusive Sneek Peek of Final Fantasy XIII”.  In Japan this is a playable demo of Final Fantasy XIII.

Now this could be anything from an extended trailer to the aforementioned demo.  It would be awesome if it was the demo, but I will be getting this Blu-ray — even if only for the 1080p goodness.