F.E.A.R. 2 and Ace Combat 6 demos: and outside you see the waves in her eyes and I won't blind what you decide to swear by

It's been a long time since there was a battle of the Midway. About 66 years now, but the concept has always been about good old dog fights and not the illegal kind with pitbulls or rottweilers that you used to referee for to get you through a bad economic time. I'm talking about the kind that today is fought with volleyball, hot perspiration, and steamy showers. And without a multi-million or billion dollar piece of equipment to pull it off with in the back yard, you'll need to probably find a supplementing game. How about Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation from Bandai: Namco?

If you are looking for an American-esque flight sim/dogfight game this game will probably give you a few confused looks on your face when you play it. The storyline is Japanese in its writing, translating, and action cinematics which can put some people off. Looking past that you'll find a very fun 3d "vertical scrolling" shooter, you know, the kind that you used to spend all the quarters in your piggy bank after school just to play.

Simple controls to pick up and lots of air combat, Ace Combat 6 is a good console game to try out if you have a yearning for a Tie Fighter replacement.

Separately, F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin by Monolith Productions and published by WBIE is another game that will keep you popping truckers caffeine pills as you fend off visions of Ringu to not succumb to sleep.

The first installment was a decent game in what it was trying to do for the FPS genre. It had it's scary moments for sure, but overall it felt like more of a Half-life mod that didn't mesh its horror moments and seemed to ostracize any quality FPSing. The FPS wasn't anything spectacular as it pushed the primary focus to the horror portion.

F.E.A.R. 2, however, has a different look, feel, and amazing presentation to it. The available demo off xboxlive is worth a try and just reading a review can not prepare you for how well this game has improved over its predecessor. I can't figure out if it's due to Vivendi letting its little brother WB Interactive Entertainment take a little more control or if its just all the money made from the success of the first, but either way you should treat this as a whole new game.

The demo starts you off after a helicopter crash as you try to regroup with your fellow squad members. You find yourself very close to a school and soon you begin to see how well the horror portion has really become seemless with FPS portions of the game as you start to fill up your nightmare fuel tank. Objects like desks and lockers are randomly pulled in various directions by a strong force, a little girl crying can be heard as all other sound is silenced suddenly, and bodies are found dismembered and mutilated in what looks to be pretty horrific ways all while the old flashing light, dark, and shadow routine is used.

The FPS area is much better as a typical copycatted aiming system and HUD are used and aiming is very tight for a console FPS. The storyline is delivered within the HUD's radio/camera and by reaching key points along your travels. The first person perspective is a bit bouncy at times and can probably leave people nauseated just by running around. Graphically F.E.A.R. 2 has reached the level of this generation of games and leaves only the amount of content as the last burning issue when it is released in February. Remember though, like most other stylistic story heavy FPSers, you'll probably only want to play this through once so a rental may be the best course to take and not a full blown purchase. Save your cash for RE5...

Resident Evil 5 Demo: you should follow me down. there's no color and no sound in a black and white town

Capcom has come a long way from their original survival horror zombie thriller Resident Evil. Taking place in a fictional midwestern place called Raccoon City, members of STARS (Special Tactics and Rescue Service) were sent in to investigate murders involving cannibalism that had occurred there. After searching for lost Bravo team members shortly after the investigation started, Alpha team finds themselves surviving for their lives within what was first thought to be an abandoned mansion. From there Capcom had a franchise on their hands stemming sequels, movies, books, other types of games such as Umbrella Chronicles (played much like the House of the Dead style light-gun shooters) and also inspiring many other similar series such as Silent Hill. To truly pay tribute to all these zombie games, a proper ten second silence must be given to the NES great Zombies Ate My Neighbors.

In 2005 the last major release in the series, RE4, was by far one of the best games available for the gamecube console. RE4 had one of the best control styles fully utilizing the fisher price controller with a now copycatted 3rd person, over the shoulder, laser-sighted aiming system. The game also brought back the black cat crossing your path paranoia and piddle in your pants fear that made the original a classic. The storyline flowed very well with actual gameplay and had additional challenges after the game was completed. To this day I still reflect on the many days spent playing RE4 after a few too many cold ones at 3am while listening to Brian Eno records and wondering how I wasn't placed in a mental institution for how scared I was of Las Plagas and moving silhouettes. Thankfully things like the Wiggles can help save anyone's sanity.

Capcom's next installment, Resident Evil 5, is due out early in March 2009. A demo of this game is available on Xboxlive (Gold members initially) after some many impressive trailers tickled our fancies for the last few months.

The first thing that this demo shows off, besides RE4 flashbacks of zombies dying face down in the muck, is that they have not steered away from what works.  Great controls, beautiful graphics, and lots and lots of zombie head popping action.  2 levels are included (1 more than the previous japanese demo) both of which allow for the opportunity to try out the newest addition to the game: a 2nd player.  Even if you don't have a friend to play with in co-op mode(over xboxlive if not split screen), the game controls an additional player that you have to share guns, ammo, and herbs to survive together.  You both look out for one another and like all other great male/female duos of all time such as lucy and ricky, fred and ginger, sonny and cher, ace and gary, etc, you have to lean on one another to be successful.  

After playing through the 2 levels many times, I realized, after the emptiness of finishing Fallout 3, I had something to look forward to once again.  Hopefully you will say the same thing and maybe even want to fight along side of me as a scantily clad chesty female.  Kind of like the tactical support of Fiona from my new favorite show with the voice of Sam?

NPPL 2009: lit only by the glow from hope you buried deep, to see what it would grow

Ok so it's a picture of PSP and not the NPPL...

D   Y   N   A   S   T    Why?  Because you love the game of paintball so much that's why.  Brought to us by Activision, NPPL Championship Paintball 2009 is the first paintball game in over three years since the release of Greg Hasting's game for the earlier console generation of xbox and playstation.  Well, OK, there really weren't any before that either.  And that's the focus for this review.

So most people that play FPS games really focus on the controls, AI, and hopefully minimal repetitiveness.  Trying to imagine those that would play this game is a simple task to do.  They are the ones that spend much of their good weather days dodging little balls, praying that none land in sensitive areas that already house a couple.  Everyone else has enough common sense to stay off the fields of war and within the safety of distance, will also distance themselves from this game.  I myself have spent dollar after dollar on cases of paint and FPSs alike, and even I have trouble turning a blind eye to the factors that will keep most from experiencing this game at all.

Comparing to the only other major paintball game, NPPL 2009 is an improvement graphically.  There is a better array of ingame equipment to choose from because of additional sponsorships obtained versus Greg Hastings Paintball.  The feel of tournament play is somewhat similar to what actual paintball feels like.  But sadly this is where all the positives begin to dissipate.  It is a paintball game and if paintball is something you enjoy then there's somewhat of a chance this recreation will be enjoyable.  This is not by any means a typical FPS for those expecting it to help a newbie begin to embrace the sport.  A person who has never set foot on a paintball field will really zone in on the aspects that make this a video game and not the pieces that help mimic the sport and in doing so can really jab you in the eyes.

The problems start to occur with a lot of repetitiveness.  There are a lot of loading screens and some do not seem like they would be even necessary.  Handfuls of them occur after only about thirty seconds of gameplay and you tend to find yourself sitting on an imaginary bench with nothing to think about.  The music is the expected soundtrack of paintball especially if you have ever watched any Derder type films about the sport.  The issue with the music is menu screens tend to play the same song every time you reach them between rounds, new tournaments, equipment screens, etc.  

Controls are somewhat good (2 right buttons acting like a double-finger trigger) but the default stick for aiming is the right one which is a lot of precision aiming matched on the same hand as the speedy busy fingers.  The bunker leaning is not as good as what it was in Greg Hastings as you can not hold a full lean and strafe without breaking a lean causing a lot of jerky movements.  Diving or sliding into bunkers can be somewhat tricky and prone position snake play is unbearable.    

The AI and tournament play may be a little more on par with what real tournaments feel like but the speed of some rounds is so fast that off the break, more than half of the opposing side or yours will can be eliminated and barely any paint down open lanes is found.  Greg Hastings did an excellent job of utilizing lane shooters while mixing other teammates for hopping from bunker to bunker on the field.  NPPL 2009 has all players aggressively moving the entire time barely letting you get to a bunker to use one full hopper of paint.  This is where loading screens become a constant greeter as you are slapped in the face with them even between multiple rounds against the same team on the same field (for example best 2/3 rounds).  

Overall, NPPL 2009 is a great and wonderful reminder of one of the greatest games that people can go out and experience.  Trying to describe the adrenaline rush of diving behind a bunker with the sound of paint coming inches from your noggin probably can never be recreated with just a video game so go balls out, get a facefull of paint, and save your money before you decide to even think about picking up this game.  

Rating: 2.5 {-10 to 10 scale, 5+ being a must play}