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...