Well, today I managed to get a hold of a few Xbox360 games. I had my hands wrapped around Dissidia for about an hour, for sure, but that didn’t stop me playing Bionic Commando, Ninja Blade, The Last Remnant and Star Ocean 4, however. I can’t really go too much into depth, given how tight a schedule I’m on at the moment – we’re about to sit down to watch The Machine Girl – so I’ll just quickly outline a few things… I’ll be back sometime on Monday, at which time I’ll write a lot more indepth views of each of the games I’ve played. Keep your eyes peeled, okay?

Bionic Commando (Xbox360 version)

Right… The demo I played was mostly the tutorial that you’ll all be playing when the game actually hits the shelves… It does little more than get you to grips with the Arm by putting you through a variety of challenge rooms that require deft use of the Arm to traverse. Thankfully, the mechanic is pretty easy to use: hold the right trigger to grab and swing, let go of the trigger to let go of whatever it is your Arm is holding onto. The timing obviously changes how far you fly through the air and, subsequently, if you land on the platform you need to. Anyway… Great mechanics and great looks.

Star Ocean 4

Graphically beautiful, I’d easily put this as the best looking 360 game in my opinion. The art direction only helps solidify that. Plenty of attackable enemies of little danger, coupled with an impressively breezey combat system help make this game feel as good as it looks. While the queue to play this was pretty long, so I got thrusted off after about five minutes, I could tell from the start that this game was going to be huge. Having played most of the Star Ocean games before, as well, I can easily say that fans of the previous games will feel right at home with this one.

The Last Remnant

Errr… Maybe after playing the other games on show, this one didn’t appear too great in comparison. I can’t think of any other reason why this game didn’t “click” with me. The demo was pretty restrictive, and it didn’t share the graphical prowess of Star Ocean 4. At least the battle system is interesting, right? Morale dictates the damage your “unit” deals, and damage affects their Morale in both ways – they get damaged, they lose morale, they deal damage, they gain it. Again, this was another game I didn’t get much time to fully explore, and I’ve been told that I missed out on some critical mechanics (no pun intended).

Ninja Blade

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear… Ninja Gaiden’s successor, this isn’t. Simply put, this game is trying too hard to take on the most stand out mechanics of the other big Action games. The on-the-fly weapon switching of Devil May Cry, the Ninja Gaiden-like protagonist and weapons, and God of War-esque Quick Time Events and giant bosses. Sadly, it doesn’t excel at using any of them. It even tries something new in the form of it’s own brand of bullet time – everything slows down, and enemy weaknesses are highlighted in white. Overall, this game either needs a lot of polish or it won’t even be worth renting. I know they want a Cinematic Action Game, as opposed to an Extreme Action Game… But does it have to be this easy…?

Dissidia Final Fantasy

If you own a PSP, preorder an import right now. Don’t worry about not understand a word of it – this is a game everyone needs to be playing before Christmas. It’s that good. The demo had five available characters, and I got to play with all but one. Basic mechanics are the same for each character… Circle whittles away at your opponent’s Bravery, while Square deals damage to their HP. Holding directions, as well as whether your character is on the ground, in the air or running across a wall, changes what attack that character uses. In addition, every single character plays in a drastically different way: Squall is slow, but powerful, while Tidus specialises in quick weak attacks that are easily chained together for damaging combos. I think this game has beaten FFXIII Versus to the punch for replication of the kind of fights we’ve seen in Advent Children. Did I mention that everyone should preorder an import right now?

Wintrale Console, Games, Preview