Wasting time...with Xbox Live demos

There are (at least) two demos currently available on Xbox Live for games that will ship this "US holiday season" where the primary mechanic is temporal manipulation.

• Stranglehold (demo)

Midway's origins are rooted in old-skool arcade games and this demo feels like you just fed a fistful of change into your console - the action is incessant, almost exhausting.

Some sources compare Stranglehold to Max Payne 2 and the primary game mechanic is almost identical - slow time and dive headlong into the violence, guns blazing. It's a tool that worked well for Remedy but Midway Chicago took it and added a large portion of environmental interaction; directed by Mr. John Woo the player can vault over, jump on, slide along or simply blast apart almost every part of every scene.

While designed as single player, the game is surprisingly fun to play as a group. Thoose not holding the controller seem compelled to point out objects that are yet to be shot to pieces and once a few of the special moves aka "Tequila Bombs", are unlocked, the groans/cheers as bullets-eye-view shots miss/strike hapless targets, soon follow.

It might not change your life but Sergeant Tequila promises some over-the-top fun.



• Timeshift (demo)
  
  Welcome to City 17 Haze Timeshift! Our bland NPCs are compelled to vocalize all their ridiculous internal monologue!
  
  Timeshift looks reasonable but it suffers from barely legible text on standard definition TV. This is a a relatively common problem for Xbox 360 games however most titles avoid the issue on the frickin' HUD...Also friendly NPCs don't seem to cast shadows, giving them that extra edge on believability.
  
  As already mentioned, the main gameplay mechanic is to pause or slow time. If you don't do this, you die, often instantly. Frequent checkpoints offset the resultant irritation but don't cure it.
  
  Timeshift checks the requisite boxes on the (modern) FPS list; crate, barrel, physics, machine-gun/rifle, shotgun, sniper-rifle and grenade are all present. Unfortunately simply showing up, is not enough.
  
  At one point an enemy NPC cried "Why don't you just give up?". Based on this demo I have.

If you want to play with time, play Stranglehold.

Area 51: Black Site, Xbox 360 teaser

Negatives:

• takes too long to load.
• is ridiculously short in duration, especially for the size of the download! (but I guess it is a "teaser"...).
• looks like a low rent Gears of War.

Positives:

• team commands are lightweight and seem to make an actual difference e.g. direct your teammates to attack a specific target and they normally do a reasonable job.
• special effect the demo closes with is cool (but "solid" objects passing through the characters is definitely not).

Verdict:

Not overly impressed but I seem to remember the demos for its predecessor being inconsistent too; I liked the squad-based-shooter-y type one but was not so keen on the i'm-changing-into-an-alien one (maybe it was better in context?).