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Whilst waiting for the official release of Condemned 2 on the 4th of April 08, you can practice your forensic skills on the PS3 demo that’s available on the US PSN store. The demo weighs in at 714mb and unless you live in North America you’ll need to create a US PSN account (tip: use google to find an American address).

On with the Dexter like blood splatter analysis and the scary looking characters.

Condemned 2 is released on the 4th April 08 on PS3 and Xbox 360

Popularity: 12% [?]

Sony Japan has released the PS3 and PSP demos of Echochrome. At the moment theese demos are only available in Japan. However, if you’d like to play them now you can by following these instructions:

For the PS3 version:

• Create a PSN account as shown in this PS3 Japanese account creation video tutorial
• Log in on your PS3 using this account and download the demo from the PSN store (37mb)

The text is in Japanese but the dialogue is in English. I had no problems playing the game, but then again there aren’t many controls!

For the PSP version:

• Download the demo from PSPFanboy (3.8mb)
• Unzip it
• Create a folder called NPJG90019 into the PSP/GAME directory
• Copy the eboot.pbp into this folder
• That’s it. Now enjoy the demo

The PSP demo requires firmware 3.90 and above, so don’t bother trying unless you have this firmware version. Oh, and the triangle button pauses the game and the X button speeds up your character.

You can see a trailer for Echochrome here.

Echochrome is released in Japan on 19th March 2008 on PS3 and PSP. UK release in Q2 2008.

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Popularity: 9% [?]

Bizarre Creations The Club gets to see the light of day tomorrow, 8th Feb 08. Many of you will have already played the demo which has been kicking around on Xbox Live since early Jan 08.

Whilst the demo was fun whilst it lasted, I’m just not enough of a high score Nazi to want to buy it. I appreciate what Bizarre are trying to do and bring the whole style of killing as something else to try and perfect. Whilst this does add quite of bit of extra spice to running down a corridor and shooting people it does get a little dull after a while. When it comes down to it, I like to play and complete games, rather than to just obsess over high scores. Mostly.

Like all the Project Gotham Racing games, The Club will probably keep you happy for a while before you just can’t be arsed any more.

The Club will be released on 8th Feb 08 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360

Popularity: 13% [?]

Hot on the heals of Sony Japan’s Patapon comes this deceptively simple, but quite challenging puzzle game. As you can see from the video it involves moving the camera around so that your character can get from one and of the level/picture to the other. Simple. However, it looks as though there could be some very fiendish levels to solve in the final game, judging by the quick montage at the end of the video.

Anyway, enough waffle. On with the video:

Echochrome is released in Japan on 19th March 2008 on PS3 and PSP. No word on a UK release date yet.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Well this was a disappointment. After a 6 year break since Turok: Evolution and 11 years since Turok - Dinosaur Hunter originally came out on the Nintendo 64, you’d think the developers could have come up with something better than this.

Maybe the rest of the game will turn out to be more fun than this demo, otherwise I’m not coming back. This demo was boring, linear, repetitive and heavily scripted. To start off you find yourself in a (very) dark cave in which you come across various Velociraptors, although they could have been pretty much anything. In fact, I couldn’t see a bloody thing even on a 40 inch HDTV*. What’s with the dark graphics? It’s not as if they look that good either. Not impressed.

When you finally get outside (no thanks to your useless team member) the massive open environments I was hoping for just failed to appear. Instead I found myself wandering through a claustrophobic (i.e. very intrusive foliage, means you can’t see very much) jungle area. Walk from point A to point B whilst being attacked at set points by dinosaurs (and I mean at set points, as I repeated certain bits to test this). During some of the set attacks you have to hit L2 and or R2 to fend of toothy dinosaur death. This became tiresome very quickly as it occurs quite a lot.

I expected the Turok demo to show off lots of pretty graphics, sound and big scary dinosaurs. But it didn’t and it wasn’t much fun to play either. Is this another Turok - Evolution (which was terrible)?

*The pitch blackness seems to be a feature of the PS3 version. On the Xbox 360 you can actually see where you going in the caves. There isn’t a gamma setting available on the demo, so it’s not that. Weird. Now if I had a choice, I plump for the Xbox 360 version.

Did anyone else like this Turok demo or notice the difference between the 2 versions (PS3 and Xbox 360)?

Update 21st Jan 08: This Turok demo surfaces on the UK PSN store on the 7th Feb 08. But I wouldn’t bother if I were you.

Turok is released on the 8th Feb 2008 on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC (spring 2008).

Popularity: 35% [?]

Remember Motorstorm? It was the rather enjoyable off-roader and only Playstation3 launch game worth buying. Since its release there has been a steady stream on downloadable content to waste spend your cash on.

Well now there’s some more stuff to download, and this time it’s not just a new (and pointless) paint job or a rehash of the existing tracks. Nooooo, it’s 2 brand spanking new tracks, I tell ya. Check out the PR’d track descriptions:

Eagle’s Nest: mayhem in the clouds
Welcome to the Eagle’s Nest – a high-altitude track perched precariously on a remote mesa. It’s fast, tight and brutal – and the slightest wrong move can send you careering over the edge. Of course, this means all the more opportunity to send your rivals in the same direction. The stakes are high and so are the cliffs – have you got the nerves for it?

Diamondback Speedway: a racetrack with a bite
Who needs a purpose-built racetrack when you’ve got the natural desert amphitheatre of Yei Bichei – MotorStorm’s answer to a speedway circuit? The track’s banked corners mean that this track is all about speed – the tactics that’ll get you to the finish first involve putting your foot to the floor and holding on tight. Will you survive the deadly Diamondback tunnel and the infamous Sinkhole?

This double track pack costs £3.49 (price of a beer in central London, and it’ll last longer) and is available now on the Playstation network. I guess it’s time to dust off my copy of Motorstorm and power up the black monolith for some dirty fun.

Update 10th Jan 08: Fixed the typos and bought the tracks. Mmm, muddy, mud, mud.

Update 21st Jan 08: Err, how come the same tracks cost a paltry $2.99 (£1.54p) from the North American PSN store? Is bandwidth and hosting more expensive over here Sony? What a rip off.

Popularity: 19% [?]