While I was out of town, I stopped in at a Wal-Mart and lo-and-behold they had the latest demo station running!
First, I checked out Contra 4 demo real quick. Yep, that appears to be everything people will expect from Contra. This is a good thing. Couple it with the dual screen action and you're gonna have a lot of fun with that one. Controls are identical to the SNES Contra with the extra added fun of the new "Bionic Commando-like" zip line. Good stuff. You run through most of the first level.....maybe all.....I didn't play into that far before I died. But you know, I've played Contra games before, so I pretty much already know how that game will be. Looks good.
I reset my DS and DL'd the Ninja Gaiden demo.
I have the Ninja Gaiden demo on my DS right now. My goodness are the character graphics sharp and detailed!
Of course, the backgrounds are static, so they obviously look good. Laying the smackdown on the enemies is great fun. The stylus controls are almost too easy to get used to.
Controls are more than just intuitive, they are just plain cool.
You walk around like Zelda.
Tap on an enemy to throw shurikens at them. You seem to have an unlimited supply of them.
Any button on the DS will block. Touching the touchscreen in different directions while holding block will make you roll around in whatever direction you pushed the stylus.
Slashing left/right/diagonally over enemies will attack them. Slashing multiple times results in a sort of barrage of attacks.
If you slash up, then down, down, you will jump up in the air and do an "Izuma Drop" for big damage that seems to hit any nearby enemies.
At the top of the touchscreen, next to your life bar, there is a "ninpa" power icon. Tap that and a Sanskrit character comes up, trace that (which practically auto-fills itself as you go over the character, very easy to do) and your ninja will do his "ninpa" move which will do major damage to the on-screen enemies. It will pretty much wipe-out regular enemies, but it will take the end boss dragon down to about 1/8th health.
There are some combos you stumble upon as you play that weren't explained too. One time I did a spinning slash attack the knocked down all the enemies around me. Another time, I grabbed a dude, jumped up in the air with him and slammed that fool on the ground real hard. That was pretty satisfying.
Most of what I just explained is told to you as you play, but some of it was just sort of discovered on my own.
You do have the option of left or right-handed control since the game is played sideways "Hotel Dusk" style. This was very handy as I'm predominantly left-handed.
The demo is quite short actually. After whooping the big red dragon, that's where the demo ends, saying "Winter 2007". So you start off in one area, lump some dudes, go up some steps, lump more dudes, go through the doorway to the next area. That next area is the final area in the demo. Lump lots of dudes, then the dragon is the final battle....he was quite easy to beat in this demo. I'm going to assume he will be a little tougher in the full game.
Long story short, this demo 2 areas (that's 2 static backgrounds that have a little up/down/left/right scrolling to them within the area), you fight about 20 dudes, including a couple dudes with bows, then the dragon boss and it's over.
The demo is VERY short, but I can tell this game is gonna be loads of fun when it's released. I am now much more hyped for it than I was before.
I didn't check out any of the other games.....they either were already out (and therefore already played) or frankly weren't that interesting to me.
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Psionic Roshambo:
