Game demos show strong March lineup for Xbox 360

03/04/09 - One of my favorite features of Xbox Live is the ability to download demos of upcoming games. Right now, a handful of new demos are available and they're all for some big-name games coming out soon. "Halo Wars" is due out March 3 and looks to be a very interesting game from the demo. "Halo Wars" is a real-time strategy game that takes place 20 years prior to the events of the "Halo" trilogy.

The story is told through cut scenes and the cut scenes are superbly done in the demo. They look great and feature solid voice acting all around.

The demo starts with a tutorial that is very helpful for getting used to the game. The controls are simple enough, important for a console based real-time strategy. The only hiccups come with the analog stick being too touchy and the degree of difficulty in splitting up your troops. It ends up being much easier to just hit the button to control every troop on screen than to try and move specific groups.

The other issue with the controls comes from the camera, which could use the ability to zoom-out farther and occasionally gets stuck on objects in the scenery. The game is graphically impressive and detailed, and I had a surprisingly good time with the game- despite not being a big fan of real-time strategy games or the "Halo" series.

Also coming out on March 3 is "MLB 2k9." Last year's version of the game was fun for a while, but the more I played it, the more frustrating the game became. The large amount of bugs, glitches, and other problems with "MLB 2k8" left a bad taste in many baseball fans' mouths. This year, the game is being developed by a new group; the same group that develops the fantastic "NBA 2k" series.

From the demo, there seems to be a lot of similarities between how "MLB 2k9" and "NBA 2k9" are set up. The menus are very similar and much more intuitive than last year's MLB game.

Game-play wise, it runs a lot smoother and looks a tad bit better. There are a lot of small atmospheric details that really add to the game, like crowd reactions and shots of the managers and players on the bench.

The game also features a new audio crew, out with the ESPN staples of Joe Morgan and Jon Miller and in with Gary Thorne and Steve Phillips. Thorne is just as good here as he is in "NHL 09" and is now the only two-sport video game announcer I can think of. His partner Steve Phillips does a good job too and they mesh together much better than the previous duo.

On March 6 "Tom Clancy's HAWX" will be released. From the demo this seems to be a poor man's "Ace Combat." There is no real excitement in flying the high-powered jet fighters; they feel slow and clunky.

In addition, the camera used for dog-fighting is set very far away and is not only disorienting, but makes you feel like you're flying a remote-controlled toy plane rather than a fighter jet.

"Resident Evil 5," the newest game in the long-running survival horror franchise, is scheduled to come out March 13. The series has been around for more than 10 years now, and not much has really changed. At this point, most gamers know if they will enjoy a RE game.

I for one can't get past the awful controls in the game.

I don't understand how trained police officers/zombie hunters are unable to move while aiming. Or move while shooting. Or move while reloading.

The game basically derives scares from never giving the gamer enough ammo and making the combat system so poor that successfully killing a zombie is exceedingly difficult.

Not my idea of fun, but fans of the series should be pleased as the game looks great and seems to be an all around, solid game in the traditional mold of the series.

For better or worse.