The Full Circle 360 News Report 01.25.08

Posted by Mike Minotti on 01.25.2008

GTA IV gets a release date, Devil May Cry 4 gets a demo, and we all get Undertow. Also, Burnout Paradise impressions inside!



First off, I want to thank my brother Ajguy for filling in for me last week. Although I hope you guys will haze him more if he ever covers for me again in the future.

The holiday lull seems to over, since some decent games are finally coming out again. It's good to have something to actually talk about.

Speaking about me talking, don't forget to listen to the Exploding Barrel Podcast!

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News

You can play the Devil May Cry 4 demo now.



It went up on Thursday, so the demo is good for the taking. The demo lets you play through a 10 minutes of a mission, and a boss fight. The game looks pretty gorgeous, and the action is pretty good, though it seems to be a bit less intense and fast paced than I remembered DCM3 being. Of course, I don't claim to be a DMC expert, so maybe I'm wrong.

The boss was, as expected, hard. Very hard. I actually got him down to half his health easily enough, but then he suddenly started going crazy and swiftly killed me with an assortment of firesword attacks. Just once, I'd like to be the one with the firesword.

The demo is definitely worth checking out, though if you've never been exposed to this series before, don't expect something more like God of War.

Download Undertow while you're at it.



While you're downloading things, don't forget that until this Sunday XBLA game Undertow is free. It's offered as a sort of apology for all of the Live issues we've had recently.

I haven't tried Undertow out yet, but I've heard a lot of good things. It's supposedly a twin stick shooter in the vein of Geometry Wars, but with territory capturing. Yeah, I'm not really sure how exactly that works either.

Grand Theft Auto 4 dated.



April 25th. That's the date.

What, you want more from me?

Well, I will say that I'm a bit surprised to see the game getting released this early in the year. Of course, I usually assume that just about every major game will end up getting released in the fall. Good to know that won't be the case. Hopefully.

Rock Band controllers to finally be sold separately.



Yay, I guess. As someone who bought the bundle and has plenty of extra Guitar Hero controllers to use for bass, I guess my personal interest in this is limited. Still, if you really want a wireless Rock Band controller, or a… spare drum kit, I guess you'll be happy.

The drum kit will be sold on February 12th for $79.99. The wireless guitar controller will be out in April for $59.99.

Rez HD coming this Wednesday.



Yep. Next Wednesday, January 30th, for 800 points ($10), Rez can be yours in fabulous HD. I'm personally pretty excited to play this game again. I rented it back in 2002, and admittedly, I didn't get it. Now, the game gets a lot of acclaim, so I'm hoping I was just missing something.

Weekly Releases

Turok – 1/30
I suggest playing the demo first.

Well, that was short.

Weekly Poll

I got an idea! I'll poll myself!

Will I buy Devil May Cry 4?

Hmmm… I'm not too sure. I was a bit more excited until I played the demo. Now, I'm saying it was a bad demo, it just wasn't the kind of action game I want to play. The mission level was a bit too straight forward and easy, while the boss was ridiculously unbalanced. Also, the combat system doesn't seem to have the intricacies of action games like God of War or Kingdom Hearts. Still, I only played 10 minutes, so maybe the game is deeper than I think. I'll have to give a it a rental sometime.

Weekly Trailer

Here's the new trailer for Alone in the Dark 5. Now, regrettably, my exposure to this series is limited to the Uwe Boll film. Still, this is a pretty sweet looking trailer. Look out AinD5; I have expectations now.



Target Topic: Take me out to Paradise City.

Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty.

I went ahead and bought Burnout Paradise the other day. A very wise decision. The game is all kinds of awesome. Playing an arcade racer that isn't filled with menus is a great joy. The open city concept is used very well in this game. Being able to start races, stunt events, and crash events just by stopping at a red light works very well.

One of my favorite events is called Marked Man. In it you have to get your car to a certain place on the map, while dozens of NPC cars try to take you out. Frantic, and fun, just like Burnout should be.

I also love unlocking cars. Unlockable cars will zoom past you as drive around the city, and you have to take them down to add them to your collection. It's great to just be cruising around and suddenly have a flashy looking car screech by you, beginning a frantic chase as your try to catch up to and avoid traffic.

There are still things I haven't tried yet, including online play. Still, my early impressions of the game are very positive.

The Other Guys

Nintendophiles' Theo Fraser has the goods on Wii Music and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

The SIXAXIS' Mark Salmela talks Turok and Resistance 2. It's a happy, happy FPS world.

Game Over

Back to Burnout for me. Oh, maybe I should gave given impressions on the Turok demo?

Turok demo impressions.

Abysmal.