There are some pretty cool new demos floating around.

For 360
owners, you can hop on XBL and grab the Ninety-Nine Nights demo. I’ve
heard this game received lukewarm response in Japan, which is where the
game was targeted (to help move 360’s in a culture that just isn’t
buying them).

The gameplay is pretty straightforward, and all
action. Fans of Dynasty Warriors should be pleased. Controls are
intuitive, and you can button mash, or learn some pretty devastating
combos. The voice acting seems pretty weak at parts, and the
storytelling is “meh”. But it’s really entertaining gameplay.

One
that thing isn’t mentioned in the controls screen is that if you hold
down the guard button (left trigger) and point the left thumbstick in a
direction, you’ll automatically face that direction. Very handy for
finding the largest group of enemies to wade into.

I enjoy westerns, so I was pretty excited to see a demo for Call of Juarez go up. I only got to spend about twenty minutes with it yesterday, but it looks promising.

What
threw me the most was the akimbo gunplay. Meaning that each your two
pistols fires independantly with the two mouse buttons. And since
they’re six-shooters, it really takes some awareness, and strategy and
coordination to maximize your gunfighting.

There’s a really cool
bullet-time mode called Concentration, whereby, with your pistols
holstered, you jump out from whatever cover is shielding you, or into
whatever room you’re busting into, and activate concentration. You
quickdraw both pistols, and suddenly everything slows down. You have
two crosshairs, a left and right, which are slowly converging on the
center.

You place your shots as best you can, and when the time
returns to normal speed, you watch your enemies fly to the ground dead,
or dive for cover. It really helps when taking on multiple enemies at
once.

Atmosphere is pretty cool. Unlike most previous westerns,
they’re going for an authentic, realistic feel to the game. You can
pick up or destroy a lot of objects, which is pretty cool when you’re
shooting someone on a balcony, and they bust right through the railing
and plummet to the street below.

The demo comes with two
missions, it looks like. I only tried the one where you play as a
reformed outlaw turned revered who is inevitably compelled to dust off
the old six shooters in the name of vengeance. The voice acting is
great.

Cool stuff.