Just as I, and presumably thousands of other gamers, had hoped, a Halo Wars Demo has been announced, and will be avialable for download off of the Xbox Live Marketplace in less than two weeks. I’ve done several other posts on the game, but, as far as gameplay goes, not many game sites have had the chance to play Halo Wars. On February 5th, gamers around the world will be able to experience this revolutionary title for themselves.
The demo includes a “Beginner” Tutorial as well as an “Advanced” Tutorial, which will allows new players to get the hang of the game’s controls, which have been specifically designed for the 360’s controller. When you’ve figured out the basics, Ensemble has also packaged the first two Campaign missions with the demo as well, so you can get a brief view of Halo War’s deep story, set 20 years before the events of the first Halo. When you’re done playing the Campaign modes, the demo is also packaged with Chasms, one of Halo Wars’ 14 multiplayer maps. However, the announcements were a little fuzzy on whether the demo would feature multiplayer over Xbox Live, like the real game will. I do know that players can play against the A.I. as either the Covenants or the USNC Marines, so players will be able to check out both armies.
The game looks very promising, and the demo will either guarantee more sales or less, depending on how well the game plays. For me, the only way that this game could get screwed up is if Ensemble’s control schemes were a little on the cumbersome side. However, I’ve read in several magazines and on several news sites that, despite RTS Games generally failing on the 360, Halo Wars’ will hopefully break that mold. Check out the Halo Wars demo this February 5th, and, if you can’t wait, you can check out the Halo Wars Video Documentary on Xbox Live in the Video Marketplace.
We were a few days off schedule, but we’re finally here with the latest episode of the Update This Podcast. This week’s discussion finds your hosts Neal, Jake, and John covering some Left 4 Dead patch and DLC information, several “shocking” PC statistics, a few stories from CES 2009, and we wrap up the show with a couple stories that take us into the future of video gaming. Check out the mp3 
Japanese players have had their hands on this demo for a long time, but the Resident Evil 5 demo is now making its way across the Pacific to the U.S., so we can finally check it out. The demo will be making its debute on the 360 on January 26th, the PS3 demo following a week later, on February 5th. There wasn’t any mention as to why the demo was made available only on the 360, but it really shouldn’t be considered a big deal. After all, in Japan, the only way to access the demo on the PS3 was with a 
So after checking all my feeds and news sites for something to blog about, I happened upon word of a demo for LotR: Conquest being available on Xbox Live. I figured it might be worthwhile to check out, as, if you’re a listener of the show, you’ll recall us discussing the game earlier on in. So after the long download, I jumped into the training mission of the demo.
Halo Wars, Ensemble Studio’s last project as Ensemble, takes the Halo franchise to the real-time strategy battlefield, where players assume control of hundreds of units, rather than just one single character. If you haven’t heard of Ensemble studios, you’ll perhaps recognize them by their flagship franchise, Age of Empires. While Age of Empires has lost its appeal and steam over the past few years, Halo Wars has done nothing but gather up its own layer of hype. It always astounds me how the gaming community gets so excited for each successive Halo release, yet get pissed off at the developers when the game finally releases. It doesn’t make much sense to me, but maybe gamers should just stop setting their hopes up so high.
