Demos... Sigh.

After geeking out on my Wii for a while it was time to get back to the 360 and check out some new downloadable demos.

I checked out:

• Tenchu Z (retail demo)
• The initial experience was tragic. Lots of character setup that wasn't very interesting. The choice of characters wasn't very exciting. Moreover, after I spent several minutes navigating the game shell and setting up the game, I died instantly and needed to go through the whole process again.
• Combat was... Puzzling. Maybe I was supposed to sneak around the first two guards, but they had spears and I had a short sword and they made mincemeat of me. Player death = start all over (including character setup) which is not very appealing.
  
• Omega 5, Triggerheart: Exelica, Operation Darkness, Rocketmen: Axis of Evil (XBLA demos)
• The first two were shooter-scrollers (side and top-down) in classic Japanese style (scantily clad female characters; buff and strange looking male characters). They seemed pretty hard core in terms of challenge ramp (lots of flashes on screen; easy to die; limited lives). I imagine these games might be most appealing to fans of the genre (and IP).
• Operation Darkness seems to have some promise. Unfortunately the game shell was awkward and let me set up a battle that was not very fun to conduct. There was too much micromanagement - I needed something a little more manageable for an initial experience. I may try it again as it has a kind of Advance Wars feel -- but I worry that the 3d environment and complex UI will make it far less playable.
• Rocketmen: Axis of Evil was an attempt at a quirky/cheesy isometric camera shooter. It didn't really engage me -- but I'm not necessarily a fan of this genre of game.
  

I've got a retail copy of Tenchu Z (and Ninja Gaiden 2 -- perks for working with one of my clients) so I'll check these titles out in a little more detail later on this week.