So last night I beat that mission in GTA IV I was stuck on. After I finished I decided to take a little GTA break and see if there was any new stuff on XBOX Live for me to try out. As I was perusing the new XBLA games I saw a new title called Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3. I was immediately curious since I loved the original Commando as a kid, playing it for many hours at the Boys and Girls Club when I was a young lad. In fact, it might have been the first arcade game I ever actually played. I also loved Bionic Commando, which is getting its own next-gen sequel and retro re-release sometime soon. Since I don't really have the money right now to go on an XBLA spending spree, I decided to just try out the demo version of the game. It's a ton of fun. It has the feel of the original game but with a little bit more cartoony graphics, kind of like Team Fortress 2 or something like that. The controls are a cinch and the firing controls work similar to those of SmashTV and Total Carnage. There is a new special attack feature as well as three playable characters, each with different attributes. The demo, while brief, gives you a good feel for the game. At 800 MS Points, it's definitely a buy for me.

After playing through the demo level of Commando three times I noticed the demo for Ninja Gaiden II had finished downloading. Having briefly played the first XBOX game and really digging it I knew I had to give this one a go. Yes, the game is more difficult than most, but it is a TON of fun. Imagine being a real ninja, jumping off walls, throwing ninja stars, and flipping out on people and you have the gist of this game. It's every child of the 80's dream come true. It's not your standard hack and slash game though. In order not to die a horrible death you have to learn various skills and blocking techniques. Button mashing will work for awhile, but as the game progresses it becomes a less viable tactic. I read many concerns about the camera in some reviews and I honestly didn't have a problem with it. I occasionally had to recenter the camera behind Ryu by pressing the right trigger but this wasn't a big deal at all.

Curtis (my new roommate) watched me play a bit and we talked about how awesome a Kill Bill game would be. It would be similar to Ninja Gaiden but probably a bit more cartoony as far as the violence went. A feature that would be cool would be if you could pause bullet time style and plan out your attacks. As you progressed through the game and leveled up the amount of attacks you could plan out would increase. Seriously, someone should do that.

The demo itself gives you a great taste for the game. I played for almost 20 minutes and haven't even finished yet. Thankfully there are save points throughout the level. I am definitely going to buy this once I finish GTA IV and a couple other games that have been sitting on my shelf feeling neglected. Sorry Mass Effect. I swear I'll finish you one day.