A recent Neogaf post and subsequent video published by the gaming world’s mash-up of Carson Daly and 50 Cent (aka: The HipHopGamer), gave reason to believe that there would be a Splinter Cell: Conviction demo included with purchases of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed II for the Xbox 360, however hot on the heels of an anonymous tipster, /gamer recently posted a few voucher images they believe debunk the demo rumor.

The wording on the voucher itself, shown in the images below, instructs those who purchased the 360 sequel to visit a specific URL (www.splintercell.com/ac2) and enter their unique key code to receive a “free instant download”.

While the URL does link Assassin’s Creed 2 with Splinter Cell: Conviction in some capacity, I’d have to agree that this doesn’t sound like a procedure one would go through to obtain console demo access. We’ll know soon enough.

EA, and developer Visceral Studios, issued a press release today announcing that a demo of Dante’s Inferno (a third-person action-adventure game set in the fiery chasm of Hell) will be available this December.

No specific date was given, but they do have a nice developer documentary series of videos highlighting the circles of hell within the game to hold you over. Definitely worth checking out if you haven’t seen them. Watch the video below and access the other segments through the interactive menu that pops up towards the end.

Oh how high society frowns upon you! If you happen to be an Xbox LIVE Silver Member that enjoys decapitating zombies when you aren’t drowning kittens in your bathtub, you know that the Left 4 Dead 2 demo wasn’t available to you last week. Well, put the kitten down and power up your 360. Valve’s zombie fest sequel is waiting and your clogged tub drain will thank you.

Sega is offering early access to the Bayonetta demo to registered Sega Pass Members. Signing up for the Sega Pass is free and takes about 10 seconds (I did it while posting this).

They have a limit of 40,000 codes and they will be given away on a first come first serve basis. If you aren’t a Sega Pass Member, you can sign up right here.

If you weren’t fortunate enough to get your hands on the demo of God of War III at E3, you may still be able to play the game before it’s official release. Those who reserved the game early will be able to access the PlayStation 3 exclusive pre-order E3 demo of the game on the PlayStation Network. Check out the awesome demo footage below.

Like the original, Assassin’s Creed 2 will not have a demo. This report comes direct from a Ubisoft representative on the floor of the Eurogamer Expo, and while gamers may not be too happy with it, at least one analyst predicts that Ubisoft’s sequel will still outsell the overachieving original.

The original Assassin’s Creed was predicted to sell roughly 3 million copies, however to date, the title has sold over 8 million — nearly matching the publisher’s predicted sales in it’s first month alone. Janco analyst, Mike Hickey, states:

“[Assassin's Creed 2] is part of a strong stable of owned and internally developed franchises …”

In addition to Hickey’s comment, his company, Janco Partners, shared current estimates that put the preorder numbers for Assassin’s Creed 2 at 10-20% over those of it predecessor.

Assassin’s Creed 2 will be available in stores on Tuesday, November 17th in the US.

In the latest effort to secure more preorders, GameStop posted Battlefield: Bad Company 2 promotional copy on their site promising:

“free overnight shipping, plus access to the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Beta beginning November 19th, 11PM PST.”

GameStop later pulled the page down, surely after being contacted by EA, and BFBC2 developer DICE was quick to add the following via the Official BFBC2 Twitter:

“Do not pre-order BFBC2 from anyone for a Beta Code until it’s confirmed by DICE on Twitter and the Blog. Even if it’s GameStop!!!”

Since then, EA has gone on to confirm that official demo release details will be revealed later this week. So as of right now a demo seems certain, but the leaked November 19th release date has yet to be confirmed. Stay tuned.

Thanks Qj.net

Weighing in at 2 gigs, the Left 4 Dead 2 demo is available on Xbox LIVE for all Gold Members as of today. As in right now. Seriously. What are you still doing here? Go download it.

In a recent interview with G4TV, Quantic Dream Co-CEO and Heavy Rain Writer/Director David Cage, revealed that the company is working on a playable demo of the game. The hang up for the team at the moment is finding the right scene for the demo.

Because the game is a mix of action and exploration, Cage explains that finding “one scene that can convey what we are trying to achieve with Heavy Rain is something really difficult.”

He goes on to say that the company understands the importance of releasing a demo, in that if you don’t release one “players may think that you have something to hide”, but also stresses the importance of putting your best foot forward.

“We also know many good games that ended up not being massive hits because the demo could not convey the quality of the game behind it …”

“Heavy Rain is a new concept and since many gamers will want to check what it is before buying it, we will be releasing a demo. We just need to find the best scene for it.”

I for one hope they find a portion of the game that embodies what they feel it’s all about and completely understand their hesitation. From the little I have seen of the game, it has tons of potential and I’m looking forward to digging into it.

If you haven’t seen the “Blue Lagoon” extended gameplay video we posted the other day you should definitly check it out. Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Is that headline a bit critical of Band Hero? No. Is that headline very critical of Band Hero? Absolutely.

The demo for Band Hero hit the Xbox Live Marketplace a few hours ago, and though it’s getting rather mixed impressions, through and through, Band Hero is a family game, with family songs, targeted at a family market. Of course, with artists such as Taylor Swift, Maroon 5, and Jesse McCartney heading up the set list, you didn’t need me to tell you that.

But that’s not to say the setlist is a stinker; In fact, I really like it. Obvious mainstream appeal aside, songs like “Black Horse And Cherry Tree”, “Let’s Dance”, and “Kung-Fu Fighting” make me want to at least give the game a try, when it comes out Nov. 3rd. If this seems like your type of thing, or you’re just looking to quench your music game, button-mashing thirst, hit up XBLM and download the 3-song demo now.

The God of War collection smashes onto the PS3 in less than two months featuring the full version of the first two games in the series. While that was enough to make me run out and preorder it (I actually powerwalked), the pot has just been sweetened: the collection will also come with a voucher to download the E3 God of War III demo. That’s right! There is a God. Of War. And he’s on his way.

It’s not often you get a demo that’s packed with content, but EA have announced that the PC demo for their attempt at a serious racing game has been released and can be downloaded here. The demo includes a lot (for a demo) of cars, and even an unlockable Zonda:

• BMW M3 (E46)
• 2008 Dodge Viper SRT10
• 2006 Lotus Elise 111R
• 2008 Nissan GT-R
• 2006 Pagani Zonda F (unlockable)

A PS3 and Xbox 360 demo is also coming early October, or of course you could just go out and buy the game, if you’re made of money.

For those of you out there who never picked up the full version of Battlefield 1943, the demo timer has been reset, giving players another 30 minutes to enjoy the slam-bang action. For Xbox 360 users, the server issues seemed to be fixed now, so if you couldn’t get into a game before, you should be able to now.

Gamers Digest

RPS reports that the PC demo of the huge open-world racer Fuel is out now for anyone to try- you can download it from here if you’re interested. I’m downloading it as I write this, as I’m eager to see what the game is like. I’ve been playing Burnout Paradise on my PC a lot recently, and I’m hungry for a version on rough terrain; Fuel seems pretty perfect.

Still, there’s no chance that it’ll be better than Burnout, and the generally average review scores it has been getting don’t bode well. Of course, the fact that there’s a free demo means everyone can just see for themselves whether they’re going to get the game or not.

See, this is the kind of stuff that I would never even notice. Some eagle-eyed gamer out there managed to take a picture of this little tidbit from the inFamous demo, showing a matinee listing at the game’s Cineplex. Among the titles at the matinee are Harold & Ranjith, Honor Among Thieves, and… Sly Cooper 4. Oh, Sucker Punch. That game’s not real!

…Right?

Because if it were, then I’d probably go into endless convulsions. I completely with TVGB’s assertion that it’s the best pIatformer of the last decade. loved the first three Sly Cooper games, and the although fourth (which was announced two years ago) was put aside to work on inFamous, I’m sure that everyone would enjoy a fourth installment of Anthropomorphic Hippo, Turtle, and Raccoon Steal Stuff and Run From Fox Cop. Sucker Punch, don’t toy with my emotions.

Plants vs. Zombies, the brand new puzzle/strategy game from Popcap Games, has been released. You can download the game from here or here, at $9.99 and $19.99 respectively. Why you’d pay $10 more for the non-Steam version I have no idea, but if it works for Popcap, good for them.

Popcap, of course, are the creators of both Bejeweled and Peggle, two games that are renowned for their ability to drain away time at an amazing rate. PvZ looks set to do the same thing. You can see for yourself with the demo (which you can get from either of the above links).

In an article explaining the issues around Demigod and the recent fixes, as well as some workarounds for connectivity issues, Stardock’s Brad Wardell has announced that there will be a demo coming soon. He has suggested that the demo be multiplayer only, although this isn’t set in stone at this point. The article’s got a lot in it, so I suggest that if you own the game (or are just curious), you read the rest of it, too.

Wardell also mentions that early adopters, those who have purchased the game before May 10, will receive a 50% off coupon for Demigod, presumably so you can get one for your friend and play together. A pretty good deal if you ask me, since from what I’ve played of the online mode you really do need a friend to play it with.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II now has a demo available on Steam. The demo is single-player only, but if you’re looking for more multiplayer, the game is 25% off until Monday April 20. The game seems to be getting plenty of acclaim, and this is the best chance you’ve got to try the game out (and if you like it, it’s a good price). I know I’ll be doing so, anyway.

GameZine reports that the early demo, released with Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children on Blu-Ray, has a special message at the end: “Coming Winter 2009″. The game will release at some point in 2010 for Western fans, but in the meantime it might comfort some to know that the Japanese version will be ready for release this year, at least on the PS3. Final Fantasy fans who can read Japanese will be interested in this as well, no doubt.

It’s no secret that we here at Ripten are fans of Red Faction: Guerilla. Sure, the builds we’ve seen have got a couple of bugs to sort out, but for the most part, the game’s destructive nature is just pure fun. With this in mind, you can understand why we’re happy that THQ has set a release date for the game.

The game will be releasing for the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 on June 9th, with a demo being released on April 23rd. Those of you that bother to preorder from GameStop will get access to the beta a full 20 days before, on April 3rd. I wonder how different the game will be from the beta builds we’ve already played, but you can bet that we’re anxious to find out come this June.

Reports are in that US production of the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Blu-ray are complete and that Sony Pictures Home Entertainment plans to release it stateside sometime in June. Blu-ray.com also reports a slew of features, the most interesting being an “Exclusive Sneak Peek at FINAL FANTASY XIII”.

Nothing is confirmed at this point, and the “sneak peek” could end up being nothing more than another blue ball educing trailer, but if you like to hope (and who doesn’t) here’s a little more fuel for your hope powered jet pack. A Square Enix spokesperson told MCV the following back in January as a part of the Japanese announcement of Advent Children:

“At present the Final Fantasy XIII demo will only be available in Japan with the Blu-ray release of Advent Children Complete, but we hope to have further news in the coming months,”

Could this be that “further news” the representative was speaking of? Only time and profit margins will tell, but considering the rate at which units moved off the store shelves in Japan, my money says you will be seeing a demo in the US release as well.

Joystiq reports that a demo of the much anticipated (by some) Killzone 2 will be hitting the European PSN on February 5. In the US, PS3 owners will have to pre-order the game at GameStop to get the demo on the same day, or wait until 27 February. Of course, cunning PS3 owners will find a way of downloading the European demo on their Euro accounts, I’m sure. Hugo Bustillos, a UK Sony representative, has noted that we’ll see the first two areas of the game’s first level, ‘Corinth River,’ with a beach landing and a warehouse. Also, the demo will include a tutorial, although I doubt it can match a certain game’s tutorial.

This is good news for people like me, who haven’t really seen much about the game, but want to know why people are talking about it so much. If the game is anything like the mediocre last game, even if it does look pretty, it won’t be getting a free pass from me. That said, pretty graphics!

As you most likely know already, the demo for Monolith Productions’ F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin was released recently on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. Obviously, so long as you own a device capable of running the demo, you can download and try it out for yourself. What I’d like to do, though, is share with you what my thoughts were about the demo. Hard drive space is a concern for many of you I’m sure, so perhaps I can help you decide whether or not to use yours up. Hit the jump for my impressions.

You might have guessed already, but primarily, I’m a PC gamer. As such, I downloaded the Steam demo of F.E.A.R. 2; that’s what I’m basing this on. I’m sure the console versions aren’t much different, but if they are, feel free to let everyone know in the comments.

As the demo starts, the player is presented with an introduction. Nothing new about that, and fittingly there was nothing new about the intro movie — a few fast cuts and a voice explaining to me why I should be scared of the girl (Alma). Could just be my cold, cynical heart, but it really wasn’t anything special. When the player is put in control, however, it does begin to step up, so to speak.

So many first person shooters now have decided on keeping the player in control of cut-scenes, letting the player look and walk around while the story plays out. Pioneered in the Half-Life games, and implemented badly in many games since, I find this technique of storytelling has become stale and irritating. That said, the beginning of the F.E.A.R. 2 demo does manage to pull it off.

The player starts off in a street lit by flames and torn by warfare, greeted by Alma. A flash, she’s gone. You begin to walk towards the end of the street. Another flash. Alma reappears, walking away from you. Your only choice is to follow, but she’s gone before you can reach her. At the end of the street, you realise that this can’t be real; your only option left is to jump into a pit of bright light. When you wake, your squad-mate is calling for you over the radio, unable to get a signal. To your right is a crashed helicopter — yours.

To progress, the player’s next path is through an elementary school. Your first encounter is with an armoured guard and his five friends. Slow-motion combat is introduced, which is fun for a while, but becomes tedious (I ended up not using it for the rest of the demo). The combat is made a little difficult by the way the character controls — you move with a heavy foot, stomping around, and your vision bobbing back and forth the whole time. It’s almost as if you’re carrying four huge weapons or something. Oh, actually, you are. The weapons I encountered were as standard as it gets: sub-machine gun, assault rifle, sniper Rifle, and shotgun.

After some more combat, the best part of the demo happened. If you want to avoid spoilers, skip this paragraph. I stumbled out from a classroom and found myself in a corridor. The walls are littered with smiles and rainbows, all drawn in crayon. Suddenly, a table flies from a room on the left of the corridor in front of me into another on the right. My cross-hair flashes red — was that an enemy I saw? The screen flashes; all of the colour drains out of my vision. Something flies at me — a locker? A filing cabinet? Whatever it was, it was followed by a myriad of other things, giving me no choice but to run. I ran as fast as I could go down the corridor, catching glimpses of ghostly figures, all furious at me. Why? It didn’t matter. All that did was getting out of there as fast as I could. Terrifying, and exhilarating.

Escaping the school, and narrowly avoiding a falling train carriage, I enter the subway. My escape route is the fallen carriage, and I walk up through it towards the surface. The door in front of me slams shut, and a shadow is cast upon it. Needless to say I had to turn around, and I caught but the smallest glimpse of a figure at the back. Turning away to run, I see through the open door — just up the street (past more hordes of enemies) is something I really didn’t expect.

At first I thought it was another enemy, then a tank of some sort. No, I was wrong. It was in fact a mecha suit — think Gundam, just a little smaller. What follows is an awful sequence where I was sent through the streets in the suit, firing rockets and heavy machine guns at enemies and other mech suits, at which point the demo ends. In a game which had previously made me face my mortality and run away, stomping through the streets in a rocket-laden armour suit was incredibly out of place. Not to mention that I couldn’t actually tell what it was I was shooting, thanks to a cluttered interface and a lot of dark colours blurring together.

Were it not for the pointless and silly ending to the demo, F.E.A.R. 2 would have certainly interested me. The movement is irritating in combat, but certainly adds to the tension in the other sections. This is one of those games, I’d say, that you need to try out before buying. For me, I most likely won’t be buying the game — the horrible mech section at the end, and the repetitive and slow combat, just aren’t worth enduring for the spookier sections. If you decide to try out the demo, let us know what you think in the comments.

Destructoid and PS3 Fanboy, combine! Together, they report that the English demo for Capcom’s zombie shooter Resident Evil 5 will be out on January 26 for Xbox 360 owners, and the week of February 5th for PS3 owners. Set your calendars; I certainly recommend you try it.

Sony has told Eurogamer that the Killzone 2 demo will likely be hitting the PlayStation Network before the game’s release. This contrasts to the American PSN, on which the demo will not launch until after the game releases. Here’s some more salt on America’s wound: Europe seems to be getting the game 2 days earlier than the US.

Anyone looking forward to Killzone 2? I wasn’t, and then I played the game at the Eurogamer Expo. Now, I’m… still not looking forward to it. Have you ever played a first-person shooter? Then you’ve played Killzone 2. Yeah, it looks nice, and it’ll likely be an example of how to do an FPS right, but what I saw just had nothing to excite. I guess the early demo will have to prove me wrong, eh?

Via GameZine.

Criterion haven’t finished with the free stuff, after all. The PC version of the acclaimed racer Burnout Paradise, due for release in February 2009, will be released completely free for a trial period (although there is no word on how long you’ll be able to play). Not happy with a demo, Criterion have decided that they “want all [their] PC players to be sure it runs perfectly on their system, before they commit to buying it. [They] also love the game and feel confident that if you try it, you’ll want to sign up for more.”

The trial is pretty much the whole game on a timer, although there are obviously a few cutbacks to save for the full game. However, the game does feature the 8-player “Freeburn” multiplayer mode and around 120 races and events. Perhaps “Paradise” was a better name choice than we first anticipated.

For our readers in the US, rejoice! The demo for Dead Space, EA’s recent horror shooter, will hit the Playstation Marketplace and the Xbox Live Marketplace service on the 25th of November. For our European readers, rejoice slightly less! The demo for Dead Space is heading to Xbox Live Marketplace on the 25th as well, but the PSN release is set for the 27th. Still, it’s better than nothing, eh? Speaking of which, our readers in Asia may now begin not rejoicing- there is no date set for the demo on either marketplace, at least as far as Shacknews reports. PC gamers should also note that there hasn’t been any word of a demo for said platform.

Dead Space is a game that tends to garner mixed reactions; a demo is the perfect way to have a go at the game before you decide to buy. Roly’s review is another safe bet for those of you who need even more persueding. In any case, how do you feel about the game, or even the demo? Worth full price, or not?

Electronic Arts has apparently teamed up with Brad Borne (of Borne Games) to create a flash version of the just-released Mirror’s Edge. The beta is playable now online, and even though it’s essentially just a repeating level, it’s a nice taste of what the full release may be when it lauches in “a week or two”.

This beta/demo actually reminds me of some old-school Prince of Persia, and that is definitely a good thing. I’m not entirely sure if the full game will remain a simple flash application available for free on the interwebs (Brad claims it will be, but we never know how EA will want to market it on PSN/Xbox Live), but it’s certainly worth checking out. In all honesty, I think this version looks better than the actual console Mirror’s Edge, but maybe that’s because I like being able to see Faith in all her hotness instead of “being” her.

Head over to the Borne Games website right the fudge now and play the demo.

Steam owners can now download the public demo of Left 4 Dead, Valve’s upcoming zombie shooter. Xbox 360 owners can also get their zombie freak on via XBLA, as the demo has been released there as well. This of course comes a week after the release of the pre-order demo, available to those who had pre-ordered the game. As you can see, I feel that this demo is much better than most full games out there, so I strongly urge all zombie fans (and everyone else) to download the demo and try it out. Look forward to the Ripten review of the game in the near future!

G4TV has posted a video containing 15 minutes of gameplay footage they recorded themselves while fighting for their lives against an army of zombies. If this doesn’t get you ready to hit “download” when the public demo of Left 4 Dead hits XBL tomorrow, you must not be a fan of four player co-op awesomeness. Hit the jump for the video.