Ravenprose said:

Iga_Bobovic said:

 The NPD results are from April, so they are about the sales of the month April. Klonoa was released early at some Gamestop's. They broke the street date of May 5th. That's why we have some sales. In short all sales are of April.

 Oh, I didn't know they broke the street date on Klonoa. That's odd. Gamestop usually doesn't do that.

Still, Trucks >>> Bots.

It's official, Ravenprose picks Wii Sports for the greatest game of all time.

Yodariquo said:

Ravenprose said:

Iga_Bobovic said:

The NPD results are from April, so they are about the sales of the month April. Klonoa was released early at some Gamestop's. They broke the street date of May 5th. That's why we have some sales. In short all sales are of April.

Oh, I didn't know they broke the street date on Klonoa. That's odd. Gamestop usually doesn't do that.

Still, Trucks >>> Bots.

It's official, Ravenprose picks Wii Sports for the greatest game of all time.

No, but I'm sure there are millions of casual gamers out there who do say that.

As far as Excitebots, those extremely low sales numbers are starting to prove that the masses don't care for it. Unlike Excite Truck, which according to VGChartz, has sold around 880,000 copies.

I got to play the Batman demo at my local Target (try your retail stores, they should have it) on the PS3. The demo is the first two combat arena missions, there are videos showing this. Its an all combat demo, basically showing how the freeform combat plays out and its good. The demo is confinded to one small square area it has four phases of enemies. First its Batman against like 5 guys, and the amount increases each phase, you gain a bit of health after you beat up all the enemies.

Combat is actually really simple but great to look at. Basically all you need to do is point your stick in the direction of the enemy you want to hit and hit square which is the attack button, Batman will do the rest. He will punch, kick, knee, on his own you just keep pressing square and people will get beat down. You can change direction at any time allowing you to basically fly around the room beating the crap out of everyone, as youchain hittingenemies you build a combo meter. When the combo meter reaches a x8 combo you gain the ability to do a takedown move by pressing triangle and squre which is a cinematic takedown. You also have a counter move, press triangle when an enemy is about to hit you and Batman will grab or dodge the attack and counetr. Again its really simple to perform, the enemies even have a blue lightning icon that appears on their head when they are about to strike, so just hit triangle when you see that and Batman will counter, no need to even point in the direction, Batman will counter an attack from any direction. Those two buttons basically make the core of the combat, its mostly pressing punch and timing your counters, simple but gorgeous to look at as punches and counters have excellent animation.

There are a few more moves, pressing circle will allow you to use your cape as a stun move. The X button allows you to dodge, usually by jumping and flipping over the enemy in front of you. Pressing L1 brings up your batarang, acts like aiming does in games like RE4 and Uncharted, R1 throws the batarang. In this demo it was rather pointless to use it, the area is so closed in that you dont have much time to throw it, all it does is knock the enemy down anyway. If you aim and press L3 you get a first person view of the batarang which I think allows you to control it after you throw it, kind of like Heavenly Swords arrows. Again no room to properly test it. R2 ducks, no use in combat as far as I can tell. L2 enters detective mode which is like some X-ray vision, enemies with guns show up red, others show up blue.

As you move through the phases of the challenges more and more enemies show up, and some carry weapons like pipes. Disarming them is done with the counter button, sadly you cant pick up the weapons but I guess thats not Batman's style. Once the first challange is finished there is a hard version of it. Some enemies have guns, take them out first cause guns kill you quick. The only time I died was toward the end when there were like 15 enemies to fight at once and a boss, some guy with knives which I assume is Zsas. The boss had a red icon above his head when he attacks, pressing counter didn't do anything so I assume if you see red that means it can't be countered. I beat him by dodging his attacks then punching.

I assume there will be more to the combat system as the game goes on. Its easy to use and very cinematic, the camera is excellent, no need to control it, gives you the perfect perspective. It was fun to play which is what matters. What I wish I played were the full stealth mechanics, that is where I bet the meat of the gameplay is, but its nice to see that hand to hand combat plays well.

Dvader said:

Punch-Out getting crazy awesome reviews. I am going to go cry now that I can't buy both games.

you'll be fine ... neither game is going anywhere.  get one of them and save the other for your next purchase.  just pretend the release for punch-out!!  was sometime in june - july.  there, problem solved

right now i'm feeling an urge to buy wii points and download swords and soldiers ... must. resist. impulse