I started to check out all the games, I did throw up the UT3 shots here.

UnrealTouranment 3 Demo:

This is the motherload for me, even with disappointments in 2003 and 2004 I’m always ready for a new one in the series.  So far DeathMatch and Vehicle CTF have been the only mods active when I’ve played.  The game runs smooth and, as you can see from the screen shots, is visually beautiful!!  I’m hoping they update the browser a bit for PC since they’ve kind of went back to the feel of UT2003 before the huge amount of interface patches to give it more PC familiarity.  They also need to work on getting the browser to sort properly, if you played the earliest betas of Quake Wars, it’s kind of the same… the player numbers sort poorly and even the ping is screwy.  I’m also not sure what the 24/24 servers are since they don’t appear to be actual full servers and you kind of hang in space waiting for a connection.

Overall CTF has been fun and it’s too bad they don’t have Campaign active in the demo (or at least nothing appears for servers).

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Demo:

I gave this a try briefly tonight and it’s kind of like the previous single-player demos that they’ve released in the past.  No multi-player and an intense SP map.  At this point, this is one of the lower ranking games on my list.  It’s modern but it’s the same as the WWII games in my opinion, at least SP.  It does look “pretty” too.

Frontlines: Fuel of War Closed Beta:

This is very much a beta.  I had lag issues, no ability to set your default keys (which typically isn’t a big deal on my Fang but I can’t set my reload to my middle mouse button! heh).  The game moves more like Desert Combat than BF2/BF2142 and rather than the command button (q default) in BF2, it’s a quick weapon switch which is kind of a waste, I’d rather see it more like BF2/2142 with commands.  I also didn’t see squad options in the game.  Getting back to the speed of the game, it seems to move fast and be much more realistic (as Desert Combat).  I’m hoping that they don’t alienate the people who are looking for a game to move on from BF2 or BF2142 by making it too “hardcore”.

Honestly the game played like a console game or more closely like Modern Warfare on the 360 which is disapointing but AGAIN, it’s a beta and they have until the first of the year to work it out and I’m hoping it works out to be different than how the closed beta plays.

Others:

I’ve not tried the others but plan on giving the Crysis, Hellgate: London and TimeShift demos a try Friday or Saturday.

As always, I’ll get screenshots up as I go through them.  The CoD4 and Frontlines will be up this weekend.