Gamefly sent me an e-mail informing me that they shipped Bayonetta on Friday, and I finally received the game today on Wednesday. Gamefly is continuing to put me through this four-day shipping cycle, and I don’t like it one bit. I want my two-day shipping cycle back!

On another note, I’ve heard that Bayonetta is a relatively short game, so I hope to finish it up by Friday so I can ship it out by Saturday. This way by the time I get back from Vegas there should be another game waiting for me. I put about an hour into it today, and I couldn’t believe the amount of downtime, especially when loading a level or saving a game. But the sheer awesomeness of the game makes up for that…I mean, what other game is there where demon witches turn their hair into giant monsters who eat even gianter bosses?!

Obviously one of the major draws of PAX is the games. I got the opportunity to play quite a few. Of all the games I played, only a small handful were unreleased…many of them are games that are already available that I have never had the opportunity to play. So heres the games, in no particular order:

• Crackdown 2 (360): We waited on line a little under an hour to check it out. It was a free for all game with men in armor suits who carried rocket launchers. The object of the game was to grab an orb and then run away and stay alive for as long as possible. So the main target of the game was always whoever had the orb. I was not a fan of the game. The controls were pretty bad, and navigating the city was horrible. The player cannot fly or run up the side of buildings, so you have to jump to latch on, but you can only latch on at particular spots, so a good chunk of the game was spent trying to get over a building so I could continue on in the match. Overall, I wasn’t a fan of what I played, which was only the versus mode. Apparently there is a single player and co-op story mode, but I was not able to play that.

• Charlie Murder (XBLA): Charlie Murder is a fun four player beat em up a la Castle Crashers. The four playable characters were basically punks, and ran around beating the pulp out of other punks. Each character had a special move involving a guitar, as the character I was using summoned forth saw blades that ran across the screen cutting down enemies in their path. The game looked pretty good, with large, cartoonish characters and enemies, and I would definitely purchase it if I had a 360 when it comes out. Definitely keep an eye out for it.

• Dishwasher: Vampire Smile (XBLA): Vampire Smile is a single player platformer. You play as a guy (I assume either he is a vampire or he kills vampires) with a sword and run around hacking up baddies. I only played for a very brief period before I gave up on it. The game was challenging, and I didn’t feel that it really offered anything in particular than being a Shinobi-esque side scroller. It was not one of my favorites of the weekend.

• Castle Crashers (PSN): I played it. It exists. It’s coming. I will go more into it in a separate post, since I’m particularly interested in it.

• Team Fortress 2 (PC): Yes, I am putting Team Fortress on here because I had never played it before. Well, that’s a lie. I played it once on the PS3 when I rented Orange Box from Gamefly, but was not a fan and thus returned it. However, I spent a lot of time with it over the weekend. I can see where the fan base comes from, because it really is a great game with a great selection of character classes to choose from. The game is a challenge for a new player like me, because it seems that the fans of the game have truly mastered the game, and knowing the map well is a huge advantage over players who don’t. So even though I got my butt kicked, I still enjoyed playing the game.

• Yakuza 3 (PS3): I was not impressed. The game seems to take place in an open-world setting, yet I didn’t get that sandbox feeling. The biggest problem I had was that I couldn’t do ANYTHING. In most of those open-world games, like GTA and Prototype, you walk around, and you can attack and interact with the citizens around you. In Yakuza, I could not do that. I wandered around for about two minutes talking to people and getting nowhere, until finally I came across some guy who took me to some bad guys to beat up. But in the end, I just wasn’t feeling the game and didn’t enjoy playing it for the five minutes I spent with it.

• Bayonetta (360): I’ve played the demo on the PS3, but this time around I wanted to try it on the 360. Unfortunately, it has been so long since I played the PS3 demo that I forgot it, and was unable to compare. I did enjoy playing through the 360 demo, and Bayonetta is definitely a game that I will continue to hope for on the Gamefly queue.

• Deca Sports (DS): I tried out the rugby game, and it was alright. I didn’t really know what I was doing, and basically just kept tapping the A button and running forward. Somehow I scored two goals or whatever the heck it’s called in rugby, but I don’t know how I did.

• Left 4 Dead (360): That’s right, Saturday was my first time playing Left 4 Dead. I really enjoyed sitting back on the 360 and playing through the first couple of levels in split-screen co-op. The game is a blast, and I am definitely envious of the 360 owners who get to play this game. It’s just such a well-made, solid zombie-killing FPS, and the fact that there is campaign co-op only sweetens the deal. It’s a shame that the Ps3 has nothing in comparison by far…

• Left 4 Dead 2 (PC):I also got to check out Left 4 Dead 2 on the PC. I wasn’t doing all that hot due to the fact that I don’t play PC games, and was thus frequently turning into zombie feed. However, it was still fun to play, and I really like the co-op abilities present in the game such as having to save a partner from a zombie, reviving a fallen buddy, and sharing medicine and other items with your teammates. I had a blast playing it, and really wish that I could play the series more.

• Plants vs. Zombies (PC): I was looking for some downtime one night, so I went over to the PC and popped in some Plants vs. Zombies. It’s a very bright, colorful semi tower defense game. Basically a bunch of zombies approach your house and you have to plant plants to defend it. For example, pea plants (which are your basic unit) will fire peas at zombies to attack them, and cherries are “cherry bombs” which will destroy all nearby zombies. It was a simple and entertaining game, and I really enjoyed playing it.

• Tetris DS (DS): There was a lot of down time at times while waiting on line for a panel or whatnot, and my friend and I passed the time playing Tetris DS. Tetris is definitely one of the best puzzle games ever made, and the ability to play vs. modes against friends is a fun experience. While I succeeded in owning him Saturday, Steve came around and kicked my butt Sunday. It was a great way to kill time.

• Snake (XBLA): I forget the full name of the game, but it was a reboot of the old Snake game. I played the single player game, where you basically just move the snake about the level collecting power ups to make it grow and trying to avoid collisions. I also watched a four player battle mode, where four players on the same level grow their snakes and try to trap their opponents into colliding and thus losing. It’s a very simple game which is easy to play but tough to master.

• Frobot (WiiWare): Frobot is just what it sounds like…a disco-living robot sporting a fro. The game plays similar to the Tank game from WiiPlay, where you use the nunchuck to move your player around and the Wii remote to aim and attack your opponent. It was alright, but nothing special, aside from a catchy title.

• Gravitronix (WiiWare): Gravitronix is a four (or eight) player battle game. The game screen is a giant circle, and each player is assigned a quarter of the circle. Players then throw projectiles at their opponents section of the circle in an attempt to break through the shield and damage the player directly. I really enjoyed playing it, and it is a game I would like to look more into.

Gig (all consoles): While there was no playable demo for the game, I got to talk to one of the developers about it. Gig is a music game a la Guitar Hero and Rockband, except that the guitar is an actual guitar, in that you have to strum and what not. I asked him how a guy like me who never touched a real guitar would be able to play, and he explained that the easy mode is very basic and anyone will be able to play it, and that as you play more and get better at it, the game can teach you basic guitar stuff. It sounds really neat, but unfortunately I was not able to either play it or see it being played. I will definitely be keeping my eye on it though.

So I think this is a pretty accurate round up of the games I got to play at PAX East. As you can see, there are a lack of pictures because my camera sucks, but I will be getting a new one soon, so it won’t happen again, I promise. I really enjoyed getting to play all these games that I would otherwise never get a chance to touch, and I look forward to trying more out at next year’s PAX East (which is apparently taking place in Boston again, though if it’s in March or some other time is unknown.)

So I had a tough call this week. There were two releases out, and I had to decide which one I would be getting in from Gamefly. I had to choose between Bayonetta (which had an awesome demo) and Darksiders. In the end I chose Darksiders. I think I just liked the sound of the story better. I had to choose between a hot witch who uses her hair to eat enemies, and the first sign of the Apocalypse . I made my choice…

When I first saw and heard about Bayonetta, I wasnt interested. It looked like an unappealing God of War clone to me, and reminded me too much of Heavenly Sword, which was a game that looked cool but sucked when I played it. So I had no intentions of checking out Bayonetta. That is, until I played the demo. Then I changed my tune.

Without knowing too much about the game (from not reading up on it due to lack of interest), from the demo I can derive that you play as some hot chick who lives amongst a secret society. The game has her going off to fight a bunch of demons (some of which are HUGE). The main character is very interesting. As you control her, you fight with hand to hand combat and guns. As you defeat enemies, you can pick up their weapons…some of which are ridiculously huge. There is also some magic thrown in there to spicen things up.

One of the craziest things about the demo that snagged my attention was the combat itself. Aside from what I just mentioned, there were a few large enemies where, at the end, you had to finish the enemy off with some on-screen button prompts. By successfully doing this, her clothing comes off to reveal the fact that it is her hair. Then her hair turns into a monster’s mouth, and proceeds to bite the giant enemy in half. It was so unexpected, yet so cool to see a hair monster bite a huge chunk out of some other large monster.

In the end, the demo succeeded in blowing me away. I wish it was a little longer, but it was still enough to grab my interest and leave me wanting more. I will definitely be renting this game at some point when it comes out in January.