Finally, Nintendo has caught up and started offering demos of a few WiiWare games. Hooray! It’s very limited though, and only until the end of January.
But Nintendo has a habit of coming to a party late, starting small, then doing it less half-arsed. So hopefully WiiWare will end up more like Xbox Live Arcade in terms of demos in the fullness of time.
The first news of the demos I saw was from North America, and I feared that we’d get no such treats. I was half wrong: my Wii was glowing with impending news, but we’ve only get three of the five demos they’ve got across the pond.
What is there then? The laboriously titled Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord, whose floor-building tactical combat stuff is more fun than I expected; NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits, which is sort of nice floaty platform stuff; and BIT.TRIP BEAT, which is a hell of a lot of fun, with its bleepy retro bouncy goodness.
For the record, we’re missing Pokémon Rumble and World of Goo, which is a damned shame on both counts – the former because I’ve no idea what it is, and the latter because it’s supposed to be ruddy superb and I’d appreciate a chance to try it.
As it is, I’m almost convinced to invest in BIT.TRIP BEAT. Only almost, because so far I’ve died before the demo has run out. Regarding the other two, I lost interest before the demo ended. But I do have a very short attention span these days.