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*SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE YET TO PLAY ME1 AND ME2 or the Demo*

It's confirmed. Shepard's back and better then ever. (This Hands-on is based on the PC version, using Female Shepard as a Soldier).

I'll be honest. I wasn't actually planning to play the demo today, as I figured it's only less than a month until release and I still had a lot of work to finish. But you know what? After hearing everyone raving about it and "magically" whipping up some free time, I managed to fit one quick play through of the demo, and well, here I am. Let's get started, shall we?

For a while now it seemed like the Fabula Nova Crystallis series would never reach completion. The only completed game we've seen out of it so far was Final Fantasy 13, and even that didn't meet with quite the success it had projected. Fortunately, on October 27^th, Final Fantasy Type-Zero was released in Japan with an extremely warm reception. Famitsu has given the game a 39/40, and within the first week of its release it sold 427,253 copies. Unfortunately its unknown when the game will actually hit our shores, but at least we have confirmation that it is coming.

In the meantime try out the demo. I've been playing it non-stop these past few days and it's made me realize just how amazing this game is. Each of the characters have their own unique fighting style. This creates a gameplay experience that seems likes it was custom made just for you. The cut-scenes are beautiful, well-detailed, moving works of art. The opening sequence introduced and killed off a character in a relatively short amount of time, and yet I still found myself moved by his death. You can pick up a copy of the demo to hold yourself over at the PlayStation Store. Hopefully the full version of the game will released internationally sometime before early 2012.

Catherine, the latest game from the Atlus Persona Team, is being released in Japan on February 17th, and they were nice enough to release a Japanese demo! Instinctively, I logged onto my Japanese PSN account and eagerly downloaded it. These are my thoughts on the game that has had everyone completely confused since its announcement.

First of all, Atlus has gone out of its way yet again to make the presentation of this game absolutely stunning. The Megaten art style translates really well to 720p, and Shoji Meguro's soundtrack does not disappoint. This time around however, everything's gotten a little more risque, so this game is definitely NSFW. The out-of-gameplay experience is shown through cutscenes, some of which are drawn animations, and some of which are animated in the in-game engine. I must say that I (surprisingly) prefer the engine cutscenes. The in-game graphics are beautiful, well animated, and despite not having an amazing polygon count, really work well. It's like watching a high budget anime movie, except it's all in-game. The cutscenes in the demo involve Vincent, his friends, and his girlfriend Katherine. (Note: Vincent's real girlfriend is Katherine, and the girl on the box and in the header image is Catherine.) I don't speak or read Japanese, so I can't really give any details on the dialogue.