I have quite a few demos that I’ve downloaded but hadn’t had a chance to try yet, so here are some quick impressions of them:

Kudos 2: A life-simulation game, but more along the lines of the old Alter Ego games than The Sims, in that you have much more direct control and choices, in menu-driven sequences, rather than watching over someone else. Nearly everything you do affects your stats, so you have to balance work, leisure, your friends, your health, etc. Looks like it might be fun for a few playthroughs just to experiment with it.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts: Build your own vehicles out of parts you find in order to compete in challenges. Looks interesting, but the vehicles control a bit awkwardly and it’s not really clear from the demo just how much freedom there really will be in the vehicle construction. I’d wait for word-of-mouth on this one.

Mirror’s Edge: An interesting new idea, and seems to be well-done, but I’m concerned about the large number of context-sensitive controls. I just ran past all of the enemies since I couldn’t remember what the combat moves were or get the disarm timing right.

Fracture: Eh, it’s another shooter-with-a-gimmick, this time in the form of a terrain-deforming weapon that gets used constantly in contrived ways. Not my cup of tea.

Hmmm, I didn’t get nearly as many demos done as I’d hoped.