The Devil May Cry 4 demo was released for the PlayStation Store earlier today and for me, it was probably the first great demo of 2008. (Burnout Paradise demo be damned.) The demo should be quite familiar to those who have been following DMC4’s development; we finally get to play what the rest of the press have been playing since TGS 2006. Is it everything I hoped it would be? Or is it DMC3 tweaked and in HD? Answers to follow, my dear readers.

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You’ve read the latest IGN and 1UP previews and I bet you were wondering when Rockstar’s behemoth would land. Mark your calendars, folks. Grand Theft Auto IV is scheduled for April 29th, 2008.

Am I excited for this game? After these previews, I am slowly becoming a fan. I’m going to wait for more drips of information to become available before making final judgements.

BestBuy says yes. According an apparent leak of information, the PLAYSTATION 3 80 GB SKU is going the way of the dodo. With no visible replacement any time soon, it looks like consumers will not have the choice of a PS2 backwards compatible PS3 to choose from once stock is gone from the retail channels. That is, if Sony does not announce some form of PS2 software emulation solution for the 40 GB SKU.

Is this a huge loss? For some, yes. If you care about having four USB ports, the media card reader and PS2 backwards compatibility; your time to pick up a PS3 could be rapidly approaching. On the bright side, if this discontinuation turns out to be true and SCEA does not announce a new replacement SKU, they can finally get rid of the multi-SKU strategy and the consumer confusion which comes with it. The only thing consumers may have to worry about is which color to choose from: white or black?

During the holidays, Microsoft announced that Xbox Live members were going to receive a free XBLA game and decided, last week, that this game was Undertow. I personally don’t have many experiences with XBLA games so I really didn’t know what to expect.

My opinion: A surprisingly fun game.

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Check the thread from NeoGAF which contains not only scans from the latest issue of Famitsu, but translated tidbits of Final Fantasy XIII. Not a lot about Final Fantasy Versus XIII yet though. I’m not sure how much of this is realtime (probably all CG), but realtime or not: it looks awesome. According to Nomura, this is the first of many information releases.Screenshot thanks to ITmedia, whoever they are.

Battlefield: Bad Company, DICE’s latest console exclusive (PS3/360) first person shooter, was delayed earlier today. I’m not completely sold on this game yet, so I guess that’s a good move to delay it.

In other news, THQ axed a handful of IPs (Stuntman and Juiced) and games including the PS3 version of Frontlines: Fuel of War. I’m not completely at loss over this cancellation since impressions for the XBOX 360 demo was less than favorable. It looks like THQ is shedding some of its lower quality products in hopes to reboot itself. Good luck to them.

Surprise. Ubisoft published and Free Radical developed Haze was delayed again. Unfortunately for Haze, I don’t care about it anymore. When I first saw the game footage from Ubidays 07, I was interested with the double edge drug use mechanic and intrigued by how the multiplayer would work. Now? It’s all, but fallen off my radar since it’s much touted 4 player co-op feature has been implemented by the likes of Halo 3.

Frankly, I’m tired of hearing about the game’s exclusivity status and the number of delays it may or may not receive. You know what they should do? Ubisoft should just keep a its mouth shut about the game and have Free Radical release it in the slow summer months — regardless of its state. Perhaps then people will pick it up out of boredom and Free Radical can finally work on a game people may have interest in: Time Splitters 4.

We’ve been hearing about it for awhile now, but we finally have some “concrete” details on the upcoming Team Fortress 2 changes. It looks like the most significant changes include two new maps, a new gametype and medic class changes:

“The first Medic unlock, for example, is called the Overhealer. Instead of temporarily buffing people’s health to 50% above their normal maximum, it permanently boosts them to double their standard health. The downside is that it’ll be dramatically worse at building Ubercharge - in fact, Valve are toying with not letting it Uber at all.”

You can checkout the PC Gamer Blog for the full details.

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Well, that was rather quick. Planet Battlefield have some details and interview videos of how Battlefield: Heroes will play and what it will feature.

Here’s a taste of some of the details and features:

• Pick one character and you level him up through the game.
• 3rd person rather than 1st person
• Vehicles in the game unlike Team Fortress 2
• Historical war setting
• Much simpler than Team Fortress 2

Check out the rest at Planet Battlefield.

Just a reminder to you all to grab your free copy of Undertow from the XBOX Live! Arcade. You will have until Sunday, January 27th 11:59 PST. Don’t say I didn’t remind you.