Sanity Demo
One game demo that came out of nowhere last week was Sanity, a futuristic action/RPG game from developer Monolith and publisher Fox Interactive.  Having the dubious distinction of Ice-T's voice as the main character, the game is set 30 years in the future and deals with the life of a Psionic, Nathaniel Cain, who can generate and control energy using his mind.   Played from a top-down perspective, the game feels like part Diablo and part Smash TV. 

I have to admit to initially being impressed with the demo.   Graphically the game shines and the in-game cut scenes are reasonably well done…a first for a Monolith game.  The mouse control interface works reasonably well, although you shouldn't even try controlling the game via keyboard – it's a nightmare.  

Regardless of keyboard issues, Sanity features 80 spells in the full game, including fireballs, lightning strikes, and even those magic charms that verge on witchcraft.   Unfortunately, the opening of the demo gives you little opportunity to really try out these spells, instead opting to force players through a boring training session.

Still, Sanity seems to be unique, and there's a lot of potential that the spell casting could turn into something really fun.   Unfortunately, real.com and Monolith want to charge players $10 to download ten new spells for the game – an inane marketing scheme.  Do you really think I'm going to pay $10 to buy a solar flare spell for the demo of a game?  That's ludicrous and quickly takes this game down a notch.

It's too early to tell whether Sanity is going to be a memorable game, but at least the demo suggests this is a title to keep on your "wait and see list."  Let's just hope Monolith quickly drops the whole "pay for new spells" revenue model.   I don’t think many gamers are going to go for that.