THQ recently held its 2005 Gamers' Day at the Foreign Cinema in San Francisco, and in between stuffing my face I managed to get in some serious game time. With wrestlers, aliens, and a demon hunter on display, the company definitely had all its bases covered.

Wrestlemania 21 (Xbox): This game was THE REASON why I rushed to the event. Being a HUGE WWE fan, expectations were beyond high that developer Studio Gigante would deliver me (us) from Xbox wrestling hell, and I was kind of disappointed to find out that they're only meeting us half way. What we have here is the greatest-looking wrestling game ever made that includes some revolutionary options, but the gameplay still isn't up to snuff.

WM21's greatest selling point is its visuals, and they are without question amazing and very well done. Kurt Angle, Batista, Triple H, and Shawn Michaels all look fantastic and very much like their real life counterparts. Studio Gigante decided to use motion capture, so the superstar animations and entrances are eerily realistic. Everything else, from the spot lights that zip around the arena, the awesome-looking crowds, and the little details, like blood and the fact that the mat will actually pick up sweat stains as bodies "hit the floor" puts the game in a league of its own. I'm also psyched about the superstar voiceovers. The game features 50% more dialogue than what's found in SmackDown Vs Raw, and the acting is spot on, but the best thing about this game is its online component. After the debacle that was last year's SmackDown, THQ really went back to the drawing board, and what they've come back with is exactly what we've always wanted: the ability to play numerous match types online (this includes Royal Rumble, TLC matches, and just about everything else), AND, you can defend belts! Do you know how sick that's going to be? Talk about bragging rights! It's one thing to shoot a guy in the head in Halo 2, but to beat him for his WWE championship title...wrestling fans know that that's a lot more serious.

Ok, so now onto the "meeting us half way" part. The gameplay's slower than I would've liked. Nothing about WM21's fast-paced. Some of the reps insisted that the game flows like an actual real-life match but I think they're referring to the slow methodical match-ups from the 80's. It's just not as quick or as snappy as the last two SmackDown games, where making quick decisions is critical to winning. Here, things are a bit more methodical. That's not to say that the game's bad. I had fun playing it, and I know it's not saying much, but it's far and away the best wrestling game on the Xbox (and I think you'll be pleased with it), but I sometimes wonder why THQ feels the need to wander outside of the SmackDown engine. I would've based WM21 on it and just beefed up the visuals.

Juiced (played the Xbox version): Acclaim's loss is THQ's gain. My limited time with Juiced was good times, though it didn't convince me why I needed to buy it instead of Burnout 3 or GT4. It's a street racer. You can make, raise, and lower bets, tune your car, and paint it a whole bunch of pretty colors. Depending on how you perform determines the amount of respect you receive from your peers. It looks pretty. Controls well. There's like, 7.5 trillion different customization combinations and 99 tracks, so the game definitely has some meat on its bones, and you can also gain a crew and manage them while they race, so if anything, there are a ridiculous amount of options to mess around with. It's definitely a good game, but I wasn't sold on it being a phenomenal one, and in a genre that probably features the stiffest competition out of any industry category, its going to have to earn some street cred to convince us why we should be playing it over the other titles.

NBA All-star 3-point Shootout (mobile phones): The THQ invitation said that the event started at 6:00 PM but it was really 7:00, but that didn't matter because a friend of mine in PR handed me Lavastorm's NBA All-star 3-point Shootout to keep me busy and I was more than willing to play it. I wrote a glowing preview on it last week and I still think it's one of the best cell phone games ever made. It's certainly my favorite, not only because I love the NBA but also because it's simple to play and extremely rewarding. There's 60 real-life NBA players in the game (both legends and current superstars), and the goal is to nail more three pointers than the competition, so you basically have to clear the ball racks before time runs out. The entire game revolves around two button presses, the graphics are amazing for a cell phone title, and it's simply one of the best portable experiences you'll ever have. It's an outstanding achievement.

Constantine (played PS2 and Xbox versions): Demonic Max Payne but not as good as Max Payne. That pretty much sums up this game, which is based on the film of the same name that stars Keanu Reeves as a demon hunter. The game's got a wide selection of monsters and a bevy of cool weapons including Amityville Screech Beetles, Holy Water Bombs, Solid Gold Knuckledusters (which are like brass knuckles except these have been blessed by a bishop), and The Crucifier (fires six-inch nails that were pulled from the hands of crucified martyrs), but the problem with the demo I played was it looked and moved like a first generation game. It's running at a low frame rate, and I thought that the controls were off. I'll save final judgment until the game releases, but after 25 minutes I'd had enough.

Destroy All Humans (played PS2 and Xbox versions): Clearly one of THQ's most anticipated games, Destroy All Humans is pretty good. You just go around causing all sorts of havoc by electrocuting, levitating, and anal probing stupid people. The game's got this 1950's alien invasion style vibe to it, and its graphics are well done, though I thought the Xbox version was a lot better looking than the PS2 one, though that's probably because, just like Sony did at an event last week, THQ had its games running on these AWFUL Hitachi TVs that proceeded to strangle the graphical goodness out of anything they touched.

MX Vs ATV Unleashed (played PS2 version): This game's pretty sick, and yes by sick I mean fun. This is THQ taking all of its extreme sports games and dumping them into one tasty soup. There are all sorts of races you can play including Freestyle Events, Open Class Racing, and Super Moto, and you can mix and match different vehicles, so you can put an ATV, a monster truck, and a plane all in the same race, and believe it or not the development team actually found a way to make the contests fair, so you can beat the plane with a bike. I didn't get to play for very long, but I had good, clean fun during that time...well...except when I started ramming other vehicles off the road. Must be the Burnout 3 in my blood.

Full Spectrum Warrior (PS2): It appears to be just a port of the Xbox game, so if you've played that to death it's up to you whether you want it on another platform. The quality gameplay's intact, but the transition from Microsoft's machine to Sony's has not been a good one. The demo on display featured graphics that weren't even close to those seen in the Xbox version and it also had a stuttering frame rate. However, it doesn't release until March, so there's still time to make it run better.

Moto GP 3 (Xbox): The best motorcycle racing series on Xbox returns, this time with online play for up to 16 people, an Extreme Mode that introduces 16 new tracks, and a "seeding system" that allows you to locate other players within your skill level. The game is glorious 60 frames per second fun, and I'm looking forward to giving the final version a whirl when it releases this May.

In all, I had a great time at the THQ event. The location rocked, the games were pretty enjoyable, and they gave away these cool circular objects that look like ravioli, except when you press them you break these capsules that glow. Plus, I had the opportunity to meet a big WWE fan who works for THQ, so we discussed pro wrestling history, including why Canadians hate Shawn Michaels with a passion that burns like the sun. Check out Gamedaily in the future for updated and more in depth impressions of THQ's lineup, including hand held previews of WWE SmackDown and Destroy All Humans.