Guess who has plans this evening? You do! That’s because it’s Okamiden time. No, Capcom didn’t suddenly bump up the release date from March 15, 2011 to right now. It just happened to release a free demo of the game on the Nintendo Channel. So if you’ve got a Wii, a DS and a wireless internet connection, you could have some fun tonight.

The Okamiden demo is pretty basic…

We may have to wait until June 2, 2009 to actually purchase and play Atlus’ Knights in the Nightmare, but thanks to the Wii and the Nintendo Channel, we can already breeze through the tutorial and learn how to play. Knights in the Nightmare has just appeared as a DS demo download on the Nintendo Channel, and will remain there until May 17, 2009. You might want to get out your DS and briefly set up camp beside your Wii when you get home!

For those of you who don’t have the luxury of accessing the DS Download Service, Gamertell’s here to help. Yesterday, after finding out from the Atlus Faithful newsletter that the demo was waiting to be played, I hurried home to try it out.

First, a bit of background on Knights in the Nightmare. It’s a strategic RPG from Sting, who also created Riviera: The Promised Land, Yggdra Union: We’ll Never Fight Alone and the Dokapon games. Knights in the Nightmare can seem confusing if you take it at face value without learning more about it. The player is a Wisp, guided by a Valkyrie named Maria, who can control knights who have fallen in battle by possessing them. At the same time, enemies are trying to attack the Wisp, so you have to quickly dodge and move around on the touch screen, hurrying to knights so you can possess them and defeat the enemies. The ultimate goal is to escape a historic castle called Aventheim, and discover what happened in the past to shape what is going to happen in the future.

Like the Avalon Code demo, the Knights in the Nightmare demo basically chops the tutorial out of the main games and makes it available as a sample for eagerly anticipating masses.

There’s an influx of DS RPGs coming. It started this month with Blue Dragon Plus and Dragon Quest V, and is going to continue throughout the next few months. The next game in the surge is the March 10, 2009 release Avalon Code, from Matrix Software, Marvelous Entertainment and XSEED Games.

Avalon Code is an action RPG requiring players to smack important items with a book so when the world ends, those items can be saved/restored. Sounds unusual, and possibly a bit difficult to picture, right? Don’t worry – you don’t have to imagine what it’s like any longer. A free, brief demo is now available on the Nintendo Channel.

So you’ve got a Wii and a DS, you could be enjoying a preview of the Avalon Code goodness right now. In case you don’t have access to the Avalon Code demo, Gamertell’s here to tell you all about it…

If you’ve got a Wii, a DS and Wi-Fi internet, you’re in for a surprise today. SouthPeak has released a free demo of its forthcoming DS game Big Bang Mini. The full game’s out January 22, 2009, just a few days from today, so you’ll be able to sample this unique shooter and determine if it’s something you’d enjoy. I can see now that I’m going to have something to check out when I get home. I love when decent demos appear on the Nintendo Channel. Makes me feel special.

The demo is really minuscule, compared to the full game. You get to play three different levels from three of the nine different worlds (Aurora, Hong Kong and Luxor). The goal of the game is partically to detonate fireworks, as well as complete other shooting challenges. The full game has nine worlds and over 90 levels…