A slew of recently released game demos demonstrate promise for the upcoming spring.

Demo versions of sequels “Crysis 2” (PC, Xbox360, PS3), “Dragon Age II” (PC, Xbox360, PS3), and “Shogun 2: Total War” (PC) were all released around the start of the month and should excite gamers for the upcoming weeks.

“Crysis 2,” to be released on March 22, is the highly anticipated PC and console sequel to the much discussed “Crysis” (which was PC only) from German developer Crytek. While the game had solid, entertaining shooter gameplay featured around a technologically advanced nano-suit that granted the user strength, speed and the ability to cloak and become invisible for a short time, it gained the most attention for its ground-breaking graphical accomplishments.

The graphics in the original “Crysis” brought all but the most powerful computers to their metaphorical knees, inspiring awe in the technical achievements, but raising the ire of those whose machines could not run the game. Most had to settle for setting the graphical options to high or medium, even low, and not the full Ultra High settings, which takes away from the experience.

Fortunately, Crytek made the sequel more accessible, and it will run on a wider range of machines. This time around, the single-player campaign is set in New York City in 2023, instead of the jungle vistas in “Crysis” and Crytek’s other flagship title, “Far Cry.” The multiplayer experience has been improved pretty heavily from the original, which was a fairly anemic outing. This time around, there are ranks, unlocks, class customization and more brought to the experience, in addition to generally improved gunplay.

There is a bit of a learning curve as one tries to balance knowing when to maximize armor, cloak and shoot, as a mistake at the wrong time can immediately cost a player their life. It can be slightly frustrating when someone gets the drop on the player and takes down their health before they can turn and see them, so playing smart rather than rushing out will serve well, especially against cloaked enemies. And on all of the preset graphical settings, (choices are limited in the demo), the series continues its tradition of looking gorgeous.

“Shogun 2: Total War,” due out March 15, is another entry in the long-lived and successful Total War strategy franchise. The series began in feudal Japan with “Shogun: Total War” and has since ventured through the dark ages with “Medieval: Total War,” the classical era in “Rome: Total War,” a return to the second setting with “Medieval 2: Total War,” and most recently the colossal colonial “Empire: Total War.” Now, the series makes its return to the time period it began with, including the new features and graphics engine that developed over the course of the last few Total War titles.

The franchise is well known for uniquely and seamlessly combining a strategic turn-based world map with real-time strategy battles. When player-recruited armies clash with an enemy army on the world map, the game transfers over to a zoomed in battlefield on which the player controls the thousands of detailed soldiers and unit groups marching and fighting on vivid landscapes.

The “Shogun 2: Total War” demo was surprisingly robust, offering not only directed tutorial segments guiding the player through a small version of the campaign, but offering free range of a cross section of the world map once the tutorial is completed, as well as historical battles to control based on ancient real-world clashes. The graphics look pretty sharp on the battlefield, though the “living” world map is more impressive and also very detailed.

The soldiers, cities and landscapes in the battles and over-world are very much feudal Japan in essence, as is the menu aesthetic and voice-acting, adding credibility to the affair. The battles were mostly enjoyable; however, there are some difficulties in city siege battles. Granted, the demo only allows the player to actually play out three battles, having to auto-resolve (computer simulate) the rest, and only one of them was a siege, so it may have just been a misunderstanding due to lack of experience. Still, the battles were very entertaining, with stealthy ninja units sneaking around the field and scaling walls, and groups of hundreds of samurai having one on one katana fights.

Finally, the most anticipated (though it is a close contest), “Dragon Age II” will be released on March 8. The sequel to the hit role-playing game “Dragon Age: Origins,” by masters of the genre Bioware, takes place many years after the events of the original, with an entirely new character. This is unlike Bioware’s decision in the “Mass Effect” franchise to carry the player’s character/save file from one game to the next, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

The player’s decisions in the first game, despite playing as a different character, are said to carry over and have effects even still. The hero this time is the character Hawke, a refugee (fleeing the advancing Darkspawn horde) turned champion. The demo allows the player to play through a shortened version of the game’s prologue, which takes place concurrently with the events of the original game, then fast forwards into the future events.

When the game was originally unveiled, fans worried it was going to be “dumbed down” to allow for a better console version of the game because the developers said it would be more action oriented. Since the game and its spiritual predecessors have their roots on the PC, people worried this would change the game’s tactical, strategic nature and make it more of an action oriented hack and slash title. It appears however, that these fears were unfounded.

While the combat in the game takes place at a faster pace and has more flash, the player can still pause combat to issue specific skill orders to each of their party members and make it as strategic as they like. The skills are simply done with much more action and movement, feeling more visceral and visually striking. The game’s graphics as a whole look better, though they are stylized to be a little less realistic, particularly the effects, such as flames.

The improvement is not huge, but noticeable, with the higher degree of action taking a front seat. The dialogue, like the last game, was well-written and entertaining, and the voice acting was good, though not noticeably great. The demo was not particularly long, and was a bit choppy in terms of storytelling towards the end, but that seems to be a concession of the demo to remain a concise sample, and not indicative of the full game. A simple cut-scene was made to move the story along to the last battle of the demo, and though it would seem rather shoddy in the full game, it fit the purposes of a demo well enough..

 All of the demos for these games can be downloaded for free from various sources online for the PC, or through the different marketplaces on their respective consoles and they all look promising.