Friday, February 08, 2008

Devil May Cry 4: First Impression

My girlfriend (because she is awesome) got me Devil May Cry 4 for 360 for Valentines Day. I have it already because... well, I'm going to have to go with the fact that she's awesome again.

Devil May Cry 3 is one of two games I own for the PS2, and the only game I own for that console that I haven't beaten. I rank DMC3 as being comparable in difficulty to Ninja Gaiden, and explanation of which can be found here. However, I liked it a lot more than Ninja Gaiden, because I found the controls to be more to my style, and, more to the point, the sheer mind-blowing, physics defying style of combat made me feel like a minor deity for pulling off the ridiculously long and intricate combos that were required to kill any enemy at all. Not that it was perfect; the difficulty was, as mentioned, rather extreme, due in large part to the extremely low incidence of health; the camera could be frustrating at times, since it had the annoying habit of switching to a fixed location right as a fight started, although these things sound more nit-picky to me than anything at this point. However, it never stopped being fun, due to the sheer visceral joy I got from combat, and the wonderful dickishness of the main character. Unfortunately, the game also saw fit to erect a brick wall about halfway though, in the form of two angel-like creatures who locked me in a room, started ignoring clipping, and promptly turned my face into raspberry puree over and over again. Even the few times I managed to kill them both, I ended up at such low health that the light breeze in the next room would knock me over and crack my neck on an unfortunately placed floor. This was about the same time my PS2 decided that life had nothing left to offer it, which conspired to keep me from playing it ever again.

Well, now I have a new Devil May Cry to play on a new console, one that will surely never break. I feel I should start by saying that the game is beautiful, even on my small, proletariat tv. I kind of expect this from xBox games nowadays, having come straight from Bioshock and Gears of War, but even by those standards, I am rather impressed. But, the part of the game that really matters, the combat, still ROCKS MY FACE. Even within the first two chapters, I was having great fun chaining together the attacks with the sword, gun, and this new grabby-throwy arm thing. Not only that, but having played 3 so much, I'm already hungering for new combos and things to get longer and more absurd chains of carnage. Even with how much fun the combat is to do, it's also fun to watch. I find myself in the habit of completely losing track of what my hands are doing on the controller just because I'm so entertained by the choreography on screen. So as far as first impressions go, two thumbs way up.

Now if only I had time to play it.

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