A Trick up your Sleeve - Devil May Cry 4 review

Devil May Cry is a hugely divisive series in videogaming. Many love it for it's old school score-attack mechanics, intricately gothic design, deep and complicated fighting style and outrageous camp, and predictably, many hate it for those exact same reasons. It hasn't helped that the series has been so wildly inconsistent, with the excellent original followed up by an awful sequel and a third game that was so infamously hard it was re-released just to neuter the difficulty. So combined with the shift to new hardware, this fourth game marks something of a rebirth for the series, and oddly enough it does this by ditching one of it's most appealing aspects, it's cocksure antihero Dante, recasting him as the game's antagonist. In his place is a new protagonist named Nero, a younger, more serious and angry character. This shift is mirrored in the general tone of the game, which adopts a far more serious, epic and artistic style than the moody darkness of previous DMC's, with ancient temples and demonic towers replaced by snowbound castles and sun-dappled forests. The visual design is spectacular and when allied to a powerful graphics engine the result is a game which is often stunningly beautiful, both statically and in motion
Nero doesn't just revitalise the look and feel of the game, but it's whole style of play as well. Although his sword 'n' gun attacks are similar to Dante, his moveset is reduced in favour of a new toy, his possessed arm, known as the Devil Bringer. This allows long-range grabs and powerful close quarters throws, meaning combo chains can be kept going for longer and the guard of enemies can be more easily broken. Although it initially feels cheap, with time and the introduction of harder enemies the balance is just right, and combined with the new 'Exceed' system, which allows Nero to rev up his sword for extra damage, it can lead to spectacular chains of attacks in trained hands. By the mid-point of the game, controlling Nero feels instinctive and exciting, with the player effortlessly dishing out huge combos and epic juggles. Which is why it's such a shock when it's all suddenly taken away.
Without wishing to get too spoileriffic, it's fair to say Nero suddenly becomes incapacitated, which means Dante, who up until this point has appeared only as an enemy, suddenly takes over as the main playable character. The stylistic shift is not total, but it takes a good while to get used to. As in DMC3 Dante has four separate styles of fighting, Swordmaster, Gunslinger, Trickster and Royal Guard. Each accentuates a different aspect of combat, and each adds a different set of moves on top of Dante's basic skillset. The net result of this is that Dante has huge variety of moves available to him (and we're not even considering the alternate weapons yet), and combined with his obvious lack of Devil Bringer attacks, he's a much deeper and more difficult character to play as. For a while - quite a long while actually - this irritates as you're forced not just to relearn movesets but to retailor your entire fighting style. But gradually, another feeling emerges - the feeling that the training wheels have been taken off. There's a lot more variety available with Dante, as well as the ability to mix up your styles for more grandstanding kills. Further sweetening the pill is Dante's ludicrous selection of weapons. The undoubted show-stealer is Pandora, a cursed briefcase that transforms into a variety of other forms, such as rocket launchers and laser cannons, and ultimately into a giant floating missile platform that rains spectacular death on nearby enemies.

'Overkill' springs to mind

There remains a lot to criticise about the game, most obviously the terrible environment recycling (Dante's levels are just Nero's levels in reverse) and the archaic backtracking and forced puzzles. And while the bosses are hugely spectacular and great fun to fight, that doesn't quite justify their inclusion three times. The camera is often flawed and can't decide whether it wants to be fixed or player controlled, often copping out and offering a weak mix of the two. Yet despite these totally valid criticisms there's something inherently lovable about the the game. I mentioned near the beginning that this is a more serious, mature Devil May Cry, and that's true, but we are speaking in relative terms here, and you've still got cutscenes filmed by an anime fanboy and dialogue written by a pantomime director. Particularly once Dante enters, the game practically implants its tongue in its cheek, with several scenes in particular raising the bar for hammy dialogue (to those in the know, I'll simply say "I'm here to reclaim what is rightfully mine!").
Overall then, this is a big, brutal, lovable beast of a game. It doesn't claim to be be clever, in fact it often goes out of it's way to prove it isn't, but the core appeal still lies there. Only now, it's smart as well, it's difficulty curve perfectly pitched, it's story touching and interesting as well as funny and silly and it's core gameplay just as challenging and rewarding as it ever was. It isn't perfect, but you'll be having so much fun you won't care

8/10

E3 or not E3?

Okay, so again I lied about the regular blogging thing. Let's all just leave that behind us shall we, and concentrate on the important stuff, namely, the recent showings at E3. Or rather the lack of them. As an outsider looking in on what's now an industry focused event, I have to say that it was the safest, most predictable and most boring for many years, only just bettering last year's snooze-fest. New game announcements were few and far between, and there were few truly shattering revelations about currently existing titles. As for how the Big Three did...

Nintendo

Promised repeatedly that there would be massive announcements but honestly showed very little of substance. Biggest announcement was the Wii Motion Plus peripheral, which looks interesting but runs the risk of splitting the userbase badly. Will still probably sell gazillions. Animal Crossing Wii was seen on the horizon months ago, and it's actually quite dispiriting how little it seems to add both graphically and gameplay wise. Wii Speak shouldn't even really be an announcement, given the robust online chat of XBL and PSN. Which leaves the hugely controversial Wii Music as the only real point of interest. The demonstration was foolish and embarrassing, and early reports have indicated a game without much depth, more a toy or gimmick, but that worked well for Wii Sports and the idea remains intriguing, so this one gets a stay of execution from me. However, this was by far and away the worst showing. Nintendo seemed to forget that at E3 it's preaching to the hardest of the hardcore, namely gaming journos, and instead delivered an immensely smug lecture-cum-lifestyle course which came off as amateurish and childish. Miyamoto gets away with prancing about on stage, but take note execs, he's the only one for whom it's acceptable. D-

Sony

In typical Sony fashion, promised great things but delivered not much. Clearly seeing this as an opportunity to consolidate rather than forge ahead, most of the focus was on already announced blockbusters like Resistance 2, Killzone 2 etc. There was lots of talk of figures and lifecycles, but the main pillars of the presentation were once again LittleBigPlanet and Home. LittleBigPlanet was charmingly and cleverly used to demonstrate some facts and figures in the form of levels built into graphs, and the abundant possibilities and firm release date of October mean that the possibilities are still bubbling under nicely on this one. Home on the other hand is getting old alarmingly fast, and Sony's inability to release what's essentially a glorified Second Life is concerning, especially considering it isn't really a game in and of itself. Sony are leaning rather heavily on it, and that's not a good move in my opinion. In Sony's defence, a strong lineup of PSN titles was also shown, including new announcements Ratchet and Clank:Quest For Booty and Fat Princess alongside highlights of standouts such as Pixeljunk Eden and Flower, both of which demonstrate the kind of clever alternative software that could never end up on XBLA. The announcement of the video store was also a vital bit of news, and should only enhance the PS3's reputation as an excellent media box. Speaking of boxes, the new hardware SKU was thoroughly unremarkable and also raises fears that the final of the back-compat units is going to die.
Games demoed were rather short on the ground, with Sucker Punch stealing all the credit for an excellent showing of inFamous. DC Universe Online was shown to interest, but the lack of game footage meant that the buzz was only moderate. Arguably the show stealer, even though it was inevitable, was the official announcement of God Of War III, complete with ultra-corny trailer, which pleased all and sundry. And finally, the unveiling of MAG was an interesting move towards a genre that's lain dormant for a while now, but the spectre of PlanetSide still hangs heavy over all massive online shooters. We'll have to see more of this one before judgment is passed. Overall, a solid performance from Sony, but no surprises, few real points of interest, and a creeping sense of deja vu means they'll have to try harder next time. C+

Microsoft

Made by far the biggest splash this year, but it was a highly schizophrenic press conference. Had games in spades, with demos of 360 exclusives Gears of War 2 and Fable 2 and exclusive demos of Resident Evil 5 and Fallout 3. All demoed well and added much needed buzz, and the announcement of exclusive DLC for Fallout 3 shouldn't be underestimated. Gears 2 especially looked far far better than it's initial showing and with both it and Fable 2 locked for winter releases Microsoft is ensuring it has a solid Christmas lineup. Rock Band 2 also appeared, and it's time limited exclusivity is a big coup for Microsoft. All went a bit wrong when they veered into casual territory. To be fair, the dashboard update would have caused a much bigger stir if it hadn't been leaked months ago, and the NetFlix announcement is great for US customers, but overall it felt staged and very much a combined rip-off of Nintendo and Sony. Lips too seemed overhyped, being what looked like a perfectly good Singstar clone, but hardly a massive genre-redefining title as it seemed to be bigged up as. Of course, Microsoft still had their massive bitch-slap to Sony to end on, and it think it's fair to say the Final Fantasy XIII announcement was the most sensational turnaround in many a year. The actual effect on the game has yet to be seen, but as a crucial one-up over Sony and a demonstration on the Xbox's position in world gaming it could hardly have been a stronger statement. It was a solid and interesting showing by Microsoft, and though they didn't show just exclusives, the stuff on show made it the best bet of the three B+


Mirroring the Big Three, very little happened outside as well, with most publishers opting to show off what had already been seen or announced. Probably the biggest news was not even given in a press conference, with John Riccitello confirming that Knights of the Old Republic III was in development, by BioWare, and was an MMO. I'm not going to go over all the other announcements made, but suffice to say E3 was a slightly damp squib this year. My personal theory is that developers are keeping their powder dry for the autumn events, namely Leipzig for the western publishers, while the Japanese always have bombshells to drop in Tokyo. We'll have to wait and see how that pans out.