First impressions - Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

So I had the chance to try out a upcoming game. Let's not waste any time, here is what I thought of my first hours with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Metal Gear is for me a game I played a long time ago. Both Metal Gear Solid and the sequel is really great games. Why not the others you may ask? Well, I've only played them, and not a lot. The third was fun enough, but I found myself not having the patience to play it. Therefore, the first and second game remain the only one I've really played. So what then do I think of Revengeance? It is, in many aspects what I should have expected, but didn't. It's one of those game that are not nessesarily bad games, but I just get so irritated and angry at them. Like Final Fantasy XIII... So what's good about this? Well, the gimmic itself works good, being able to slice up anything, in any way. It will probably get old, but for the time I spent with it, it was fun. So fun in fact, that I trapped myself on the beach with no way up, because I destroyed the stairs. Took me a while to figure out how to get up from there without it. But what I hate the most about this game is the simple and stupid fighting system. There are three things to do, either quick attacks with X, heavy attacks with Y, or holding the LT to enter blade mode and slice however you want, but that's retarded in a fight, unless you're at the end of a fight and want to slice and dice the enemy. And that's it, no alternative combos as far as I can see, maybe you can unlock them later but there's still a messy system. You don't even have the ability to dodge, no, instead you have to parry pressing x and point the Left Stick at the enemy. Mostly this works fine, I have not too much trouble on my way to the first boss, but I still died once or twice. I'm not sure why, because I kind of did the same thing twice and made it the second time. The boss is the worst though, I really have no idea of what I'm doing. I parry, but have no time for retaliation, because the boss attacks immediately afterwards, leaving me to parry again, and again and again. And when I actually attacks, he does to, and I end up loosing more life than him anyway. And there's no trick to him either, you just have to wail on him enough and hope for him to die. I have no idea what I'm doing, no sense of control. I always end up just smashing X and Y, hoping something works.

Comparing this with DmC is kind of obligatory, and the only thing I can think of that Revengeance does better is the graphics, it looks beautiful. Otherwise, DmC has a better script, characters, story (probably), fighting system and overall gameplay. DmC is the game that held your hand and slowly let go to let you meet harder and harder foes, the game that says, "wanna be awesome and bad ass? Let's be awesome and bad ass". Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is the game that throws you into the wolves and says, "prove you're worthy" but you're not, you've just started playing. It's the game that says, "I'm so much better than you and you suck! Oh, you finally managed to beat the boss? Just a fluke" and you know he's right. May e I just suck at it, but I find it hard to see how most people be good at this. So there's my ten cents, I'll probably never play this game again.

DmC: Devil May Cry Review

Okay, I just got done playing through DmC for the first time, and I can say, it won't be the last. But I won't get ahead of myself.

Dante is a class A douche, sleeping around, drinking too much, smoking and generally not caring about what anyone else thinks, or about anyone else for that matter. Our protagonist ladies and gentlemen! After a night of all of the above, Dante is rudely woken up by a girl who claims that he is in danger. She doesn't get to say much until Dante is draged into 'Limbo' which is a paralell world where all sorts of evil demons dwell. After a lot of demon slaying in regular Devil May Cry fashion, you beat a boss and gets draged out of limbo. The girl takes you to a masked man who claims to know of your past. And the adventure begins.

As far as the story goes, its not really anything special, it's not bad, but there's really no suprises, not a lot anyway. Not that Devil May Cry has ever been about the story, but they do an okay job, it's not worse than the older games. What makes the story come alive more than in the olds though is the script, the dialouge and the voice actors. Granted, I think Ninja Theory tried a little too much to match the dialouge of the older games, not daring to be more original and creative with the script, but it still works great. At its worst, it's a bit awkward with Dantes weird love for stupid puns, but the rest, the more serious bits are really greatly done. Same goes for the voice actors, they are mostly really really good, at times they too can seem a but awkward but as I've come to expect from Ninja Theory, they mostly deliver greatly.

Okay, now we got that shit out of the way, how about the things that matter? The gameplay, how is the fighting, the jumping and the puzzle-solving. As far as puzzle-solving goes, theres not much at all actually, some but not much. And I don't like that there is close to no backtracking. There's new surroundings all the time, which is nice, but they never become special. These is the thing I am most disapointed about, the puzzle-bit more than the other, but then again, I had a lot of fun without it. The fights are amazingly done, you have full control; if you die, it's your fault, and nobody elses. And I love that feeling, when you die and you feel it's your fault, and when you, as a conequense, win and you know it's your win. And there's a lot to do with the system. For you who were afraid that the moves could not be stoped and changed into another move smoothly, this is as smooth as it gets, both in executing your moves and switching weapons in mid fight. It works like this, you have four main weapon types, the rebellion, witch is for normal attacks, fast and deadly, the heavy weapon, that is slow but all the more powerful, the light weapon which has a wide range but is fairly weak, and the ranged weapons. To use your sword you attack as usual, one button for regular attacks, one for ranged and one for lifts. To use heavy you hold RT (360 version) and then attack, and light you hold LT. Simple and takes only a fraction of a second. It's a joy to fight, never gets dull.

The paths in between fights are not bad either. The platforming is done fairly easy, you can jump and use the light weapon to swing and the heavy to pull objects towards you. It's simple, but is done in many variations, so you don't feel like you do the same jumps over and over again. The surroundig are the second best thing about the game (first is fighting!) and they are beautiful, to move around in and to look at. Especially the dream sequences that Dante has at times.

So what about the new style. I have to say, I don't mind. True it's not as cool as I had hoped but it's still really badass, a lot cooler than the look of the old dante which I still think is a litte out of date. I like the character, he is a douche for a reason, even though I would have liked it if they explored the change he goes through more. The other characters are good to, even though character developement is just for a chosen few. But your partners and the villain is really great. The music really builds to the atmosphere as well, and fits perfectly, some really great pieces in there as well.

Yeah, I really hope for a sequel, develope the characters more, get deeper into the story, maybe have some really clever turns. But in the end, most of what is good and bad can be argued about, if you don't like the look of the new Dante, you don't and that's fine, but I can't see how you could dislike the game for what it is, with probably the best fighting system right now. For me, this is gold, and the bad parts aren't even so bad, just not as good as the other parts. I will say though that the game itself is not more than 8 hours long, so that is a bit short, but for me who likes to play these kind of games over and over again, I will spend a lot of time with this. Is it a great game, yes, yes it really really is, might not be the best when this year is over, but still it will be up there.

9/10

New DmC trailer analysis

Hey, new DmC trailer is out, check it out!

First of, let's look at the bad parts, because there are a few. Firstly, I'm not too fond of the settings, still it's a question of taste, but it takes away the Gothic style that I think Devil may Cry needs. Still, I have seen settings in the game that are more towards the epic and Gothic, and the other settings I'll probably grow to like them.

Second, even though the gameplay looks as good and smooth as ever, I can't help but think that it's the same thing as the other games. I hope that Ninja Theory does some new things to improve it.

Yeah, I'm a lover, not a hater, so that's it for me when it comes to bad things. I still love the look of the new Dante and feel of the game. The voice acting is at it's best, and the dialogue is, as usual with Ninja Theory, really great. In all, I'm looking forward to this game more than anything left in 2012, this is going to be awesome.

2012 I long the most for....

Okay, another year is upon us, and it seems to be a great year indeed. These are my thoughts (a bit late, I know) about the dreading year of 2012!

First of all, yes, my most anticipated game of 2012 is still Catherine (which did not get a release in Europe in 2011). As I'm writing this, the game have actually been released and I plan to buy it as soon as I get the money to, and will probably follow it up with a review. It still looks insanely good with it's adult story and quickly paced puzzles. I look forward to play it soon.

In the genre "games that I thought would be released in 2011 but didn't" we find four games that I hope to sink my teeth in at some point of 2012. The first will be released in mars, the insanely anticipated Mass Effect 3. After having played the second game no more than three time in the cause of 2010 and 2011, I can't stress how hyped I am for this game. Honestly, scratch the "my most anticipated game of 2012 is still Catherine" statement from before, this is going to be the most amazing experience this year. I realize that I want to play the first two games again before this is released, I kind of need to hurry up... For all the right reasons (you who've played the games know what I mean) this is going to be AMAZAAAAHH!

Second it's DMC, the game everyone loves to hate on, but still looks as amazing as I though it did when they showed it at TGS in 2010. We have even gotten some gameplay footage and it seems to be an even better game from that point of view. As I have already said in my DMC discussion from February 2011, the new Dante looks ridiculously nicely designed and I can't wait to see what Ninja Theory can do story and script-wise with the Devil May Cry universe. All we can do is to wait and see. I hope for the world that I get to be the one to say I told you so, not you haters!

Third is another third. I hope it gets a release in 2012 but it should... I am of course talking about Diablo III, another huge sequel to a game more than a decade old. But I still find myself playing the second game from time to time, it's a great game, and I have no doubt that the third will be as well. I do find it dissturbing that the senior game designer (Steve Parker) left the company and that Blizzard later announced that they will be stripping the game down a lot. The only problem I see other than that is that I need to upgrade my PC... Nag dangit!

The last actually belongs to the category "Games I probably won't see in 2012" and is the spiritual sequel to The Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian. Now Ueda has quit and works on the project only as a freelancer, and the series is not exactly known for having huge selling records, but despite that and that we know nothing of the game and my hype it only based on the previous games, I still think this will be a great game, if it is ever released...

Now on to some newcomers, I will tell of the three games I look forward to the most this year that I haven't mentioned! First up, The South Park Game, seriously, you can play a jew... as a class... !! Hopefully, with Stone and Parker in charge and Obsidian doing the game itself, it will be a awesome and funny game!
Then we have Resident Evil 6, the game that I hope will be everything the fifth game wasn't. Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun with RE5, me and a friend, and solo. But still, I did not get the atmosphere from the other games. With this I hope that it will be a perfect mix of action and survival horror.
Last but not least, we have Bioshock: Infinite. The first game blew me away. The second was not as good but still told a compelling story. Now we are mature enough to move on from Rapture to the airborne city of Columbia. What I feel is compelling about Infinite is the characters, I'm really interested in Elizabeth and your now talking main character. And the probably awesome story. Nice!

Then again, I look forward a lot to the Wii U, despite the ugly name. But I hope it will be a hit, and not come out too late in the year. Still, there are a lot of games I long for and hope to hear more from like The Last of Us, I am Alive, Prototype 2, Tekken Tag 2, Tomb Raider, Lollipop Chainsaw, The Last Story, Dishonored, Syndicate, Ni No Kuni, X-com, Gravity Rush, Dragon's Dogma, Max Payne 3, Journey, GTA V and Halo 4 that I hope to talk a little more about soon.

DmC

During "Tokyo Game Show" last year, the sequel to Devil May Cry 4 where shown, and it was not the Dante we know that were shown. Have you not seen the trailer before see it here below before reading on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhoNEuH8KmA

This time British Ninja Theory, which stands for development and I can not do anything but praise the skies. Played through both Ninja Theory's Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, and Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya's Bayonetta a couple of weeks ago, and I must say it feels as if Kamiya is stuck in a rut.

Bayonetta is perfectionism when it comes to the genre and perfectionism to Kamiyas own heritage, but there is really nothing new as far as the eye can see, the script may be among the worst ever and have to say that story-wise it's terribly corny and something rather cool to 2001

Enslaved however is smart, funny and has one of the best scripts I have seen in a game. It's cool, right now, and that is the feeling I get when I watch the trailer for DmC.

Ninja Theory have made changes, the Dante we see is no longer the invulnerable demi-demon we've seen before, he has bruises and injuries that indicate vulnerability. He looks really scrawny when he hangs from the ceiling in a cell. Ninja Theory has put much emphasis on the fact that Dante isn’t actually just a demon, he is also human.

That's not to say that he’s not still really badass, no, he is still so cool, kicking ass like never before. He has taken up smoking, has a dirty look, more relevant to 2011, with black hair and dirty clothes.

Sometimes we become anxious when someone else takes care of our favourite game series. I mean, how many are there who are worried about 343s Halo? Like that, people are worried about how Ninja Theory will cherish the heritage. In 2001 it was announced that one of the world's most popular Japanese game series would get as sequel, by an American company with no good games on the merit list. Many games journalists were very worried as were fans of the game. But in March 2003 Retro Studios released Metroid Prime and it was a revival of the series, and personally one of the best games I've played. So for you sceptics out there, with the same team behind the controls, it’s easy to just do the same polished game, sequel after sequel. A new development team can be the best thing that could happen to a game series Devil May Cry. Or Halo for that matter.

I long for DmC, I hope for something grand, and I think you should to, especially if you're a fan of the series.