Devil May Cry 2
Devil's day off, maybe 'Devil's gone wild!'
This might not be worth a rant on my own site (which I've recently come to question the worth of), but it still bugs me enough to share
it with someone, this game is my fixation for the moment, so you're going to have to suffer through it. I'm not looking so much to
scare people from the game as I am trying to get a 'I hear that' or perhaps a 'werd'.
Starting with a premise which I really liked (a sequel to a game I enjoyed), the makers of Devil May Cry 2 have produced the most
unmitigated piece of weird I've ever seen. It's like they imported bad ideas from other sequels to make their game as ... something...
as possible, yet still somewhat connected to its predecessor.
Starting with controls and camera, we are immediately confronted by crap. Using a jackknife to pry off the finger nails of their previous
UI programmer, the team has succeeded, admist the wailing of pain and blood, to record a control scheme comparable to metal gear solid 2
(bad thing). This change has occurred by taking the formerly simple controls, controls which would activate on command, and at no other
time, and replacing them with the concentrated evil that is context-sensitive actions--and not just that grab onto a ledge shit--no. In
fact, as far as I can tell, Dante has had a falling out with his hands and now has to kick everything. No, what we have now is acrobatic
movements which are active usually at the worst possible times. It's one of those life ending mix-ups too, where a dive to save your life
can end up in a run along a wall and leap off a cliff. Subtleties of control like putting the change target button under the directional
control so that anything resembling effort screws your ability to play. This is to say nothing of how gay the combo system has become:
taking way too much effort in a game thats already starting to my make my rectum twitch.
The next great invention is importing several combat dynamics from Soul Reaver 2 (a bad thing, since everything except combat in soul
reaver 2 was good). It's a long standing fact that nearly always, in your travels in life, when you encounter adversity, giant walls of
fire artificially box you in while you overcome it, and the adversity isn't usually that adverse either... more like slightly tense, and,
of course, there's a key. To a door. I mean sure, there were keys and doors in the first Devil May Cry, but I seem to remember them being
in interesting forms and shapes, and not necessarily always retrieved in obvious ways, and oh yeah, there weren't any 13th century church
keys in modern office buildings.
Which nicely ties in Shinobi: a game infamous in my mind for endlessly repeating textures and level models, not to mention possessed
tanks and helicopters. In fact, if Dante had a long scarf, we might as well slap his ass and call him a ninja, since after level 4 I
thought someone had switched disks without me noticing, not that I'd mind, Shinobi doesn't have a legacy of any kind to rape, murder, and
devour.
I mentioned camera earlier, and then said nothing significant about it, well, my apologies. The camera is distilled ass. Pure ass, the
kind demons spend lifetimes developing in their hellacious ass-stills in the pits of tartarus. If you have to walk along a narrow edge,
you're guaranteed to be looking at a long shot. If there are enemies to fight, you're guaranteed to be looking at a long shot from around
the corner, and if you're being attacked from the air in a large complex of pipes and whatnot where you're unsure of the layout or
location of the exit, I guarantee, that the camera will be tighter than the colon of a termite who just ate an oak tree.
Then there's the demon mode, which before, was fun. There were different weapons that gave unique, visually interesting abilities, and
when you turned into a demon, you did not simply grow wings and black skin and still shoot your pistols. You were a person, who was
channeling fun power, but so help me, when you did change player models, it was because you were doing something demonic and by
that I don't just mean regenerating health. What the hell is a demon doing with pistols? Why in god's name do I have to watch this
retarded creature bust a cap at light speed, when he could be shooting lightning bolts from the sky? I seem to remember lightning
bolts...weren't there lightning bolts? There were. Of course this also touches on the fact that this time around, the different
weapons mean nothing, other than size and speed of sword (long and fast, which makes no sense, medium and average, or short and slow,
which makes you wonder what kind of phallic vision got ahold of the weapon team developer and made him associate these strange properties
with otherwise non-retarded swords--actually make that sword, because it's not like they're that different), because Dante has traded
being cool for having an amulet where he slots in his elemental skill and his secondary skill, and then some other thing, and has any
combination of stupid crap he could desire. What I like is the way that they took all the personality out of it, and then failed to
add any new elements or abilities. The first thing I expected when I saw that retarded amulet was at least 1 extra element. Be it
cold, or air, or fish, or something. Sadly, the developers just didn't want to bother us with all that new fangled nonsense such
as content.
And the menus are boring and static, and the upgrades for weapons are laughably plain (with barely noticeable effect), and the new shoot
in 2 directions with a pistol thing is cool, if you can ever get it to work (which isn't to say you can't, but the game seems more
comfortable randomizing the effect of your firearms antics when you're not really trying than actually shooting in the direction you push
the damn painstick). The rocket launcher is still retarded, with the added bonus of not getting the charge up elemental shot that you
could have before, which makes it entirely worthless.
The difference between this game and the last game is simple: in the first 20 minutes of DMC 1, the main character arrived at a creepy
island, traversed interesting ruins, started exploring a magnificent mansion, fought creepy marionettes that made you feel really scared
of your toys for a while, and then got stabbed through the chest by a sword. HE THEN PROCEEDED TO PULL HIMSELF OVER THE HILT OF THE
SWORD--losing most of his chest, it looked like, in the process--AND THEN PICKED IT UP TO RESUME THE REGULARLY SCHEDULED BADASS
PROGRAM. In DMC2, you collect a bunch of red orbs, and fight some skeletons, and you might be in Italy, or France, I'm not exactly
sure, and then you kill a rock.
No witty banter, no interesting dialogue, the controls suck, and there aren't any interesting skills to work towards. The only reason to
replay the game is to get Trish from DMC 1, who was a hugely significant character, in a plot which appears to have been abandoned in
favor of some kind of batman-spinoff where Dante is Two-face (the guy who flips a coin for everything). A character who should be in the
game if the game wants to be called a sequel, since most of the unresolved stuff from last game would make for a great game this time.
There's also some purple russian chick. I'm not sure what her deal is except that I will say this: I can maintain suspension of disbelief
when dante fires a million bullets out of his pistols without reaching for a clip. Because the logistics of that miracle are small and
unseen. But if you trade guns for throwing knives, I can't suspend my belief unless I'm on heroin, and something that expensive isn't
worth it just to enjoy this game a little more.
In conclusion: Deathbunny doesn't have a rating system, but if he did, he'd give this game... what... I guess a woman with a
disappointing perm in an upper-class town-house out of a possible apocalyptic finality to human existence.
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