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PreviousDevil May Cry 4 Review
Xbox 360 PlayStation 3 Review by Kristan Reed
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Indeed, in many respects DMC4 is far too faithful to its existing design template. The game can't decide whether to opt for a fixed camera perspective or to give you freedom, and as a result you're often forced to run into the screen before the perspective switches arbitrarily. Suddenly you're pulling down on the stick, yet moving up the screen, causing all sorts of confusion as you force yourself not to change direction, even though logic holds that you should. If you do flick direction as the perspective changes, you'll run back onto the other screen. Sometimes the game wants to be modern and give you full camera freedom, but mostly you're treated like a child. During moments when you can't see what's arriving to attack you, it really does remind you of the bad old days when this sort of thing was routine.
There are other areas where the gameplay feels old - like the way you're penned into a predetermined area to fight demons, which respawn upon your return but with no requirement to fight them other than as a means to harvest more of the game's currency. Elsewhere, the accessibility doesn't extend to keeping you informed as to what to do or where to go next, so you're left to wander around until you find an arbitrary object. Then there's what to do with that, of course. A little mini-map on the bottom right of the screen helps slightly with navigation, but you get no Metroid Prime-style objective markers on it. Backtracking between areas (dodging the respawning goons) becomes commonplace when the smallest amount of prompting would have done away with it. When it does things like this, it just feels like a high-def re-skin of a 2001 game design.
Reptile halitosis is a big problem.
Much has been said of the visual splendour, too, but it's a bit uneven. There are some stunning, picture-postcard moments when the game looks jaw-dropping, but many of these are in the early sections. Later on, you'll be watching Nero's lurching run animation and wonder how it all became so bland. At its worst, you'll see dreadfully blocky shadowing (check out the tree shadows), and areas with nothing to do other than run through them. Next to, say, Uncharted, it looks quite old-fashioned in places, like a scrubbed up version of what we used to think looked amazing. Under the harsh microscope of HD, there's sterility to a lot of DMC4, and when Capcom's not quite lavished the same level of detail in certain parts of the game, it really shows.
Overall, oddly, DMC4's approach isn't a million miles from Lost Planet's. Both games hinge upon spectacular bosses at the end of each level (check one of them out on Eurogamer TV), and both feature levels where you trudge from A to B and clear out the cannon fodder in-between. Worse still, DMC4 recycles not only the locations for the second half of the game, but most of the boss monsters. And then, just as you're zoning in on completing the game, it recycles a few more in a tiresome boardgame to pad things out. Few games I've played in the past few years have been this obviously padded, and it reduces the incentive to go and play it again.
Now that's just cheating.
If that wasn't disappointing, the role that Dante plays is little more than a bit part; a concession to appeasing the fans who would have been annoyed without him. But his inclusion is half-hearted and taints the latter third of the game. There's not even an unlockable option later after multiple play-throughs to play as him throughout. Again, with this knowledge, there's even less reason to invest the time and effort going through the game over and over again. On the plus side, the appearance of online leaderboards gives serious players the chance to compare their ranking performance with the best in the world, and on that level alone there will undoubtedly be a lot of players out there replaying the game purely to test their mettle against the community.
When we finished DMC3, we wondered what Capcom would do with new hardware. The answer is not an awful lot. The visuals are better, the combat's more accessible, the upgrade system's pleasingly flexible, but in practically every other sense Capcom has passed up the opportunity to do something new and exciting. After more than seven years, the Devil May Cry series finds itself in the same kind of safe, reliable trough that Resident Evil was in before Resi 4. DMC4 can still fall back on rock-solid combat mechanics and some standout moments, but it feels as though it's comfortable to slowly refine what was good about previous versions rather than evolve into something spectacular.
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alimokrane
05/02/08 @ 14:25
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DMC4 is £24.99 at gamestation people! so at this price, a 7/10 is more like a 10/10 :D
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The tired gameplay, lacklustre graphics and infuriating camera showcased in the demo really put me off this game. Since the review text then goes on to suggest that those are only some of the game's flaws I'm actually surprised it was worth 7/10. Time for a Resident Evil 4-style reinvention of the series perhaps?
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I'm kind of surprised at the score, was expecting an 8, but it fits with the words of the review so I can't really complain except to say I'm a little disappointed but only a bit.
As the review points out this game is little more a prettier remake of the original games, somewhat dated in design but trying to appeal to casual and hardcore gamers, rather than being a 'proper' reinvention of the series. Still the reduced difficulty and other friendly features Capcom having thoughtfully added to this game means it may be the first DMC game I can actually finish so that's good news for me. I found DMC3 especially frustrating in difficulty but the DMC4 demo seemed just right which the bosses being where the real challenge lay. I'm looking forward to playing it on (hopefully) Thursday as there's no denying it's all very stylish, slick and tongue-in-cheek. The demo definitely made me want to play the full game and the videos I've seen from other sections on Gamersyde only make me want it more. Quite surprising really seeing as I wasn't that fussed over it prior to playing the demo! LOL P.S. Which version was reviewed... 360 or PS3? |
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GordonCaladan
05/02/08 @ 14:39
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It's a shame, really, that the series never lived up to the insane promise of the first title.
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@pjmaybe - A ONE-OFF 20 minute install and then you can play the PS3 version with quicker loading times for the rest of your life. True, the install should really have been optional and it's not a wonderful advert for BD as a console storage media but it's not exactly a big deal when you consider how long you might be actually playing the game for.
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Also, and this is a plus: It runs full-screen on my 4:3 monitor via the VGA cable, rather than the irritating letterboxing I get with Bioshock and the like.
Any chance Eurogamer could start putting info like this in, the same way you guys used to report on the presence of borders etc in PAL releases? Or would that be too much hassle for too few people using VGA cables? |
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FlamingCarrot
05/02/08 @ 14:46
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Ah splendid! More homoerotic demon slashing japery. IGN gave the PS3 the nod over the 360 version out of interest. I enjoyed the first one so will give it a go.
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Diomedes117
05/02/08 @ 14:46
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Great review Kristan, exactly what I thought by playing the demo. It feels like an HD redo of the 2001 original...
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Psychotext
05/02/08 @ 14:50
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@Darren: Just for fun, assuming you see a load screen every 5 mins and the PS3 version loads everything 2 seconds faster... You'd save 24 seconds for every hour played, 4 mins for every 10 hours played, 20 mins for every 50 hours played. So as long as you play for over 50 hours you'll see the benefit of the install time! =)
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To be fair most sequels play the same as the previous games in their series, and that didn't stop Halo 3 getting 10/10
If you mark one game down for being unoriginal then you have to mark them all down for the same crime. Most games I play are the same as the last game in their series Silent hill COD God of war PGR Forza Splinter cell Every JRPG GTA Zelda and so on... originality died along time ago.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 05/02/08 @ 14:53
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@Psychotext - Well when you put it that way, it does make the HDD install sound like a complete waste of time... except that the loading times might have been utterly unbearable had the PS3 game ran straight off the Blu-ray Disc. I suspect that is the real reason for the compulsory install, not that Capcom or Sony would ever admit it. And because no-one can play the PS3 version from the disc there's no way of proving it.
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Grogmonkey
05/02/08 @ 14:56
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I've not picked up a DMC in a while, so I can add on some 'it's still pretty fresh for me' points. Suits me.
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Muddtallica
05/02/08 @ 15:00
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Nick007: Yeah, but what makes a grate sequel is its ability to take old concepts and gamepay staples and reinvigorate and refine them in such a way as to make them feel new again. The best Zeldas, Marios and FFs do that, as do the likes of CoD and GTA; this one just sounds like a simple "new coat of paint, same old engine" job, in the vein of the PSX-era Resis and Tomb Raiders.
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Eighthours
05/02/08 @ 15:00
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When it does things like this, it just feels like a high-def re-skin of a 2001 game design.
This is what I thought about the demo, to be honest. |
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DMC fans can just ignore the reviews and buy it regardless if they liked 1 and 3.
also I love how DMC4 gets slated for being same old with a new engine and stuff like Dynasty Warriors keeps raking in 8/10s, even though those games are mediocrity embodied, even if you like them. Stop giving preferential treatment to games just because you'd like to see them do better over here?
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most recently on 05/02/08 @ 15:05
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Well if Tecmo's lacklustre DOA4 and DOA Xtreme 2 are anything to go by, I'm not expecting Ninja Gaiden 2 to be anything more than Ninja Gaiden 1.5 in HD. I guess that's what the fans want so who can blame Capcom or even Tecmo for sticking to the same successful formulas: it works, it ain't broken, people want it and it sells. Bingo!
The reason this game is multi-format is because of spiralling development costs so it would have been risky had Capcom reinvented the series only to alienate the hardcore fans and produce a game that didn't sell. At least they've attempted to make the game more accessible to casual gamers by dropping the default difficulty, that's terrific news for me. Shame they didn't bother to fix the camera though but from the demo everything else seemed spot on and it's looking like it'll be the first game to impress me this year. |
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Max_Powers
05/02/08 @ 15:15
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I knew it. Demo was very lacklustre and the game is just old with 'sterile' next-gen graphics. God of War just came sailing by it 2 years ago.
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Well EG have always been inconsistent with this "plays the same so it's marked down" business. I suppose it's really down to the reviewer's expectations.
I can't see how anyone expected this to play different from the other DMCs to be honest, and I'm not sure reviewing it on the basis of what you reckon it should be like is a fair thing to do. Oh well, I suppose fans know what they're getting - and ARE getting it anyway. It's just ironic how Dynasty Warriors get away with being the same game over and over at this site because the reviewer's simply decided it's okay in that case. For the record, I am a closet DW fan too, but these are murky waters if some games get special treatment.
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 05/02/08 @ 15:17
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Triggerhappytel
05/02/08 @ 15:18
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Who the Hell proof-read this?
"DMC4 is eminently playable even if you're a self-confessed button-masher, yet pretty challenging for series veterans, with a further four difficulties to unlock for the truly committed." Also, it's not been 'more than seven years' since the original, it's been more than six. I'm not trying to be a know-it-all twat, just a few mistakes I noticed. I'm available to hire as a proof-reader, if you're interested EG ;) |
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rhinoxious
05/02/08 @ 15:24
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Nick007 - I mean what else can they do with it short of turning it into a first-person game?
What they could do is add a larger and more persistent environment with multiple objectives and ways to achieve them. But japanese games design prefers hokey plots and set paths, the japanese love a set path (see any of their home-grown tourist attractions, or those masss coach parrtes that descend on tourist sites in europe) it's all about folliowing the marked path, shared and standardised experiences etc etc. This pattern is then reinforced by repeated completions at harder difficulty level. I loved RE4 but I'm starting to give up on my long-term love affair with big japanese releases. |
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"Just for fun, assuming you see a load screen every 5 mins and the PS3 version loads everything 2 seconds faster... You'd save 24 seconds for every hour played, 4 mins for every 10 hours played, 20 mins for every 50 hours played. So as long as you play for over 50 hours you'll see the benefit of the install time! =)"
It's comparing apples with oranges. During the 20 min install you can do other things while that's not the case whith the two second wait every five minutes. So in the end it allowes for a more efficient use of time. But 20 minutes still seems a bit ridiculous (though numerous PC games take even longer), probably due to Capcom's inexperience with the PS3 hardware. Maybe those idiots just used the regular PC compressed DVD assets and uncompressed them to the HDD or something... Definitely not a title that shows what the PS3 is capable of, that's clear by now. Would have been amazed if it had BTW, given that it's multiplatform. Like the previous gen, in general only the platform exclusives on each system are worth a buy. |
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