The guns are actually called that. So is the song.
It is perhaps my life’s greatest sadness to announce that the bad reviews of Devil May Cry 2 are right on the money. Where the reviewers and I might differ somewhat is in their extremely high opinion of the first game.
The complicated thing is that I still think that Devil My Cry 2 is fun, it’s fun to shoot the guys, and if fun is the only axis we’re analyzing then it does okay. Dante - already a very stylish character - has been given some schmancy new maneuvers that, while not always useful, are always appealing. So style, at least where characters are concerned, we’ve got that too. Already it sounds like I’m talking about a Woo flick. There are just so many missed opportunities in virtually every other department that it would be impossible to recommend it straight across without about fifteen minutes of qualifications.
Though in my opinion (this is from the archive, actually) the first Devil May Cry “loses cohesion” an hour from the end of the game, Devil May Cry 2 has never even heard of cohesion. “What’s that?” it will ask you, with a quizzical look. “Well, Devil May Cry 2,” you will say with some exasperation, “Cohesion is when the things that happen in the game, I mean, in you, seem to fit together sensibly and bolster the entire concept.”
“Oh,” it will say.
While the savvy action portions of the game have migrated from the first with only a few additions, storywise the game is completely MIA. It’s not that boring things are always happening (although I guess that is up to interpretation), it’s that nothing really happens, ever - nothing you don’t expect, anyhow. I was titillated by the idea of Dante doing his thing in dystopian (spell checker suggestion: “Dyspepsia”), urban environments, at least until I saw them. It strikes me that I wrote papers like them in elementary school: rote, repetitive, meandering excesses that did not utilize higher brain functions, for myself or for the reader. Don’t even start me on the fucking camera in this game. I want to stress that, even as I am typing these things, these terrible things, I do sort of have the urge to hit some demons up in the air with my sword. That’s the grim duality of the game, it has these cool characters with spectacular abilities in stupid places doing things I don’t care about. Whatever I might think about the conclusion of the original Devil May Cry, a lot of very cool things happened. It had really interesting gothic sensibilities, a healthy dose of strange melodrama, extremely hot arachnids, and so forth. When I say that something is missing from the one I’m playing now, it is as though I have the version without cutscenes. It is that jarring.
Like any good action movie, DMC2 does sport a few clever set pieces that you will appreciate. I doubt that they will overshadow the rest of it for you. I hope that the third time will be the charm, then again, I hoped the second time would be the charm.
(CW)TB out.
to fight is to defend
I’ve been waiting to see first word on this one, and (at least in this case) the word isn’t all that good. I’m kind of in the mood for a straight FPS at the moment, so I’m sure I won’t be able to resist it on the shelf, but I wonder if an FPS can eschew a multiplayer mode these days and still survive.
(CW)TB
I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting to say “eschew.”
(CW)TB
In his latest article Storm Shadow gave us the low down on his recent trip to CES. One of the items he mentioned in passing in that article was a possible new price and design for the Xbox. Here is the excerpt from his article:
Xbox is also rumored to be under a design change, to a smaller package with the same capabilities. Microsoft plans on bringing the price to $99 US. This is also a clue that they will make consoles a subscription product soon, which I pretty much hate the idea of. The only things I like subscribing to are Maxim Magazine and a high opinion of myself. You see, to bankers everywhere, the words “reoccurring revenue stream” sound just like “Anna Kournikova naked”…
Since Stormy delivered this article I have talked to a few other people in the know who have confirmed this scenario. If I was a betting man I’d put money on a new smaller sleeker Xbox by next Christmas along with a new $99 price point. The catch of course being that you will need to sign up for a few years of Xbox Live along with it.
I don’t really see this rumor getting much play at any of the other news sites so I figured I’d mention it here. Since I see Xbox live as being an integral part of owning an Xbox it seems to me like it’s probably a pretty good deal. I mean, as far as I’m concerned you are gonna need to have Live anyway, so why not get your box for $99. It will be interesting to see if this turns out to be true and if so what kind of reaction it gets.
-Gabe out
I thought I would chime in on the topic of PSO on the Xbox since I keep getting mail about it. I read the press release just like everyone else and I agree that eight bucks a month for your hunters license is way too much. However the game comes with two free months and I honestly can’t imagine it holding my attention any longer than that. That is about how long I played it when it came out on the DC. However, I think that it does set a bad precedent and this is something that Tycho actually brought up when we were invited out to that Xbox Live event at MS before the service launched. Mainly games charging fees on top of your Live fee is hard to swallow. The idea that I might have to pay for a hunter’s license in PSO and another fee for Star Wars Galaxies and another fee for some other game all in addition to what I already pay for Live is insane. There should be one fee for the Live service period. I think Tycho will agree with me on this one.
As far as needing a Live account to play PSO online AND offline, that doesn’t really bother me. Why anyone would want to play PSO offline is beyond me.
-Gabe out
You might not know this about me, but I am a cookie freak. Having been my roommate for a number of years Tycho can no doubt attest to two things. One, I don’t understand how to work can openers and two, I am totally obsessed with cookies and milk. In fact, until I got married and I was forced to eat real food I often consumed cookies and milk for every meal of the day.
Nabisco scientists, or cookieologists as I like to think of them have created a new kind of cookie that you place in the microwave for 15 seconds to give you that fresh out of the oven experience without all the hassle of begging your wife to bake you cookies. They call their creation “Ooey Gooey Warm ‘n Chewy”. Eating one is like God smiling at you.
-Gabe out
