Eurogamer Expo: Hands on with Devil may Cry
Words by: Ben Rayner | Posted: 7 months ago | Filed under: Eurogamer 2012, Previews.
As soon as I hit the Eurogamer floor, I couldn’t wait to hunt down the new reboot of Devil May Cry. From what I had seen so far, the new take on such an old series was definitely going to be a major ‘Marmite’ title for gamers, and fans of the series especially. The crowds reaction was an instant telling of this with a large mixture of both gleeful faces and monstrous disappointment.
So why the split decision? The first big change and disappointment for some seemed to be the control layout, Ninja Theory have gone to work, scraping the old control style and building a completely new system.
So how does it fit into the franchise? Well DMC is set in a parallel universe to the rest of the Devil May Cry series, focusing on a 20 year old Dante living Limbo City, a dreary place that appears calm at first, but soon transforms into a twisted parody of itself with demons and other monstrosities often attempting to tear him apart. During the game, Dante is frequently taunted and stalked by Mundus, a rich human looking demon with a rather large god complex, his only goal is to have Dante killed. Dante has his usual slash and gun options only now your triggers allow you to enter devil or angel mode, each giving you a brand new set of abilities while held down.
I felt this was a really nice touch and I can see the scope of just how this could be used to build up combos later in the game as Dante builds up. This does however completely remove the ability to lock on to your foes which was an annoyance to so many, bringing the game down to a much more random hack-n-slash effort.
Devil trigger mode has had a fresh r-imagining, with the screen going into a black and white state while Dante’s coat blazes in bright red and his hair burns pure white (a nod to the original anthology no doubt) this for me looked beautiful and just stamped down just how visually Ninja Theory have gone to town making a gorgeous back drop and characters but again this was something not all fans were pleased with, speaking to other gamers they told me that this new look for devil trigger mode just seemed like a weak and fairly obvious effort.
As a character the new Dante definitely brings a new take on the normal brooding character, who now plays much more of a cocky American teenager role, think Shia Le’bouf in Transformers and that’s the kind of vibe to the new DMC, I’d even go as far as to say the action sequences felt like Michael Bay had some sort of say in the direction, everything has become much more Hollywood while still containing the usual hectic combos and crazy enemies.
Overall DMC is shaping up to be just as amazing to play as any of its predecessors however chances are the new direction will either hit you and make you scream wow, or it may just annoy you that they’ve taken something that worked so well and tried to fix problems that just don’t exist. Love it or hate it, it’s certainly a Marmite affair.
About Ben Rayner
If he's not saving the world from zombie hordes (yes he works in retail) Ben can found playing almost any game he can get his hands on! Hitman and Max Payne are his games of choice but don't let that fool you, he can hold his own in a game of C.O.D! He also likes Tea, Whiskey and short walks home...to his Xbox! Say Hi! I love to talk!
