DMCmeh

My Gameflown copy of DMC4 arrived on Saturday; gave it a quick spin Saturday night and for a bit on Sunday.

Short version: couldn't care less. It's certainly very pretty, and it's nice to see that the UE3 is capable of producing colors other than gray, but as for the game itself... it's (to me) a generic 3rd person action game that is so rooted in the conventions of the past that it almost feels anachronistic.

I was listening to Major Nelson's podcast on the way into work this morning, and he has an interview with some Capcom Community dude, and the dude basically said that the game is about "looking cool" and "being stylish", that you can spam on the sword in order to get through the game but you get low scores for doing so. First of all: computers shouldn't be judging beauty. Secondly: who gives a shit? Nero is such a whiny little douchebag that it's a challenge for me just to stay interested in the game itself; now I have to worry about making him jump and leap and prance? What the fuck?

(I know Ninja Gaiden had a scoring system, too, but that game was brutally hard, and just getting through a level was reward enough.)

The camera in DMC4 is fucking terrible, if only because it fucks up your controls. For the most part, this isn't that big a deal because the camera almost never changes during combat, but when you're running around, it's a pain in the ass - you can be running up a staircase, and then when you get out you find yourself running back down because the change in camera also changes your controls.

Taking a quick look at the Achievements - I think I got all I'd care to get, since it seems the vast majority of them involve playing the game a zillion times with multiple characters at various difficulty settings. Who gives a shit? I made it through Mission 6 before I realized I had to start backtracking and I couldn't have cared less.

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I don't know why, but I have become tremendously excited for Lost Odyssey. I liked Blue Dragon more than most people, although I never bothered to finish it; I'm probably halfway through the 3rd disc and couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do. Lost Odyssey looks a lot more promising, and engaging, and while a lot of previews are talking about how archaic the game is, my experience with JRPGs is actually pretty limited so I'm not all that jaded.

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Will there ever be a Skies of Arcadia sequel, as long as we're talking about JRPGs? Goddamn I loved that game.

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I constantly misspell Odyssey, and for that I blame Oddworld.