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0:32 Still a cut scene: A monster throws a villager to his death. Chaos in the streets, like I saw in the intro. More monsters flood from the balcony. I watch as Nero starts taking them out. Couldn't I be controlling this?
0:34 Singer girl Kyrie runs to help a civilian and is almost killed. Nero saves her in the last minute. Again, something I wish I was doing. Whoever made this game seems more interesting in directing movies than directing gameplay. "This baby sure can pack a punch." Nero's
bon mots don't hold a candle to Dante's.
0:35 Mission 02 starts. The map is much more helpful this time around, with clearly marked paths out of the rooms. The game also tells me how to open doors. Anyone who read
Games for Lunch on Friday will know this means quite a lot to me.
0:36 I'm wandering around a deserted opera house for a minute or so before some black mist forms into more monsters. There are only three of them. In
DMC3 I had fought off hundreds of monsters by this point...
0:38 The camera keeps jumping abruptly, Resident Evil style. I'm not a fan. Sometime I can move it around; other times it's horribly fixed.
0:42 This is lame. I'm stuck trying to get to a door that's blocked by a wall and a fallen piece of balcony. Ugh.
0:43 Investigating a blue orb thing cuts to another cut scene. I pick it up and the pedestal begins turning. The orb glows and gets absorbed into my gauntlet thing. It "awakened new power within" apparently. Now I can use a "Grim Grip" to "bound across an area like a bat out of hell" when I stand on a continuum pad. When did this game become The Legend of Zelda?
0:46 Using my newfound Deus Ex Machina Grip ability, I easily make it to the inaccessible door. Sigh.
0:47 Instead of engaging the interesting-looking monsters below me, I'm forced to soar right above them to access a "secret mission" panel. Double sigh.
0:48 The secret mission transports me back to the courtyard for no apparent reason to take out some enemies within a strict time limit. I feel like I'm fighting the clock more than the enemies, who stand around waiting to be beaten. I fail and decide to try again. It's something to do, I guess...
0:52 Two more attempts and I still utterly fail. The monsters are too spread out and lumber too slowly. Bleh. Moving on...
0:54 The game teaches me an ability to bring far-off enemies close. This probably would have helped with the secret mission. Of course, now I can't go back. Triple sigh.
0:58 The L button is supposed to rev up my sword for flaming hits or something, but I don't notice a difference. And I'm getting a little tired of these deserted areas punctuated occasionally with the one type of enemy I've seen so far.
Would I play this game for more than an hour? No.
Why? I haven't finished Devil May Cry 3, and that game seems a much tighter and more action-packed (and less empty-area-and-cut-scene-packed).
This column was based on a retail copy of the game rented from GameFly.
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