Devil May Cry 4 (PC)
If you've read Scott Jones' deliciously entertaining reviews of Devil May Cry 4 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, then you already know that Capcom has delivered some serious Gothic Goodness (though I'm less forgiving than Jones, perhaps, of the PS3's 22-minute initial load time).
Now Devil May Cry 4 is available for the PC, and it holds up very, very well -- if your system can handle it, that is. In fact, the PC port also offers a few bells and whistles not found in its console counterparts. But before diving into platform-specific advantages and shortcomings, let's first cover the core gameplay.
alt="Dante and Nero"/>Dante and Nero or Nero and Dante? Both heroes look awfully similar, but each has unique skills.
Capcom's latest Devil May Cry tale introduces a mysterious new demon-killing machine, Nero, who not only has a number of weapons of mass destruction at his disposal -- including guns and enormous swords -- but also sports a glowing Devil Bringer arm to grab enemies from a distance and knock 'em into next week. Nero's modified appendage means he can snag a nearby enemy, toss it high into the air above him, and either jump up to hack and slash a half-dozen times with a sword or fill it with plenty of lead before it falls to the ground in a slump. In fact, you can master a number of these types of combos, based on your preferred attack moves (see below).
While at the beginning of the game you'll play Nero -- who also sports a Red Queen sword, which can be revved up like a motorcycle -- you'll eventually unlock the ability to play as Dante, another white-haired, half-human half-demon who we met in past Devil May Cry games. Dante, doesn't have a Devil Bringer arm or Red Queen sword, but he does bring to the table his own weapons, like long knives that come out of his forearms and a throwing blade that spins like crazy. As Dante, you can also select from different fighting styles on the fly, including Trickster (more acrobatic moves), Swordmaster (better melee attacks), Gunslinger (for those who prefer gunplay) and Royal Guard (a defensive strategy that counters an enemy's attacks). Oddly enough, pretty boys Nero and Dante look almost freakin' identical (which I thought might be part of the story -- long-lost half-brother? -- but evidently it's not).
alt="Hallway battle"/>Dante is surrounded by flying demons -- only by destroying them all will that red goop disappear so that he can exit the level.
Though the Gothic story doesn't always make sense (which tends to be the case with Japanese-to-English translations in games), a small coastal town becomes inhabited by followers of some badass dark knight named Sparda. The opening CGI cinematic shows a church-like ceremony, where Nero sees Dante, Sparda's son, crash through the cathedral ceiling and assassinate the cleric and other members of the congregation. As with previous Devil May Cry games, you can expect many high-quality cut scenes, which tend to borrow effects from old Hong Kong fighting movies and sci-fi flicks like "The Matrix."
But you'll also find slick camera angles during the gameplay. The third-person perspective game follows Nero (and then Dante) in a number of huge indoor and outdoor locations that include snowy mountaintops, towering castles, town squares and expansive forests. Don't be fooled -- you can't go wherever you want in this game because of "invisible walls" -- but at least there are many areas to explore, including hidden crevices that reveal secret side-missions. Being kept on a tight leash, though, might frustrate players tempted to explore these epic environments (myself included).
alt="Ice Demons"/>Safety in numbers? These spiky creatures appear when Nero reaches the top of a snowy mountain. Those tails can whip pretty good, too (though rumor has it Nero likes it).
Most of the 20 chapters end with you facing off against tough boss characters, beginning with the 100-foot-tall fire demon, Berial, who chases you around a small village and smashes everything in its way. You'll also come across a horned female beast, an icy Frost creature, a fat and grinning toad creature and the ghostly Mephisto. Some bosses are more interesting than others, but they don't disappoint. In order to take them down, however, you'll need to take advantage of the role-playing game-like power-ups spread throughout the game (usually at stone idols that launch the "Skill Up" menu). Depending on your character and how you like to play, you can spend orbs to increase Nero's or Dante's skills, such as a mid-air sword smash that comes down on an opponent's head, a stronger blast from Nero's Devil Bringer arm, or more power and accuracy when using guns from a distance.
At the end of each mission you're graded on style, time to completion and number of magical red orbs, which are often left behind by fallen enemies or found in objects such as crates, barrels, food items and nooks in the wall. Green orbs replenish your health and are highly recommended before tackling boss characters.
One advantage of the PC version is that enemies won't always appear in the same place if you need to restart a mission (something we had to do a couple of times in the tougher bonus missions). After you finish playing the game as Nero and Dante on the hard difficulty, the PC version also offers a "Legendary Dark Knight Mode," with many more and tougher enemies on the screen at once. You can control the game using a keyboard, but we'd recommend a gamepad. We used the Xbox 360 Controller for Windows, which worked great and didn't require any button programming whatsoever.
alt="Deamon of fire"/>The beastly Berial is the first boss character about an hour into the game. Take him down by using Nero's Devil Bringer arm to launch him onto its back and smash him a few dozen times.
PC gamers must be sure they more than meet the minimum system specs in order to run Devil May Cry 4 -- though our testing found a few technical issues even when we did. On two PCs -- a high-end Hewlett-Packard desktop and top-of-the-line Dell laptop -- the game wouldn't run at all, though all the system specs were met (even the recommended ones). We double-checked that all drivers were up-to-date, made sure there were no downloadable patches available online, and also contacted Capcom tech support, but weren't able to resolve the issues. On one PC we kept getting the message "Conflict with PC emulation software" when we selected either the DirectX 9 or DirectX 10 version of the game. On the second PC, the game wouldn't start at all. (On a third machine, a Voodoo PC laptop, the game worked just fine. Odd.)
@@
Even when you can get the game to run, don't expect a super-smooth experience. Here's the irony: Capcom is billing the PC game as a souped-up version when it comes to resolution settings and speed. For example, the game is said to run at 120 frames per second, up from 60 frames per second, offering what Capcom calls "turbo" performance. Not based on our experience. When seven or eight enemies are on the screen at once, Nero will run slower until the screen is half-cleared. This doesn't happen with a huge boss character, though. The PC version of Devil May Cry 4 allows you to customize graphical effects, texture sizes and frame rate in accordance with your machine's capabilities (though you might need an computer engineering degree to figure it all out). Load times, while much better than the PS3's, can be somewhat long depending on the movie or level being loaded (as with the Xbox 360 version). They did seem to get better as the game went on, and didn't take away from the overall experience.
If you take your computer gaming seriously and have a kickass rig, this version of Devil May Cry 4 is more than worth the $40 investment. This stylized, supernatural action-adventure is one of the best in the series, and unlike many other console ports, it doesn't feel like the PC was an afterthought.
This review was based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.
