Archive for January 21st, 2013

New developer breathes new life into Devil May Cry

, | Game reviews

DMC Devil May Cry is a best-case scenario for what happens when you take an established series and hand it over to a new developer to let them have a turn. The Devils May Cry up to now have been so very Capcom. But now developer Ninja Theory leaves behind the series’ trademark “you’ll play this battle over and over again until you learn the combos and you’ll like it” approach. They unpack this brawler neatly, carefully, gradually, patiently, giving you ample time to get comfortable, introducing new gameplay over the duration of the story, and fitting it all into a consistent framework. Every weapon is introduced with an easy “here’s how this works” battle. You can try a move before you decide to unlock it. The vocabulary of Devil May Cry — that’s a fancy way of saying the buttons you have to press — is intuitive and easy to remember.

Capcom has at last let someone make a Devil May Cry for the rest of us.

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January 21: wallet threat level Gilbert

, | Features

The Cave is the first game from Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert since he hooked up with the folks at Double Fine. It’s out this week.

Shootmania, the shooter from the folks who made Trackmania, is intended to be a flexible construction kit for players to make a variety of different game types. But if I know online shooters, it will be a bunch of dudes free-for-all deathmatching, first to fifty frags wins.

The PS3 exclusive JRPG Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is a collaborative effort from Studio Ghibli and Level-5. I would have played it by now if the Playstation 3 that I got to replace my dead Playstation 3 hadn’t died within days of getting it. If this happens eight more times, it’ll rival my failure rate with Xbox 360s.