A tumbleweed blows through Google Reader

Here, have a review of Devil May Cry 4. This was a game I felt I was enjoying the whole time I played it, and yet when I finished and thought about it, I could only focus on its flaws. Certainly a decent enough game, but not as good as its predecessor.

What's going on this week? Is everybody at GDC? They're certainly not blogging. My Google Reader is barren, except for the "news" coming out of the conference, like the shocking existence of a Gears of War 2. Sure, I'll look forward to playing that game in another nine months, but I don't see the point of working myself into a lather over it.

Same goes for most of the stuff coming out of the Game Developers Conference, although there's always interesting tidbits like Ken Levine's retrospective on the narrative of BioShock. But the news -- the hard news -- just couldn't interest me any less. Ninja Gaiden 2 release date? Great, remind me a week or two before it comes out. A new Red Faction? Sweet, that makes three Red Faction games I won't have played.

What interests me most about games is the experience of playing them. Events like GDC just build hype, which is something I try to avoid. Not that there's anything wrong with buzz, necessarily, but it helps to avoid it if I want to maintain objectivity. Nor do I think that anybody ought not to cover one of the biggest gaming news events around, just because of my proclivities.

I just get so lonely, is all.

Demo May Cry

Yesterday, the Devil May Cry 4 demo landed on both Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. This, along with Burnout Paradise, is one of the games I'm most looking forward to this winter. After playing the demo, I have one overriding thought: what the hell happened to game demos?

Remember the days of shareware, when a demo was practically the whole game? Wolfenstein and Doom each gave you an entire episode, with several levels, a complete storyline, and most, if not all, of the game's weapons. Wolf3D even let you escape from the freaking prison. Now that's a loss leader! Did I ever end up buying the full versions of these games? Of course not! I just played the free portions over and over. And that's way I likes it.

Clearly, game publishers disagree. Demos these days tend to contain a couple of minutes of gameplay, don't show much of the game, and cut off abruptly. They also weigh in around a gigabyte, compared to a single meg for the original Doom download. It's just ridiculous. They're also plastered with disclaimers about the demo not being indicative of the quality of the final version -- in which case, I'm not sure why they'd release it at all.

In the case of Devil May Cry 4, I am fairly certain that the demo is indicative of the quality of the final version, or else Capcom has some amibitious plans between now and February 5. But I'd say that's a good thing.

I keep telling myself I'm going to stop gaping at HD graphics, but again and again I just can't help it. This game looks gorgeous. One of the first locations it drops you into is a castle courtyard area that should be familiar from screenshots. At 60 frames per second, the structures look solid and the draw distance seems infinite (granted, the matte backgrounds are a little less impressive). I just wanted to run around and look at everything. Unfortunately, of the two game modes included in the demo, the one that features the castle has a ten-minute time limit.

So instead, I turned my attention to opening up a can. The only DMC I've played before is the third installment. I think it's a great game, one of the best for the PS2, but it's also ludicrously difficult. That's part of the charm. Advancing through that game took real skill. That's not the case with this demo. Your enemies seem to have taken their fighting techniques from classic martial arts movies, in which hordes of villains maintain a respectful distance while the hero battles one of their cohort. And since the demo also gives Nero only one sword and one gun, the rapid weapon switching that led to big combos in DMC3 isn't available here.

Instead of a time limit, the other portion of the demo limits you to one life. The purpose is to showcase a boss battle, a fight against a very large and angry flaming demon. Again, it seems a little easy -- I only tried it once, but I hacked away more than half of the boss's hit points before dying, without even attempting to analyze his attack patterns. Graphically, though, it's very impressive, not least because the size and detail of the monster doesn't lead to any perfomance hitches.

While it might have been nice to have an entire level to play through, at the end of it the Devil May Cry 4 demo did what it's supposed to do, which is make me want to play the full game. Just would have been nice if it had also made me want to play the demo again.

Winter games preview 2008

Putting together a seasonal games preview is always a dicey proposition. You don't have much to go on for release dates besides what Gamestop tells you -- and quite often their guess is as good as anybody's. With that said, I'm fairly certain that some of the games in my 2008 winter preview will be released on schedule, such as Burnout Paradise and Devil May Cry 4. Grand Theft Auto IV? Not so much. That's due for another catastrophic delay or two.

And if the Tom Clancy game that caps off this feature makes it out by April 1, I will eat my hat. You hear me? My hat.

Gamestop.com User-Submitted Previews: Devil May Cry 4

The holiday rush is nearly over now, but the new year will bring a whole new slate of exciting games. One of the games I'm most excited about this winter is Devil May Cry 4. Judging by the pre-release response at Gamestop.com, I'm not alone:

I hope this Devil May Cry is better than the others because i almost beat Devilmaycry2 so i hope that i can beat this one too and nero looks so cool and the graphics looks cool and so does Danta also

Maybe if this one is worse, he'll actually be able to beat it.

And what would a game discussion be without bizarre expressions of fealty to a single platform?

I say so what if this game went to the 360! Let it and lets show our new dmc brethren that we can master this game way faster than them! So any time they wanna think they are better just laugh and think how we've had the series for over 7 years and they haven't so it will still be our game!

I wonder how to break it to this guy that some Xbox 360 owners also had PS2s. Would it be like telling him Santa Claus isn't real?

I think this game is going to be one of the actually good PS3 games. But one thing that makes me wonder is that why some people think Vergil is coming back. If you remember that in DMC 3, setting was before DMC 1. And in DMC 1 Vergil was controlled by Mundus and went by the name Nelo Angelo. The one guy you have to fight like 3 times. Then he exploded leaving his half of the amulet. So he is probably dead.

Actually, the injury report given to the media lists Vergil as "Probable (explosion)." He's a gladiator, that one. And deceptively quick!

I like this next one because it starts on such a high note before dive-bombing into self-pity.

devil may cry kiks so much ass that it should be made into a movie oh wait i think that they are in japan....i think...anyway devil may cry 1 and 3 are the best games ive played my entire life 2 eh not so much i mean heck yea the moves guns swords and graphics are awsome but it laked that punk-asss-i aughta bitch slap you -rocker-cool attitude of dante but other than that its awsome.now for devil may cry 4 when i heard that it was coming out i pissed in my pants of exitment (not really) but when i heard that its only gonna be for the ps3 my exitment whent down cuz i only have the ps2 and no i dont have any money to buy a ps3 or a 360 so im screwd but still DEVIL MAY CRY FAN FOREVER!!!!!!!!!/\_/\

It's a good thing he slipped that disclaimer in there. I really thought he peed himself! Made me want to call him a homo over Xbox Live. But he didn't, so it's cool.

this game is so hot .I saw the new trailer and it was killa man i hope this not going to be short like cod4 .this is probably going to be the game of the month.

That's a pretty bold statement to make in a month when Pimp My Ride and History Channel: Battle for the Pacific come out.