DMC Devil May Cry Review

 DMC Devil May Cry is not a sequel to ”Devil May Cry 4”, as you may think, but a reboot to the series.
The major change is that Dante looks different than before, and, overall, the game is easier than its predecessors, while offering a decent challenge through the ”Hell and Hell” difficulty, in which enemies take the usual amount of hits to kill, while you die from one single hit.

The plot is captivating, taking players through a journey to save Limbo City from the demon that enslaved mankind, Mundus. Dante is a Nephilim, a being half Angel half Demon, and he has the ability to travel in and out of Limbo (as in the ”edge of Hell” Limbo). He is aided by his brother, Vergil, and a human, Kat, who is also a witch. The levels are creative and well-designed, taking players through a lot of weird places, such as a virtual reality newsroom, where you have to fight the hardest boss in the whole game, which, surprisingly, is not the final boss.
The fighting mechanics are amazing, and some of the fighting attacks double as ways to move around the map. During the game, you receive multiple weapons and powers which you can upgrade from the main menu or from certain areas in the level. To gain upgrades you need to "fight with style" (you will be awarded style points from F to SSS, which means Sensational) and gain combos. There are also collectables during levels, like lost souls, which you have to free, or like keys that opens doors which lead to challenges. These collectables are extremely hard to find, and some of the secret missions unlocked are extremely hard. They can be timed movement challenges or fighting challenges. You can also buy items such as Gold Skulls, which allow you to continue from the same place and time that you were in when you died instead of taking you back to the last checkpoint.
The game doesn't feature any multiplayer types, but  you can upload your high scores online. This makes its replay value very low, considering that the only reason you'd want to replay the game once you beat it is to try the harder difficulties. Otherwise, every time you play the story and mechanics are the same.
The most important improvemente over the previous versions, at least on the PC, is the fact that you can now use the mouse to fight and to move the camera around.
The music is also great. There's no greater experience than to listen to metal while hacking and slashing hordes of demons.
To conclude, in my opinion, this game does its job really well, and even though Devil May Cry didn't really need a reboot, we have it and, let's admit, it's really good.

Secret Files 3 Review

  

 If you had ever played Secret Files: Tunguska or Secret Files 2: Puritas Cordis, then you have been expecting this game for 4 years. Like the rest of us. And you've had high expectations from it. Like everybody else in your situation. And were you happy with the final product? Well... I thought so.

Secret Files 3, previously called "The Archimedes Code" and, when it got released, simply "Secret Files 3", left me really unhappy. It's not that it didn't surpass my expectations, no, the problem is it didn't even meet them.Before this game got released, I have to admit, I was kinda eager to get my hands on it and play it. Now, after I've played it and finished it (got all four endings, by the way), I'm not that happy about it anymore.

GAMEPLAY:
Well, there's really not much to say about gameplay. The same easy controls that can be narrowed down to this sentence: Left click is the USE button and right click is the LOOK button.
Here's my first complaint: the game is too easy. Way too easy. You can actually finish it quite fast. I mean, it took me about 4 and a half hours to beat the game, and it was the first time I layed my hands on it. Considering that there are four endings and you have to load the game back to a previous state in order to reach each of them, you can get like 30 - 40 extra minutes of gameplay, but it's not that exciting, since you do the same things anyway. The major difference is in the "what came out of..." part... but this doesn't fit into gameplay, so we'll come back to it later.

Another thing about the gameplay: there are too few puzzles in the game. It focuses too much on the point'n click part. I mean, I'm OK with the story progressing fast, but I also enjoy some puzzles from time to time, and I didn't get as many as I would have wanted and some of them were quite stupid (like the submarine navigation - I mean, was it that fucking hard to let the players control the submarine with the keyboard?!). So, a big minus here.

One last complaint in gameplay and then we move on: out of three playable characters only ONE is actually doing something. Unlike in "Puritas Cordis", where the action was split between Max and Nina, here you play mostly as Nina. Max has little to no contribution to the story progression, other than being the damsel in distress several times, which kinda made me think: what if feminists took over the production team and decided to make an example out of this game?! What if they wanted to show us that men can be damsels in distress too?! And the third controllable character?! One of the bad guys, which you only use to solve ONE PUZZLE and that's it. Seriously? Why was that needed? Nina could have done that quite easily. Or Max come to think of it.

The robot fighting part. Well, that one was quite innovative and brought something fresh to the game. That one, I liked.

Also, I noticed that they missed a lot of opportunities to create puzzles or new levels. For instance, there was so many they could have done with Alcatraz. But no. It ended fast. Or they could have made you go through a whole city to find the key to something. Santorini could have been more than an underwater base. At Cern, the second time, a whole level could have been made out of Max and Nina trying to reach the control center. Even at the beginning, in Berlin, they should've extended the investigation to more locations, you know, in order to raise suspence. But they didnt. They missed a lot of opportunites to make the game better - maybe the publisher rushed them to complete the game for the scheduled release date?! Bottom line: gameplay sucks.

STORY
The story is mediocre and hardly believable. Seriously, a whole code hidden in "Pi" that leads to the creation of a machine that will destroy those who are able to create it?! Something made up by a greater entity to prevent any other beings from the galaxy from reaching a certain state of evolution?! This is all you could've come up with?! OK, it's not that bad, I mean, it takes imagination to write this crap. But I have some complaints here as well.
A major complaint is that the villains are not properly done. OK, Cunningham is OK, we know her motivation and we get to know her better. But van Rijn could have been more developed. They just used him so there was a big boss giving orders. Doesn't match the guy from SF2.
One of the main reasons I'm disappointed in the story is that they actually hired professional movie writers to come up with it. Who the hell recommended this guys to them? Uwe Boll?
Something that I found really interesting was the part with the dreams that take you back into history at the exact time you should go to. The Florence level is quite good, yet, since I saw the screenshots of Leonardo's workshop before, I knew where it was going. Anyway, if I were to choose my favorite part of the game that would be the Florence part.
One more thing about the story. There are four endings you can get, based on your actions. I replayed the game to get those endings, and I'm kinda disappointed. But that's just because I like a solid, straight to the point ending rather than the game having you choose what happens and go with the ending you like most. I'm just a player, not the one who writes a story. To me, a good story has a solid ending (even if it leaves space for interpretation, as long as you know exactly what happened to who). And this story does not have one.

SOUNDTRACK
The soundtrack is OK. This is one of the few things I enjoyed about SF3: the music. At least this part is great and it didn't disappoint.
Also, one plus to the game for having finally solved the problem of Nina's voice (terrible in SF1, too old in SF2, perfect in SF3) in the English version.

GRAPHICS:
No comment here. It's hard to rate graphics in adventure games, but I liked how everything looked and, well, I guess it deserves a plus for graphics.

OVERALL:
Overall, as I was saying, I'm finding it hard to decide whether this game is really bad or simply bad. Again, this is an opinion, and I'm saying all this stuff only because my expectations were not met. Otherwise, someone else may enjoy this game. In short: the game is not long enough, the puzzles are easy, there are a lot of wasted opportunities that would have made the game better, there is not enough dialogue in this game, the story looks as if it was written by Uwe Boll and the gameplay... well, it's the same basic gameplay.
Because there are four endings it would be hard to make another sequel to the series, because they'd have to explore one of the endings only. Or not? (Maybe inter-dimensional stuff?)
Now, a personal opinion. Something doesn't make sense to me. In two of the endings, Cunningham should not give you the antidote, since you don't technically help her get what she wants. Yet she still leaves the bag with the antidode behind anyway. I think those two endings would have worked better with Max dying. That would really have made a difference in the outcome, even though Max's death would have been another thing I would have had to criticize because it wasn't a good exit for such a character :))
One last point: NO SAM IN THIS GAME. They do apologize for it through an image in the credits, though.

SCORE:
GAMEPLAY: 4/10
STORY: 5/10
SOUNDTRACK: 9/10
GRAPHICS: 9/10
OVERALL: 6,7/10 (Slightly above average)

In my Mafia 2 review...

...I was saying something about L.A Noire. I'm glad I was wrong and it eventually came out on PC as well. I played it and I loved it. (OK, now to get serious, Mafia 2 doesn't really deserve 10/10, maybe a 9/10 at most, but I was in a crazy-fanboy like state at the time and I guess I wrote a one-sided review there). I won't review it, because I played it when it came out and everyone has already said everything about it.
What I can promise, though, is that I'm going to review "Sleeping Dogs" as soon as I finish it (I won't reveal more. All I can say is, it's gonna be something huge, considering what I've done so far).
And about a future Let's Play (seems like a better name)... well... not sure yet, but time will tell.
Check the "Let's Play" page for a Ben Jordan Case 8 Playthrough though.(It's not 100% complete, only 90%, but all that's missing are three alternate endings that I can get done shortly).

Lost: Via Domus rant

Where do I start? The way they butchered the ”Lost” story and characters or the stupid tendency of these series-licensed games not to let you play as one of the characters from the series?!

 First of all.. I said it myself. This is a game based on a great TV series, but even so, it still falls under the ”series/movie licensed crap” category.

GAMEPLAY:

The game features a third person perspective, and you get to control your character via the basic controls for such a game. The only downside here is that you can't jump, which is stupid. In a third person adventure game, jumping is a must-have. (OK, you can jump, but only in two chase sequences and only to avoid obstacles. Plus, you jump by pressing ENTER! What kind of a brainless monkey thought that was a good ideea?!).  You play as some guy called Elliott, whose past you need to uncover during the game, as he has an amnesia after surviving the crash of Oceanic 815. As an adventure game, it doesn't bring anything new or spectacular. All you have to do is move around the island, talk to the characters (I'll come back to this later) and, at some point, hide in some trees to avoid the Black Smoke (Lost fans know what that's all about). There are two short sequnces like this and they're boring as shit. You can run as fast as you want, but once you get near the next trees you can hide into, you'd better not go any further because you'll hear different music and the Smoke will show up. If you don't hide as fast as you can, you're dead.
Gameplay... well, the gameplay is not this game's forte, that's for sure. I liked the idea of taking pictures in order to remember stuff, but otherwise.. nothing new, nothing interesting. 
One more thing. The game is divided in episodes. Every time an episode ends, you have to see a "previously" cutscene, like you didn't play the fucking game before and you don't know what happened. These cutscenes are annoying mostly because you can't skip them. Every game which doesn't have the option to skip cutscenes has a huge minus and the guys who came up with this are a bunch of assholes. Plus, sometimes, the cutscene comes right before a chase scene. If you fail the chase scene, you have to watch the cutscene again too! This is bullshit! I'm ready to beat the chase scene and then I see the cutscene and I get angry and lose my concentration!

STORY: 
Well, I can't really criticise this game story or mark this game based on the story, as it's based on Lost and it combines the story from "Lost" with Elliott's story. The only big plus this game gets from me is the ending. It was one of those "wtf" moments. Seriously, I was expecting a lame ending, like either he lives or he gets killed or something. But no! This game left me staring in my monitor like an idiot with my mouth wide open, shocked. I won't get into detail, because this is the only thing about this game that shouldn't be spoiled. And spoiling the ending will ruin any gameplay experience for anyone.
To sum the story up, the game follows the first and second seasons of Lost. You get to meet both the survivors and the Others and witness the course of events while doing your own work in order to remember who you are and to escape the island.


CHARACTERS:
As you could probably notice from what I said until now, Elliott is not a memorable character. He is just a journalist who lost his memory. Also, in the end, I ended up hating the guy because of a memory you'll see in the final chapter. The other characters are not developed at all. For someone who hasn't seen the show, it will be quite difficult to understand everything. A major complaint I have here is the dialogue. Apart from the cutscenes, where people actually talk, there is actually no dialogue. You choose to talk to the characters. You say a line, they say a line back, and that's all. I guess the voice actors gave them a discount if they didn't have too much to say. Plus, the voice acting sucks. It's like a fucking joke. They try too hard to imitate them and that's why they end up giving laughable performances. 






REPLAY VALUE:

For me, the replay value is zero. Under no circumstances am I going to play this game again. Not since it managed to bore me to death (except for the final two levels - I guess those chase scenes were there to remind you that you're playing a game) and it didn't bring anything new or special.


SOUNDTRACK:
The soundtrack reminds me of the show's soundtrack, which is good. I don't like the fact that they're not using the original song for the beginning of the episodes (God damn it, if you wanted to split the story in episodes, you should have done it properly!). But the song from the main menu is awesome. 

OVERALL:
-Gameplay: 5/10 (the chases and the camera parts save it from a lower score)
-Story: 8/10 (original "Lost" story + Elliott is OK, the ending is fucking A, but not being able to play as one of the characters from the series is a huge minus)
-Characters: 3/10 (not because I don't like the "Lost" characters, but because they're so poorly portrayed here)
-Replay value: 0/10 (nope, won't play again)
-Soundtrack: 8/10 (ok soundtrack, except for the things I mentioned above).

FINAL SCORE: 4.8/10

Random choice

I have an idea for a future playthrough that I intend to do. The only problem is, I don't really know what game should I play.
Therefore, I'll let you, my friends, choose some, and then I'll choose a random game and play it (via random.org). Please leave a comment with your choices.

Big changes

I just took my decision (sleepless night FTW) and there you go! New interface, and soon... sooner than you'd expect it (aka when I finally understand what the fuck is wrong with Cyberlink PowerDirector asking me to register the mpeg feature and stuff), you'll see new stuff here.
Also, some older posts will be removed. The Playthrough page will be cleaned-up (though I will leave a reminder of my work there) and we'll see about other stuff. Right now, I'm thinking of a good logo... anyome? Any help?

Just a promise

Providing that my PC can play that game, I solemnly swear that I'll make a playthrough of "The Testament of Sherlock Holmes" when it comes out. I know I haven't been active (and the former Playthroughs page is still here), but I'll try harder, ok? It's summer, I have some free time, so I'll think about it and do something good for a change.