DmC:Devil May Cry - Dante returns...wait, his hair is black?

Devil May Cry has been a fairly iconic series for Capcom since it's original release back on the Playstation 2 in 2001, so when Ninja Theory showed up with a retake on the title, and some kid essentially posing as Dante, we all raged. And we did, and we expected to just bash it to hell because it wasn't THE Dante we all wanted. But fortunately, things took a different turn as more was revealed. Now the question is, Does DmC match up? And how does it stand as a new title in itself?

DmC starts off by showing off the new dante in a strip club, with an all new attitude, and a thing for the ladies. Following the intro cinematic and the introduction of Kat straight at the beginning of the game with a rather under-dressed dante, you get flung into where you spend 95% of the game, Limbo, and learn soon after someone is targetting Dante, and he gets pulled into Limbo whenever they find him. It's quite the interesting idea, one that is eerie yet strangely gorgeous to gaze your eyes upon. The whole world is basically pulled into the demon realm. Asides from an area or two, it's has a great aesthetic to it, never being truly bland. Dante can only use his sword in limbo, as it's a demon weapon, so anytime you may spend outside of it, you don't do combat. It's basically story based segments leading up to limbo. Perhaps a missed opportunity, but a minor complaint all the same. while the story doesn't focus on limbo, you get a basic jist of what it is from explained, and from the world itself. It's well executed, and the characters do help to carry it forward as well. What's more, you can easily tell that one of the main choices in this re-take was to essentially add the modern world to DmC, something that becomes more evident and maybe more relavent in the later half of the game.

Characters wise, Dante still has that attitude of his, but made to suit that new age and look to him. He's quite the ladies man, enjoys his booze, and still has that "couldn't care less" approach to everything. If it doesn't affect him, he won't care. Good to see it stick, but the development of him learning who he is, what his past is, his relationship to Vergil and who Mundas is adds a new depth to him that really hasn't been explored before. Also, for those that wonder, why his hair isn't white is dealt with too. Panic over. Vergil is not bad, though i feel he doesn't get covered as much as he could. He wants Mundas dead, and will do anything to get it done. People knowing the series prior to this will know what's in store for him later, but it's covered subtly throughout the later half of the game. Kat acts as a good grounding for Dante in this. She's there to help Vergil however she can, and eventually for Dante too, helping when she can and however she can. Being able to see Limbo plays a lot into the progression of things. Overall she's a pretty well designed character, one whom i'd love to see more of.

Get that style combo up and you'll be hitting SSS in no time

Now gameplay. Combat is extremely fluid, and feels fantastic when you get it down, i'd even go as far as to say it's the best of the series in many ways It doesn't take long to get to grips with things, and they've happily supplied you with a training mode in the menu so you can work with combos and learning how to switch between weapons. The longer you can keep your combo going without getting Hit, the more rewarding it is. The Style system ranges from D to SSS, based on your attacks/combos, and how you mix it up. Just doing the one combo all the time will stop it increasing after a while, so upgrading for more attacks is quite handy. All your attacks come from Y(triangle) and B(circle). B being a launcher, Y being your main attack. And X(square) of course, being your guns. You get demon and angel weapons not too far into the game which require you to holding down the right and left triggers respectively to activate and you can dodge with RB/LB(R1/L1). Angel weapons are generally faster and weaker while demon is slow but deadly. Trying to find the best ways to mix these up for SSS is a nice challenge, but it's not so daunting as to scare away new players. it's introduces you fairly gently, and you get the grasp of things by experimenting when you can as well. Devil Trigger allows dante to change into his old colour scheme(red clothes, white hair) and the world to turn white, in this mode throws enemies to the air and you do more damage, take less, health regens, you also get bonus style for air combos, so use it to your advantage. While there is some minor hiccups in framerate here and there, combat doesn't ever really get affected by this, so the performance is top notch as well.

The levels don't take too long to complete, i'd say you'd get about 5-7 hours of gameplay before you beat the game on your first playthrough, and then you could easily best the game afterwards in about 2 hours when you try to increase your rank and find all the secrets. It's pretty much all linear as well, though the secrets usually have you searching a bit. Keys for doors to secret missions are scattered everywhere, and Lost Souls are hidden in most levels too. Cleverly, or to some irritating, you can't get everything in the early levels straight away. You need to progress some first then go back to old ones to get what you couldn't. This helps increase the replayability. The difficulty is my main issue. Of the three you start with, Nephilim is the hardest. And the main concern i have is that it feels more like normal than anything else. Companies still have this tendency to make "hard" normal now, and it bothers me. Thankfully the 4 extra difficulties you unlock after make up for it. I'd have just liked a bit more complexity on my first playthrough. Also, for those of you that like a challenge, there is the "complete the game on Nephilim with all stages SSS'd" which, at the time of writing this, seems to be all i'm focusing on instead of the next difficulty.

Revisiting early levels with new weapons can grant you access to new secrets

And of course, lastly, the music. The game goes for that heavy to death metal style, which to those that have played DMC before will recognise as a staple for the series. It really gets you going in the early levels too, with a fairly decent soundtrack. It's not my music of choice, but with DmC, it never feels out of place.

All in all, DmC stands it's ground. The combat is easy to learn and incredibly well executed and both the story and characters are well designed, surprisingly deep and interesting for DmC, with so much more obviously set to tell. Sure this isn't the old Dante, but this one stands on his own two feet, and is just as deadly as the previous one. Give DmC a chance, don't just throw it under the rug and imagine it doesn't exist, i think it may surprise you just how good this game is.

Please note i've not touched the PC version of the game, so i can't really add anything about performance or framerate for that here.

Resident Evil 6

Resident Evil has always been revered for it's use of horror, heck it was one of the titles that brought the term "survival horror" to the table as a genre, and looking now, there is many a title that has followed in their footsteps. But in recent years, Resident Evil looks to have forgotten its routes, what made it such a beloved franchise, and moved more into action. Resident Evil 6 comes into play to "appeal to old and new fans alike" with horror elements and that which would appeal to an ever growing market of action fans. This is where the problems start.

The game splits itself into 3(4 when you beat the first three) campaigns, focusing on everyones favourite, Leon kennedy, back to deal with an outbreak starting in Tall Oaks, Chris Redfield, having lost his memory due to events 6 months prior to where the game focuses, and Jake Muller, a mercenary who turns out to be immune to the C-virus(i like to call his campaign Sherrys mode, since Sherry Birkin feels far more important) and is being safeguarded so an antidote can be made. Everything slowly comes to focus on a city in china where all hell breaks loose, but each feature different styles of play and atmosphere that they still feel a little unique. The stories aren't bad, and do have some pretty interesting and sad moments in them, so it isn't my main concern(though the characters do at times make it more annoying to follow). My main concern, is how each storyline is designed.
Leons campaign tries to bring back the feel of RE2, heck you could say RE in general, and for the first 3 chapters, captures it well. Heck, they stand out to me as the strongest chapters of the game. They capture a decent amount of atmosphere you used to get, and you face zombies(you know, those beasts that RE are famous for) instead of the J'avos in the rest of it. It is lost though later into it, but Leon is easily the best character in this. Helena is ok, but that's about as best a comment you can get. Leon is easily the best campaign of the game.
Chris' mode goes pure action, probably where the "attracting the CoD audience" comment came into play from Capcom, and feels tacked on. It has no feel of RE, bar chris being there. Chris and his partner Piers are bland, uninteresting characters that feel thrown in purely to get a reunion of the originals back in one game and someone to kick chris back into action. They probably tried to capture the idea of it not all being about horror, and now becoming slightly more military-like with it starting to go wide-spread, but maybe they tried that too much. It does have it's moments sometimes, like for example mid-way you have to deal with an invisible snake, no doubt a reference to the original mansion and the snake there, and it killing off chris' squad one by one from the shadows, but outside of that, i struggle to name any other memorable segments.
Jakes(Sherrys) mode is the most experimental, and as such the hardest to really judge. At first, i thought they where trying to go stealthy with it, but by the time you hit the later chapters, you realise, this feels like a movie. It's not bad, but again, it doesn't have any real horror in it. It does have a RE3 throwback in the form of Ustanak though. He refuses to die and has his sights set on Jake throughout. Very Nemesis against Stars-like. Stealth is there too, and it isn't bad, but you can just charge in for the most part too. They both aren't bad characters either, but still lacking a certain...something.

So what's the problem with all this? Instead of trying to focus on one or two things, Capcom tried to do too much. Of the three, you have an attempt at horror, an attempt at action and an attempt at making a movie-like style section. Sure they had a big team to work on this, but it's too much. I feel that, in trying to appeal to so many markets at once, they've shot themselves in the foot and are essentially pushing away more crowds than bringing in. I won't mention much on the 4th campaign, as you do need to unlock it, but it does host the freakiest boss of the entire game. A small consolation prize, you could say.

Ustanak, the Nemesis of RE6

So how is the gameplay? Mostly ok. However it's become yet another title in the "must have QTEs aplenty" concern. It's also linear in a bad way. All resi has been fairly linear, but this hasn't got rooms to the side to look into for extra bits, it's more corridor shooter-like. finish this area, see if there is an emblem(files, which you read in the special features section), move on, rinse repeat. You also have a lot of forced sections, running away, QTEs, you name it. It detracts a lot, and it's something quite obviously no-one has learned from yet. Do not force us into QTEs, or situations. Heck the prologue suffered from the same idiocy as Gaiden 3 did. "press back on the control stick, walk forward, press left, walk forward". Sure, it's a prologue, but let us look about. Removing freedom is not something you should EVER do in a title, period. Controls are reasonable too, though they neglect to mention a lot in the instruction manual. You really need to look online for a lot of the control shortcuts(protip: Hitting RB & X (R1 + square for you PS3 guys)on the 360 controller automatically creates tablets from herbs if you have them available), a bad move overall. But again, the moves feel like they are deliberately trying to make it more action like. You run as normal now, need to tilt the control stick slightly to walk. You now dash instead when you hold A(X). Also, i highly recommend you switch the targeting reticule if you do intend to play RE6, the default is pretty abysmal, change it to laser sight and you should be fine.
There is no weapon upgrades this time, no weapon progression either, something i quite liked from RE4 and 5. Instead, everything focuses on skills. Some are what you'd expect, firepower boosts, defense boosts, more critical damage. Others are aimed at making the game easier(and for a couple, harder) for some, getting tablets when your ally helps you up, better accuracy, or you can remove your targetting reticule as well for a damage boost. It's not a bad setup, all things considered.
For those that enjoy it, the one thing that hasn't really gone and been hit bad at all is Mercenaries. It feels like it used to, you against the clock to kill everything you can(this time with a limit, which makes for some good score attacks) whilst collecting time and bonus multipliers. It's still exactly as it was which i'm glad to see. You can equip a single skill for it as well, which may unbalance it a little i find, but not as badly as i first feared. Time bonuses can give more time, longer bonus multiplier, kind of thing. You can switch between them mid-game, but it does mean you could drop your combo, something you need to watch for.

You will spend a fair bit of time crawling and jumping to the ground

I'm yet to try online, and to be honest, i'm tempted not to try it full stop. If you even set it to consider xbox live or anything, you can't pause the game, even if noone else is in your game. I recommend you set it to offline so you can(why that's not default is anyones guess). Co-op is available in mercs and agent hunter(i'm yet to try) as well both, local and online. Local co-op is horrible, it doesn't even take up a full screen. When my brother and i tried it on the PS3 at home(a 40" TV), it left a lot of black bars/blocks all over the screen and these small wee screens for you playing. Whoever considered this a good option needs to be slapped. There was one other segment which annoyed me. The details you get from the files(unlocked by emblems) is not all there. You need a residentevil.net account linked to your XBL or PSN account to get every detail, and you can only get them on the website. Whatever happened to having everything in the game already?

My opinions here may not seem to suggest it's an entirely bad game, and for the most part, it's not terrible, but it's not good either. What makes Resident Evil.....Resident Evil? This should be obvious. Survival horror. That fear of going up against the unknown, watching your ammo, a dark atmosphere, etc. This doesn't happen here. Sure, there is this more global style fear of things happening...but it doesn't capture anything i remember and loved. Maybe i should approach this as the new way forward as capcom are trying to say it needed to go, but it doesn't work. It doesn't give me what i want from the RE franchise. Why can't they make a game ala Revelations? That captures the fear of another "raccoon city" style even, yet keeps the atmosphere and fear alive? Why do we need the Call of Duty fanbase to help us move forward? The design choices just don't add up for me, and i don't think they ever will. They have taken what resident evil once was, put it into 3 chapters, and made a title that may as well have a different name on it. It might even do better if it did. But because it tries to expand the world of a fan favourite, it has done nothing but hurt itself. Perhaps capcom will take from this and go back to what it once was, or they might try and use this as a way to say "out with the old, in with the new" and move in a direction which will do nothing but push away it's core player-base. All i can say is, if this is a sign for things to come, i fear for the franchise, not because it's going to make bad games, but because it no longer is Resident Evil.

Lollipop Chainsaw - Killing zombies with lollipop power

Lollipop Chainsaw has been out for nearly a good month and a half now, so no doubt a good few of you have picked up this already and had a good playthrough of it, much like myself. It's a pretty interesting style of game, and of course, pretty wacky, but coming from Grasshopper Manufacture, that doesn't even surprise me anymore, considering the other titles they've released(No More Heroes, for example). What got to me with this was, how underrated it's actually been. So is it actually as bad as some say?

Let's start with the basics, Lollipop Chainsaw at it's core is a hack n slash zombie game where you play as birthday girl Juliet, a cheerleader for the San Romero Knights...who just so happens to have her boyfriends head attached to her waist(there are worse ways to go, gotta say). The high school gets hit by this weird ritual in which zombies take over and you, being the badass cheerleader with a chainsaw, have to clear them out, essentially. Story wise, it's there, but nothing you need to rattle your brain over. It's basic in style, but that's all it needed to be for this game.

Combat is fairly clunky at the beginning. You start off with a series of basic combos, chainsaw attacks, pom pom attacks and your low attacks. That's about it. Don't attempt to guard either, since there is no way to do so. Fear not however, as you progress and collect zombie tokens either littered around everywhere or by killing them zombies, you can purchase new combos which improves the feel of the combat as well as makes it far more interesting as well. Health, strength, lock-on and recovery upgrades are available as well, but i'd suggest getting the combos first, as you'll be needing them more at the beginning. Getting good combo chains in as well as well aimed attacks can get you a flashy multi-kill animation where you get bonuses to your gold and platinum tokens(used for music, artwork and all the costumes) which fell pretty damn satisfying. My only gripe with them is that, after a while, they can be a little repetitive, but they don't remove from the flow of combat i found, surprisingly. You'd have thought that slowing everything down to show you 3-7 zombies heads flying off with rainbows spouting out of them would cause disruptions but there we go. Also, it's worth mentioning the Sparkle power, which is the meter at the bottom left which, when filled, makes chainsaw attacks insta-kill and you invincible, and the nick attacks. You fire Nicks head at enemies to stun them and make them vulnerable to your chainsaw attacks.

There are other upgrades you will get via story progression, the chainsaw blaster which is your gun, easy to use but i do recommend you turn off auto-aim, it makes it a lot easier, and the chainsaw dash. Chainsaw Blaster is annoying in a couple ways, one to get used to it, the second is that everytime you choose to use it, Juliet shouts "Chainsaw Blaster". granted there is enough variation in how she says it, but really? I think once every so often would've been a bit better.


The best thing i found about Lollipop Chainsaw was the aesthetic of the game. My god is it fantastic. Each level is designed with a different genre in mind, and it ensures the music follows suit to. One stage will have you listening to Dragonforce as you work your way to the punk rock boss, the next you'll be listening to viking metal whilst trying to get atop a flying viking ship. Also, i can't leave this section without mentioning how fantastic the music in stage 3 is. When you reach a certain section of the game where you need to kill hundreds of zombies to progress, you'll know what i mean. Fit so perfectly. The soundtrack was superb, well thought out and there isn't a song that is out of place within it.

Finally, the main other thing i feel needs mentioning is the voice acting. Tara Strong does a fantastic job as Juliet Starling, even if the "chainsaw blaster" line gets repeated way to often, but the praise has to be handed to Nicks voice actor the most; Micheal Rosenbaum. When i first heard he'd be voicing Nick in this, i wonder what the hell to expect. When i think of him at all, i think of Lex Luthor from Smallville, and just can't imagine him in more of a comical role, but he nails it, and in many ways, carries the game with it. Yeah, all the voice acting is pretty good, but he does stand out atop the rest.


Overall, i very much enjoyed Lollipop Chainsaw to the fullest, and go back to it often enough when i feel like killing with all that lollipop power. Sure, it starts off a little slow in terms of combat, and the story is basic, but it's not about a extremely deep and though provoking storyline. It's about a cheerleader zombie hunter equipped with a chainsaw massacring many a zombie in an attempting zombie apocalypse, with well placed humour and a fantastic soundtrack. It needed nothing else, and does exactly what it needed to, entertain.

Indie titles WHY U SO GOOD!?!?!?!?

I'll be honest here, up until early last year, i hardly played any PC games, bar the odd RTS here or there. but then i delved deeper into it all, and asides from the usual big named titles, i found my steam library turn into this mass of indie titles. There was a point where i thought, hey, hah, all i want is title x or title y on steam, big name stuff i mean, and never looked to cheap titles cause they looked meh. I can't get enough of them now.

Probably some of the major titles you'd think of when you consider the indie scene is Edmund McMillens Super Meat Boy the platformer where having over 1000 deaths before world 3 is common place. Or of course the game that took off flying and is still to really stop, Minecraft. It's become such a diverse and, i'd go as far to say very well respected scene now, that  owning them is normal now. I find myself with over 80 hours on The Binding of Isaac, 60 on Plants vs Zombies, and so many more on others. But i think i'm missing my own point, Why are they so good?

Awesomenauts - check out the theme song, it's so good

I think part of that could be that, as an indie developer, you have a lot more free rein over what you do. You can experiment a lot more with what you're doing than you would if you where stuck working on a AAA title like, say, Resident Evil, which has nosedived into the worst gameplay choices imaginable(going for CoD fans? really?) Take Awesomenauts, which is set to hit PC/Steam in the not to distant future. It's a MOBA(think League of Legends) style game at heart, but so different outside of that. Sure, it has you defending towers, taking out mobs, buying upgrades, it's a platformer on top of that. Aiming  and firing isn't auto either, it's all something you need to control yourself. It can easily change up the way the genre moves on depending on how well it's received(i think it did hella well on PS360, but i forget) and essentially push even more weird and exciting ideas to the genre. Yes of course we will have bad games come out of them, heck that always happens, but there are times like this particular title that things work out. Bastion brings in new ideas for story telling, through a narrator who tells everything as you progress. It means you spend more time enjoying the game, whilst listening to his fantastic voice, tell the story of Caelondia and the Kid trying to find a way to sort out the "Calamity".

Sure, you could say "oh, capcom can do this" or  "Ea did that", and maybe they can or have, but the titles have either gone under the radar, or they are too afraid to do something major to their main titles with the chance that they'll lose sales. It's horrible to say that, but it's not too far off the truth. Resident Evil 6, to bring it up again, is being made with the intention of "trying to bring in fans of CoD". They want that because it means more sales, which in turn means more money. The feeling i get from that is, they don't really want to keep the fans of certain series they have now, they just want to bring in more to keep up cash income. I honestly believe that'll do them more damage with that title than anything else.

I think i've kind of only scratched the surface with it all. Indie titles are becoming more and more noticed and more of them are turning out to be good. Some more so. If i can get more titles like Bastion, Trine, Braid, Limbo, Super Meat Boy, and at such a good price, i think i'll gladly support them all when i can. i feel my money is more well spend with them too, as not only am i getting my moneys worth, i feel like i want to return to the titles time and time again. I think AAA developers/companies could learn from them, if they could only let go of their damn pride and silly notions of being the only ones that can do x, y or z. Some of their titles may just turn out to be good, real good.

Also, Indie games have the best soundtracks. Just Sayin'

Return to blogging, E3 + and beyond

Hey guys, it's been a while. I realise i had made a promise to you all that i'd make a blog on E3, and i kind of didn't. Sorry, there isn't really a good excuse to what i can say for that, i got caught up with a few other bits at the same time, and never got round to making a full blog on the matter. So what i'll do now, i'll condense everything worth mentioning from each of the conferences into a paragraph or two, and then move onto july news and my plans for the future of this place.

E3 - Microsoft


Microsoft once again got E3 off to...a start. It wasn't exactly spectacular, but they had made some decent choices in titles to show off. Halo 4 got the show off to a pretty good start, with a very Metroid Prime-like feel to the game. Very much welcome if you ask me. Has huge promise, and 343 studios can certainly capitalise on that. They moved onto the new Splinter Cell title which looks very splinter cell like, but with Kinect voice commands, much like what you saw in Mass Effect 3. Gears of War Judgement got it's teaser trailer reveal showing off Baird mostly, but we know that Cole train will feature as well, and it looks to be set prior to E-Day, so will make for an interesting sequel. After this, Tomb Raider was shown to be fairly nice looking, but it went fairly downhill from there. Dance Central 3 feat. Usher,  Fable The Journey trailer, Xbox Smartglass(controls xbox + extra features on a windows 8 smartphone/tablet), more 3rd party apps for the 360, Black Ops 2, you get the idea. It was a strong show for the first half, then died down after. We got some of the South Park game from Obsidian in there though, so it wasn't to bad nearer the end. Good news was, there was far less kinect this time round. They might have finally caught on how to use it properly

Sony


Sony was interesting, they where by far better than Microsofts conference, with strong showings of games like The Last of Us, Playstation All Stars battle Royale, God of War Ascension., Assassin's Creed 3(+ Vita 3) and the guys behind Heavy Rain showcased their new title, Beyond: Two Souls. They did however, try to get more coverage for what is quite widely deemed a flop, The PS Move. new games for the "Wonderbook" including one written by J K Rowling where shown off, however it didn't impress much. If they removed this and put in PSVita coverage instead, they would have been better off. All in all better than microsoft, but still fairly weak.

Ubisoft


Never was there a day when i though i'd say this but, Ubisoft stole the show. They showed off Rayman Legends for WiiU which looked fantastic. Keeping to the same style as Origins but incorporating the extra things that the WiiU will offer. Moving swiftly onto more Assassins Creed and then ZombiU was shown a little next to some of the other titles for WiiU. What stole it for them however, was the last title they showed off; Watch Dogs. I don't think i could do the game justice by my description, so i highly recommend you check out Youtube or a gaming site for the gameplay they showed off, it was...fantastic to say the least.

Nintendo


Finally Nintendo, who somehow managed to disappoint amidst high hopes. They even did two shows, one focusing on the WiiU, the other on the 3DS, yet still managed to show nothing of spectacular worth. The console itself looks fantastic, Pikmin 3 was shown off, Batman Arkham City Armored Ed was shown, ZombiU, NintendoLand and New Super Mario Bros for WiiU, but they didn't give us an extact date or price range. the 3DS show gave us Castlevania: Mirror of Fate, Kingdom Hearts 3DS, Luigis mansion 2, New Super Mario Bros 2 and Paper Mario, but it just wasn't something new or gripping.

So was there an outright winner? no. You could say Ubisoft for showing proper stuff, but honestly, noone stole it. I didn't see EAs, but all it had basically was Dead Space 3. I just hope the Tokyo Game Show can give us more from Nintendo.

Now, for this month and beyond. July has had a few decent announcements here or there. Many will know that Tales of Xillia has been announced for EU/US possibly alongside it's sequel but that is TBA, but no release date confirmed. Persona 4 Golden has helped the Vita get it's drive back, as you'd expect now it's released, Persona 4 Arena has 30-40 hours storyline content, and of course, there is the continued concern for Mass Effect 3 now that the extended cut DLC is out. That's just a taste of things, but expect a weekly update on news from here on out.

As for what i plan to do, i intend to do 3-4 posts a week, one focusing on my gaming at present, one on news, a review if i can, anime updates, and something else which i'm still considering. It may take me a week or two to get into the right state of mind for it, but please look forward to what i put up here, and if you wish to contact me at all, you can always find me on twitter @ARX7Laevatein or watching over everyone at  www.animeuknews.net.

Persona 4 finished! And Dead or Alive 5 Alpha thoughts

It's been a long time coming, but i can now safely say that i have finished Persona 4. Yup, i have. Let that sink in for a moment. It's taken me since it's US launch to complete. Why? I honestly don't know, but it has. And i take pride in the fact i finished it as well. I loved the final two dungeons, the feel, the style, everything. The final boss i failed on once, and that was down to that god damned worlds end. If i was smart enough, i'd have caught on to how to avoid any real damage from it sooner, but there we go. IT'S DONE. Now, as for my next title aim. I'm going to a series older than Persona 4, i'm going to .hack. By .Hack, i mean the 4 part game series released in Europe. I'm onto the third title, which i believe is outbreak, so i've got that and game 4 to finish, which i'll zoom ahead with now i have the chance. I can't even remember where i left off with it, which is rare since i normally can vaguely recall what was what. I may even restart all 4, who knows.

In other news, something i've been looking forward to since i saw that amazing trailer for it, and that is Dead or Alive 5. Since i got the Collectors for Ninja Gaiden 3, i got the premium edition of the alpha demo, so i was lucky enough to have 4 characters to latch onto and try out. My first thoughts with it before i started was, what would this charge move do? Would everyone just spam it? Would the camera from the dynamically changing stages cause havoc in the combat? And of course, how much do the characters feel like they should?

Now, i'm a bit of a veteran player with Dead or Alive 4, i played a good 2-3k odd matches in my time, peaked at A+ online, oh so nearly had S rank, so i can safely say i was pretty decent at the game. So i thought i'd approach this with that in mind. I'm not saying i'm going to be giving pro advise here or there, hah, i can honestly say i'm not that spectacular, but i'll give what thoughts i can to you all. Also, this is played on 360, so i will compare to DOA4 controls.

The controls are basically exactly as you are used to if you played DOA4, however the button we used to use for taunting(RB) is now used for your new charge style attack. You'll recognise this as the flashy move you see some of the characters use. Y is punch, B is kick, X is guard/counter, A is grab, you get the idea, nothing new. They also feel pretty tight, nothing feels too uncomfortable to use, this is also considering i use the 360 control, not an arcade stick. I've never used one for the game, and doubt i ever will.

Stages are very well built, ok you only get one to work with, but there is so much to them. bashing into a wall can cause cans/buckets to fall on you disrupting you mid-attack, making you vulnerable. It can happen to both of you as well though. Then you can hit into more destructive elements of the stage and fall victim to everything falling atop of you. Falling of the side two puts you into the attacker/defender situation. If you are the victim of the attack and have to hold onto the ledge, you are given the options of guarding, or dodging. Attackers get attack or grab. Attack beats dodge, Grab beats Guard. Kind of makes sense.Works very well too, and can lengthen a match if the defender successfully guards it. it does no more damage than you would expect from falling in one of the original stages. The camera during all this, needs a little work. I think it works well most of the time, but there is some issues here and there where i think it could do with focusing more on the characters than the destruction around them. Sure, it'll affect both players, but its maybe a little bit unnecessary. I can see what they where going for, however.

Now onto characters. I'll do a more indepth piece on all four available in another post, so i'll just cover them in general for now. Each character feels like they are themselves. By that i mean, they feel familiar. If you used to main Ayane all the time, then you can easily pick this up, start a match with her, and play with very little issue. They do also feel fresh. Some of the attributes for attacks feel a little different. Combos are a little easier to chain up, and can be lengthened if you get a well placed hit into certain sections of the stage.The combat feels like it flows fantastically well, though sometimes the controls feel a tad unresponsive, sluggish you could say. It is Alpha though, so these small things will probably get fine-tuned easily enough.

Finally, that charge move. Fear not, it isn't a game changer. In fact, i think it adds a new element of strategy i'm excited to muck about with. You are able to dodge and guard the move, as well as being able to hit your opponent out of it mid-charge. I should note though, that the chances are, each character will have different attributs allocated to their own unique charge move. Ayane felt to me like she had a grab for hers, so blocking was out of the question, but dodging was still a choice. Everything for this move falls into it being situational. You will probably want to try and get a well timed juggle in to use it, or perhaps get your opponent down on the ground and keep enough distance away so that they can't kick you on getting up. It's got a lot of possibilities attached to it. My only fear though, is how useful it'll be in high ranking matches. I don't see it being used often early days, but later on, i could see it used more. It's way to early to tell, but i'm gonna experiment more with it as i go on.

I hope this has been a little informative, when it comes to Dead or Alive, i can get a bit carried away, hah. But if you have any queries or want me to check something out in regards to DOA5 and the alpha, let me know and i'll check it out for you, and hopefully come up with a good answer for you. All i will say is, look forward to playing it, it's very nice so far.

Until next time.