The 3DS has already been demonstrating its power in terms of 3D gameplay – with titles such as Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D literally porting a 3D console title (albeit an old one) to the handheld format with better graphics than the original, and Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D showing the console’s capability to handle gameplay matching Resident Evil 5, although in the form of a score-beating mini-game style as opposed to an actual story.

Now, Resident Evil: Revelations is perhaps the biggest title on the 3DS so far – presented on a higher capacity game cartridge than other 3DS titles, it’s a fully-fledged Resident Evil game on a handheld. This is no spin-off, or arcade game – it’s a full entry into the series, set between the events of Resident Evil 4 and 5. And not only that, the title was promised to return to the series’ more scary roots. Anyway – that’s enough of my waffling, on with the actual review.

The game’s main plot revolves around that of Jill Valentine – who finds herself on a deserted cruise liner at sea – following a distress call from Chris Redfield after the BSAA lose contact with him. She is joined by her partner Parker, who is a likeable character that I enjoyed fighting alongside – people who disliked Sheva’s AI will be pleased to hear that he doesn’t die on you or use any of your items, however. It is questionable as to how much having a partner takes away some of the horror of the game, but I felt his place in the game was well deserved.

The game plays in a third person perspective, much like the modern console RE titles, and any fan of the series will very quickly feel at home. There’s no awkwardness to the controls (and I played without the Circle Pad Pro), which is something that handheld shooters have suffered from in the past. The touch screen is available for weapon switching and item usage, but generally you can do everything using buttons if you so choose – aside from a couple of touch screen puzzles that work well with the game. The tocuh screen can also be used to freely move the camera around Jill, but I didn’t find this to be something I ever needed to use – the third person camera functioning perfectly well on it’s own. After all, who can see behind them without turning, anyway? But honestly, I never really felt handicapped without a second stick, and the few times I did want to use the free camera, the touchscreen sufficed.

The ship that Jill is exploring for the most part of the game is very much like a floating mansion from the old games – that is, the areas are non-linear and you are able to back track around the ship and find keys that open doors elsewhere. This was a very welcome return to the series for me, exploring the ship brought back fond memories of what I loved about the original games – making the place feel more self-contained and claustrophobic, while never knowing whether to feel safe even when returning through an area you had already explored.

That said, the game plays in a chapter based episodic style, which does spoil the exploration a little – chapters have you swapping to other characters in other locations for different parts of the story. The chapters revolving around other characters are more linear, and break away from the fear of the cruise liner. That’s not to say that these sections were bad – the episodic style helps for shorter sessions on a handheld, and it helps the plot progression – but at times I did wish I could just stick to Jill for a more cohesive experience. This isn’t particularly helped by new characters Grinder and Jackass (yes, that’s his actual handle), who are very much cookie-cutter characters that I didn’t really care about and actually questioned whether their presence in the game was really necessary, other than to add extra characters for the game’s Raid Mode (more on this later).

The main inhabitants of the Queen Zenobia (the cruise liner) are creatures called Ooze – the idea being that a new type of virus has been released on the inhabitants, turning them into deformed monsters. While I didn’t find them as visually scary as a zombie (seeing as they look less human), the Ooze do offer what I love about zombies – they take quite a few bullets to go down, and they skulk in silence – unlike the gun-toting enemies in RE5 that felt more or less like normal people (but crazy ones). There are a few varieties of the enemy, gradually adding tougher ones as the game goes on. Ammo is fairly plentiful but not given to you in surplus, so the mixture of the Ooze’s relative toughness and the need to conserve ammo does keep things tense, which is nice.

To counter the lack of ammo, a new move has been added to the game – the dodge. If you tap the analogue nub toward the enemy right before an attack hits, you will duck and run under their attack, avoiding damage. It’s very handy and a nice addition, but if you mess it up you leave yourself open to take the hit. The game also includes a weapon upgrade system – you can hold up to three weapons at once, and when you collect more you can change your loadout via the various storage chests dotted around the game. When on the weapon menu, you can attach various upgrades to slots in each weapon, such as boosts in firing rate or damage. It’s not an incredibly deep system, but it does add a little tactical customisation which I appreciated.

One new tool of note is the scanning device you have access to in the game. By selecting it, you enter a night-vision style first person view that allows you to scan enemies and the environment. Every time you scan a certain amount of enemies, you will be awarded a green herb – obviously this leaves you vulnerable while scanning, but offers you the chance at healing when you are desperate. You can also scan to find ammo in the area if you are desperate, as well as ghostly hidden hand-prints that work towards unlocking an achievement (more below). While this feature is handy, I did sometimes feel that it was a chore to keep scanning each room and slowed the game’s pace a little more than I would like. Thankfully, it’s optional for the most-part so is more for those who want to use it.

Another new feature worth mentioning is the ability to swim – due to the ocean setting of the game, there are times when areas will flood, and you can swim in deep water to progress. The controls work well, allowing you to swim in any direction – and you do need to worry about breath, so it’s important to keep finding places to top up your air. The swimming sections felt like a natural progression for the series’ gameplay, and I always find underwater sections to be quite scary as you are vulnerable from every direction and under pressure to move quickly.

Also new to the game is achievements – by completing certain tasks in the game, you unlock achievements – much like you would in the 360 or PS3 games. However, rather than giving you bragging rights or a general completion score, each achievement you pass unlocks a new item – such as a new weapon or upgrade item. This is a nice extra incentive and adds some extra play value, though it does have the annoying function of being able to add new achievements to beat via Streetpass - something that doesn’t do much good when you don’t live in an area hugely populated with 3DS owners who actually use Streetpass. However, I haven’t beaten all of the achievements so far, so I hope that other ones will always open up as I clear the ones I already have – I don’t want to miss out on any potential unlocks simply due to where I live.

As I mentioned earlier, the game includes a side game called “Raid Mode”. This acts in a similar way the Mercenaries mode offered in previous games – a more arcade style side-game which involves working your way through areas and killing all of the enemies on the way. While the gameplay doesn’t offer anything hugely different to the game, the ability to play as other characters and the addition of co-op are the main draws here. Sadly I had no opportunity to test the co-op, but I can see this being a good way to extend the game’s play time – with the mode incorporating a levelling system to unlock new achievements and access new guns and characters, there’s a certain level of appeal that keeps you coming back.

Overall, I believe Resident Evil: Revelations does what it sets out to do – it’s a true handheld Resident Evil title, merging the gameplay of the modern games with more of the horror aspects of the older titles. While I wouldn’t say it’s the scariest game in the series, there are some good jumps here and there and a good atmosphere. While I feel the game could have been scarier if Jill was alone for the most part and there weren’t regular side-scenarios with other characters, the 10 hour story holds its own against Resident Evil 5 and is an incredible experience in terms of a handheld title. Definitely one of the best 3DS games so far.

- Leon

With Resident Evil: Revelations out in a week, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City due for release in March, and rumours of Resident Evil 6 scattered over the web, I must say I wasn’t actually expecting an announcement AND trailer this suddenly. But it’s here – the official reveal of Resident Evil 6. And judging by the trailer, I’m excited.

Zombies, glorious zombies. While the Resident Evil series has moved away from them at late (in favour of the less dead-looking and agile Majinis), it seems that Capcom are finally bringing Resident Evil’s iconic zombies back to the core, numbered series – not totally unsurprising, what with prequels Raccoon City and Revelations also focusing on our skin challenged friends. Of course, people cry – how can zombies be threatening in today’s games considering how slow they are? Well, it seems the location of Tall Oaks has been majorly compromised – with 70,000 infected. It’s all about numbers with zombies, assuming you have the amount of ammo we saw in Resident Evil 5.

That’s not to say that zombies will be the only enemy in the game – with powerful BOWs (Bio-Organic Weapons) also popping up around the world, and it seems that the Majini threat is also still present, giving us the gun-toting parasitic threat as well as the zombie outbreak. While I wasn’t a huge fan of Majinis as a replacement for zombies, I can happily see the two co-existing nicely.

So who are the lucky ones to deal with this new threat? Well, it seems many of the fans will finally be getting their prayers answered – Chris Redfield and Leon S Kennedy are co-starring for the first time in the series, with co-op modes also confirmed to be making a return (although no real details have been given at this point). While it’s clear that the game will not be returning to Resident Evil’s survival horror roots, it seems that Capcom are trying to pull out all the stops in giving fans what they want while evolving the gameplay in a way that feels natural – the bioterrorism threat becoming ever closer to a zombie apocalypse. With a game-style executive producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi calls “dramatic horror,” it sounds as though we’ll be seeing a mixture of action and horror – so hopefully that means that although the game will still be action-based, we’ll be seeing a few more scares than in RE5, which was sorely lacking for a Resident Evil title.

The plot itself of course revolves around more attacks from bioterrorists, though who is pulling the strings is anyone’s guess. Ten years have passed since Raccoon City, and the President has decided to go public with the truth of the events. However, Leon is forced to make a tough decision when the President, who is also his personal friend, becomes infected. Elsewhere in China, another attack has taken place with Chris on the scene – and it seems that the world’s population has to unite under the common threat of bioterrorism, though filled with fear that nothing will now be able to stop what has been put into motion. That said, it’s a little strange as Resident Evil 6 seems to be set before Resident Evil 5 – set ten years after the Raccoon City Outbreak in 1998, while the events in Kijuju took place in 2009. Considering the scale of things happening in RE6, it seems very odd that everything’s been cleared up within a year. That, and I was fairly sure that Chris had never encountered a Majini before Resident Evil 5, though that might have just been my own assumption. Hopefully more light will be shed on this closer to the game’s release.

There are, of course, new characters joining the fray as well. An unnamed mercenary who fights bare-fisted is featured prominently in the trailer, his female companion stating “the world needs you”. He responds “no, no, not me. Just me blood. Well the world can have it, long as someone ponies up the dough.” Perhaps his blood contains an antidote for the zombie virus, at least that’s my guess. Sounds like he’s going to play a key role in the plot, but doesn’t appear to be taking a particular side – he’s featured fighting against BOWs, yet doesn’t seem in a hurry to relinquish his blood for whatever greater good it holds. There is also a woman who claims to be at fault for the outbreak, and Chris seems to have a vendetta against a certain woman – though it’s not clear if this is the same lady. Could she be a villain, or just a pawn?

Gameplay wise, Resident Evil seems to play similarly to Resident Evil 5, although with some changes. Firstly, it’s clear that Chris and Leon have a few special moves up their sleeves, such as shooting whilst leaping backward, and rolling manoeuvres. Also, melee attacks look as if they could be a little deepened, as Leon is shown planting an axe in the head of one enemy. Looks like enemies have been given a few new tricks, too – with one Majini extending it’s parasitic arm over the cover that Chris was hidden behind and grabbing him, yanking him up into the air.

Visually, the game is looking good and the animation looks clean – one gameplay scene shows Chris running through a street in China as civilians flee, pushing them out of the way and shoving a reporter’s video camera out of his face while making his way through the wreckage. One thing I also noticed was that the game seems to be set mostly at night – one thing that RE5 deviated from that did seem to take away some of that Resident Evil atmosphere.

While it’s unclear on exactly how the game will turn out at this point, the initial footage has definitely got me excited. It looks to me that Capcom have taken the Resident Evil 5 style and worked upon it, while simultaneously trying to put lots of fan-service into the mix. I do hope the game will have a good amount of scares in it, but I’m sure it can’t have less scares than RE5. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this one.

We’ve also been given a release date – the 20th November. A while off, yet – but better than some of the waits we’ve had to endure between announcement and release *cough*FinalFantasyVersusThirteen*cough*. Plus, we’ve got Operation: Raccoon City and Revelations to keep us busy till then – two titles I’m even more excited for now.

-Leon

A week or two back, Xbox Live’s gallery leaked a screenshot that showed M. Bison and Ling Xiaoyu’s portraits as tag partners, which sparked some new hype for me and Garv – some of our favourite fights being between Ryu and Bison, and Xiaoyu being a childhood favourite of mine from playing Tekken 3.

Anyway, this week rolled around and Capcom suddenly announced that they would be unveiling 6 new characters, as well as 2 “secret” announcements – and now, here’s what they announced on Tuesday morning:

Street Fighter

Juri – Introduced in Super Street Fighter IV, this is her first time participating in another title – C. Viper having beaten her to a spot in Marvel vs Capcom 3. Bringing her Feng Shui Engine powered fighting style into SFxT, I’m looking forward to seeing what little changes or new moves they’ve implemented into her style. She’ll also make a fine partner to Bison – evil purple auras for the win!

Vega – One of Street Fighter’s more iconic villains, Vega’s claw weapon is infamous – as well as his unpredictable fighting style. Good to see him included as he’s a personal favourite of mine, and I’m glad to see his Bloody High Claw move makes a return from Street Fighter IV. I’m personally going to team him up with Poison for one hell of a crazy team.

Balrog – Not totally unexpected, what with him and Vega completing the set of classic Street Fighter villains – and a perfect rival for Tekken‘s boxer, Steve. Balrog is one of Street Fighter’s heavyweight characters, and with projectile-free move-set I’m sure he’ll fit nicely into the mix with all the Tekken melee fighters joining the fray.

Tekken

Xiaoyu – No surprises here, with the leak and all – but a welcome addition for me all the same. Xiaoyu is a quick-hitting character with the capability to create long attack chains. She’s looking good and seems to be having a bit of a rivalry with Juri going on, as well as her old friendship with Jin – more on that in a minute.

Law – With Street Fighter’s Fei Long and Tekken‘s Law both being very obvious homages to Bruce Lee, I was wondering how Capcom would handle them. Would they both be included for some epic Bruce Lee fight-offs? Would they pick only one? Or would they ignore both. Well, we’ve now got Tekken‘s Bruce Lee in the game, and I must say he is looking very similar to Fei Long in terms of fighting style (which isn’t a surprise, of course). I do hope this doesn’t mean that Fei Long is out of the game as I’m a big fan, but I doubt they’ll actually include both. Either way, Law is looking awesome, and I can just stick a “Fei Long” name sticker on my screen.

Paul – Competing for most hair gel with Guile comes the hard-hitting American from Tekken – who I can also see being confused with Ken Masters by a certain overweight warrior. He’s seen tagging with Law and reminds me a lot of Ryu now he’s rendered in Capcom’s style – albeit without the projectiles. His super punch move (I forget its official name, it’s been a while since I was into Tekken) has been shown in his super art, but otherwise I’ll be very interested to see what tricks he has up his sleeve to turn the tide on his projectile using rivals.

While there were only 6 characters “announced”, the latest in the series of full CG trailers has also been released, featuring M Bison and Jin squaring up to one another, while Juri and Xiaoyu also fight. Both Jin and M Bison have been hinted at already in the past, but this pretty much confirms the two of them (unless Capcom are insane), so that’s looking good. Check out the trailer below – looks like Devil Jin will be making an appearance in this game, too.

Last but not least, at the end of the gameplay trailer (featuring the 6 officially announced fighters, shown below), there’s a short section about the Vita version. At the end of that, there can clearly be seen the silhouettes of Pac-Man, and what appears to be the terrible old box-art version of Megaman. I seriously hope this is Vita exclusive, as I’m no fan of these characters that are neither part of Street Fighter or Tekken – with the Sony exclusive characters already pushing me into going for the Xbox 360 version to avoid Cole, Kuro and Toro. And if that really is Box-Art Megaman… I have no idea if Capcom are actually trying to troll Megaman fans (or perhaps they actually are insane).

All in all, it’s been a good announcement and it’s got me excited for Street Fighter X Tekken all over again. A nice batch of characters, and hopefully Capcom will keep the info coming over the next few weeks.

- Leon

Considering the premise of Asura’s Wrath, in which players take the reigns of the demigod Asura as he battles gods in angry revenge, it set itself a high bar to meet in terms of expectations. Dubbed by gamers as a potential “God of War-beater” in terms of epic battles, I was excited to see what Capcom and CyberConnect2′s game had to offer in its demo (out today on Xbox, tomorrow on PS3), seeing as over-the-top action games are among my favourites – especially those made alongside Capcom, who are responsible for Devil May Cry and God Hand which share a similar genre. So how did the demo measure up to the hype?

Presented as an episodic story similar to a Japanese anime, the demo gives players access to two “episodes”, numbers 5 and 11, both stages pitting you against one of the game’s bosses. Right off the bat I must say that the game does look fantastic, and while it doesn’t attempt to look visually like an animated cartoon, the actual camera work and storytelling are done in a way that the game does feel very much like an interactive anime in the vein of Dragonball Z or suchlike. The actual visuals look very attractive, very colourful and vibrant the whole way through.

First off, I played through Episode 5: Hollow Victory, which pits Asura against the gigantic god Wyzen. Having apparently taken Asura’s daughter, Asura commenced to tackle the mountain-sized deity in hand to hand combat. After a quick press of the left stick in time with an on-screen prompt to land from being thrown by Wyzen, Asura dashed toward the boss and the first stage of the boss began. At this point of gameplay, Asura was automatically running toward Wyzen, while I could move from side to side and jump to avoid energy blasts that were being thrown toward me. While doing so, a reticule on the screen allows you to target multiple points on the boss’s body and release a volley of energy blasts by pressing Y. While seemingly doing no direct damage, these blasts helped fill up the Burst Meter, which I’ll explain later.

Once close enough to Wyzen, Asura leapt up toward him and I had to tap A in time with prompts to leap between floating platforms or else be grabbed by him and thrown back. Once I got above Wyzen, Asura flew down toward him from the sky, in a similar fashion to the running section, where I could evade blasts and release lock-on volleys. This whole process serves to fill up the Burst meter, which seems to act as a way of pushing the boss to the next stage – usually by allowing Asura to pull off a big attack to change the tide of the fight.

In this way, the boss fight essentially acts as a mix of simple gameplay sections and QTE (Quicktime Events) that comprise a set series of events that take place in a set order. At all times, at least in the demo, Asura is able to jump with A, do a melee attack with B (although this is largely unused in the first episode) and fire rapid shots with X. The Y button functions as an action button that changes function depending on Asura’s current situation – a lock-on shot in the running sections, a counter-attack when certain attacks are coming toward you, or a heavy strike in melee combat. The Left Trigger can sometimes activate “Unlimited Mode” (which seemed to have a kind of meter that was hard to distinguish), which seemed to help fill the Burst gauge faster. The Right Trigger executes a Burst Attack, which as I stated before is a large attack (which is a scripted QTE style sequence) that pushes the battle forward. The general aim of the boss battles is to fill this meter by executing regular attacks, activate the Burst Attack and then progress to fill the Burst meter again in the next stage.

While I’m no adversary of the QTE system (I loved them in God of War, and some other games), Episode 5 felt so scripted that it really didn’t feel as though I had any control over the battle. The QTE’s felt easy to respond to (though I generally don’t struggle with them in other games anyway) with long windows to react, and even when purposely failing them I only found myself being thrown back slightly – or even in some cases, Asura seemed to act in the same way as if I had hit the button anyway, making me wonder what the purpose of pressing the button was at all. While the fight looked very impressive, the simplicity and ease of the scenario left me feeling uninterested and the fact that my actions seemed moot in many cases made my input feel almost redundant – I only needed to mash a button now and then to prevent myself from being crushed in a couple of QTE’s, but even then I only realised they could kill me because I purposely avoided acting to see what would happen. While the fight looked fantastic, the lack of effort it took really made me wonder when exactly I would be feeling any “Wrath”, because I was expecting a lot more frenzied button mashing than what was delivered. One section did involve a couple of regular enemies thrown at me while I proceeded to hold X to shoot down a flying battleship, but they died in a couple of hits and seemed to pose no real threat.

Hoping that Wyzen was just a QTE-heavy section of the game, I gave “Episode 11: The Final Lesson” a fair chance. Pitting me against Augus, Asura’s old fighting master, this episode was more what I had in mind. A more traditional fight with an enemy of equal size, this episode allowed me to run around the arena freely, whilst avoiding Augus’ attacks and attempting to beat him with my own. With a flurry of fists (Asura grows four extra arms when he fights), it wasn’t long before Augus tried to do a special punch on me – which I could then counter by tapping the Y button when prompted, allowing me to knock him down and leave him vulnerable to beatings or a grab attack (also performed with Y).

Much like the first boss, Augus had no health bar – rather, it was a matter of building up the Burst gauge to pull off a cinematic QTE attack to move the fight into its next stage. The first one was quite funny to watch, as Asura and Augus proceeded to hit each other with slugger punches, until I was then able to activate Burst Mode again. I was then greeted with a small cut-scene involving Augus un-sheathing his blade, and he began using blade beam attacks with his sword.

I don’t know whether this is the difficulty the game will be in the full game, but these attacks (and most others) made barely a dent in my health bar, so served more to keep me away from him than actually kill me. Still, I enjoyed this part as you had to alternate between jumping horizontal beams and dodging between multiple vertical ones, something that reminded me of a Devil May Cry boss mechanic I always liked. When I got close, he would attempt to attack me directly, and I could then avoid these attacks by jumping or dodging (performed with RB) and wail on him some more. After one more Burst Attack and an insane QTE scene involving a sword getting stabbed right through the planet, the demo ended.

While the second episode was more what I was looking for, the ease of the battle and the sheer abundance of QTE’s again left me feeling unchallenged. I really wanted to enjoy the battle – it looked fantastic and the music was equally epic (one of my favourite parts of the demo), but I just felt like I wanted to get stuck in a bit more and actually have some real control over Asura.

Seeing as the demo was purely boss fights, I feel like I’d need to see more of the game to make a real judgement of the game – some trailers have shown Asura battling more regular enemies which could be enjoyable if done right. Perhaps if the game were a bit harder I’d also have felt more of a challenge – which could also be remedied by difficulty settings. Overall however, the demo was something of a disappointment – while the combat was indeed over-the-top, so much of it was scripted and QTE-based that I didn’t really get into any kind of rhythm, nor did it give me any kind of blood-pumping excitement that I’ve experienced with other action titles in the past.

I look forward to seeing more of Asura’s Wrath in future as I sincerely hope that the demo was merely a poor choice of representation for the game, but I’m certainly more wary that the title may not quite be the God of War beater that many have deemed it to be thus far.

- Leon

So what games do I speak of? Well, for me, they are usually games with the potential to be mastered - each time learning a little more, making the overall experience feel as though I are learning and adapting, which can feel extremely rewarding. Amongst my list of special games are God Hand, (PS2) Street Fighter IV (X360), Capcom vs SNK 2 (PS2), Rock Band 2 (X360), Gunstar Heroes (Sega Megadrive) and Devil May Cry (PS2).

While this generation has brought us a solid fighter or two, and some older games hold up well against time, I’ve really felt like I’ve been lacking something lately. Devil May Cry 4 was a disappointment to me, but sadly the older titles haven’t aged too well either – although games such as God of War III and Bayonetta have given me good runs, nothing seemed to compare to DMC1 and DMC3:SE, and those titles are slowly gathering more dust on my shelf as the snobbery of modern graphics (and lack of PS2 functionality on my PS3) kicks in. That’s why I’m happy to announce that earlier speculation has proven to be true – Devil May Cry HD Collection has been officially announced by Capcom!

This is excellent news for me – but it’s also good news for Xbox players, the HD Collection coming to both Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. Currently planned for release “early next year”, the collection will bring Devil May Cry, Devil May Cry 2 and Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition into the current generation in full HD.

Of course there’s also the usual updates for Trophies/Achievements which is nice to add a few more things to earn when playing, but better yet it seems we’ll be getting all of the content we’ve seen thus far, with additional content to boot. DMC HD Collection includes the Special Edition of Devil May Cry 3, which allows you to play as Dante’s brother Vergil through the whole game, as well as extra unlockables, features and difficulty modes that weren’t in Dante’s Awakening. Capcom stated there would be “Bonus Content”, which suggests there will be extras exclusive to the HD Collection, although there have been no details so far.

Aside from that, the main thing we do have are some screenshots – one image from each game for your HD viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

- Leon

Announced last September, the news of DmC: Devil May Cry left an awful taste in my mouth. Capcom and Ninja Theory’s new version of Dante seemingly ruined the very essence of Dante, turning him from a fun-loving joker into a moody teenager, and changing his entire look and voice. As a huge fan of the original games, and with a lot of questions left unanswered (chiefly, why does Nero have Sparda powers and a magic arm?), the last thing I wanted to see was the old timeline forgotten and replaced in an effort to generate new fans for the series.

Now, this is in no means going to be me telling you that I’ve suddenly “seen the light” and have decided I *love* this new Dante and everything’s going to be peachy. All I will say is… DmC might be alright – if things are handled well. If not, well, I might just be sticking to my earlier sentiments. But of course, as the fate of the Devil May Cry series is an important matter to me (as well as me trying to keep an open mind), I’ve been keeping an eye on DmC.

Firstly, lets talk about Dante’s look. While the original trailer showed Dante looking starved and ill (the “crack-addict” look that most people refer to it as), newer footage shows that Dante’s been given a bit of tweaking – his overall design is much the same, but his face seems a bit fuller and healthier – and we haven’t seen any more cigarettes, either. It’s not quite so hard to imagine this new look being the true Dante, given some white locks as he “awakens” or something by the end of the game.

But it’s not just his face – his attitude seems to have picked up a little, too. Not to the stage that he’s taunting griffons or surfing on rockets – but his demeanor as a whole seems to have picked up somewhat. And to put the icing on the cake, his voice actor seems to have changed – while Reuben Langdon denied (on Facebook) that he was reprising his role, the latest TGS footage certainly sounded like him – or else a very good mimic. This would be great news to me – Reuben’s work in DMC3, 4 and Marvel vs Capcom finally gave us a consistent VA for the hero, and it would be nice to see this continued in future titles.

Aside from consistency, the idea of Capcom trying to keep the same voice for Dante has other connotations. So far, it’s been very unclear whether DmC is canon to the older titles – said in some places to be an “origin story” and in others a “reboot”, Capcom have never officially seemed to state their definite position on the matter. Could this choice of voice actor suggest they are trying to tie the game into the existing series? Especially if Reuben isn’t taking the role – why would they bother keeping it so similar, when Dante’s had multiple VA’s in the past?

Either way, the idea of DmC’s Dante and it’s plot are beginning to interest me. With a Dante that feels more like himself, I’m beginning to believe the game’s plot is heading in the right direction, which is an important aspect to me. I do hope it’s canon, as I’d like to see the original series continued, but if it’s not canon, I won’t mind too much as long as they don’t decide to ditch the old canon indefinitely.

Now, the TGS footage of the game did glean some more information into the game – firstly, that there will be a female lead to aid Dante – appearing to be wearing some religious garbs, although we don’t see her face. Whether this will be a new character or an old one re-imagined is unknown, but it’s good to see there will be some dialogue along the way. The cylindrical item on her back and her shorts do put me in mind of Lady from DMC3, but that could just be a coincidence.

One thing that does look impressive are the areas. While we haven’t seen a huge range of environments, what we have seen is looking good – particularly one section which involves Dante travelling through an area full of floating pathways and rubble, with huge chains stretching off into the distance that are very reminiscent of God of War’s landscapes. There’s a lot of similar colours running the whole way through, but hopefully we’ll see more variety throughout the game.

Sadly, the combat is the area I’m now most concerned about. While the game promises a variety of weapons, the actual mechanics of it look a little worrying at the moment – footage of Dante’s combos show slower, clunkier looking moves than DMC3/4, and enemies seem to defy gravity somewhat, hanging in mid-air as if waiting for Dante to beat them up. Nothing particularly exciting has been featured – his “Devil Trigger” (in which his hair turns white and his coat changes to the traditional red) seems to make enemies hang in mid-air even longer than usual for even easier aerial combos, and one ability offers Dante an air-dash much like the Sky-Star ability from the previous titles. Another move has Dante slamming the ground, creating a shockwave to hit multiple enemies. Also, the game seems to have cinematic finisher attacks – while these could sound impressive, I do wonder if it will break the fluidity of the combat when fighting multiple opponents.

My worst issue with the combat is the inclusion of Dante’s “grapple hook”. Essentially a ripoff of Nero’s Devil Bringer, the grapple hook essentially makes Nero obsolete, taking his trademark feature and giving it to Dante. Now, while the idea of combining Dante and Nero’s qualities could be seen as a good thing, I personally don’t like it. For one, I found the Devil Bringer to make combat a little too simple in DMC4 - the ability to pull an enemy to you making combat less strategic. And of course, if the Devil Bringer concept is being added to Dante’s abilities, does that mean that we’re unlikely to see Nero return in a future title? However, if Dante doesn’t inherit the “contextual grab attack” that Nero had as part of the DB’s moveset, it might not feel like such a huge part of the gameplay, which isn’t such a bad thing. Still, I’d rather see that mechanic left in the hands of Nero.

That’s not to say that all of Dante’s new abilities are a turn-off. As Ninja Theory had stated in the past, it seems as though his abilities will be useful in other ways than combat. While previous DMC’s could be completed without any upgrades at all, it seems Dante’s air-dash will be integral to getting around, with some gaps being too big to clear with a simple jump. Another section showed Dante using his grapple hook to tear down a demonic camera, in order to unlock the door to move forward – a nice touch.

So that’s pretty much where I’m standing with DmC right now. I’m not too worried about the plot any more, and I can live with what they’re doing with Dante. The game certainly looks to be one of the best things that Ninja Theory have produced, but whether it will be good in terms of Capcom’s quality is a different matter. While the game’s shaping up into what looks like a good title, I’m not convinced it’s combat is going to be able to keep hold of the Devil May Cry soul and feel like a true part of the series.

- Leon

As you probably know by now, when it comes to the Devil May Cry  series, both myself and Leon love the whole franchise, I was bitten by the DMC bug when Leon bought me Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition for my birthday donkey’s years ago. So when the news hits of a new Devil May Cry game we jump for joy.

Lately though the latest outing for the devil hunter Dante, Devil May Cry 4, missed the mark a little. I personally wasn’t blown away by the game like I was with Devil May Cry 3. It didn’t quite cut the mustard sadly, so I have been holding hope for a new Devil May Cry game that will rock my socks off.

The latest title in the Devi May Cry saga has been announced for quite a while now and both Leon and myself weren’t overly impressed with the new look Dante and the fact that the licence had been handed over to Ninja Theory. The developers had totally rebooted Dante and his world, and I for one wasn’t that impressed. To save myself going off on yet another tangent, take some time out to read the articles linked above and also this one here for my overall opinion about the new look DmC.

This week at Games Com, Capcom and Ninja theory brought the new DmC to the table once more and talked about the gameplay, environment and overall development of the game. I thought I would give the new announcements a try and see what they had to say about this title.

First off the gameplay, after observing the new trailer that was released at Games Com this week I am pretty relieved. It has a lot of the same classic DMC gameplay that I have come to love from the original Devil May Cry series, it has a lot of mid-air combat and even a weapon that morphs into a whole variety of other weapons such as scythes, chainsaws and broadswords. Ok its no rebellion but Dante’s new melee weapon does look pretty cool.

After researching further I have also found out that in the game Dante has 3 powers, Human, demon and angel. Not much else has been revealed about these powers but does this mean he has two devil triggers? It has been said he can change between these three on the fly so this could be Ninja theory’s answer to Dante’s fighting styles Sword master, trickster, gunslinger and royal guard which brought a hell of a lot of variety in both Devil May Cry 3 and 4.

Another thing that has caught my attention slightly is the fact that the world morphs around Dante. In various video’s we have seen someone or something observe Dante’s every move through close circuit television. Whoever or whatever they are can manipulate the environment, meaning that the playing field will change to hinder Dante’s progress or even go all out to destroy him. A very interesting and compelling idea which I will be interested to see more of.

lastly it has been announced that the game will play at 30 frames per second as opposed to 60. Not a great move my Ninja Theory in my opinion as the other DMC games play at 60 frames per second. Then again enslaved and heavenly sword were decent games so I kind of trust them on this one, only kind of.

For me DmC is still a title I remain pretty unsure about it. Some of the key game elements have really caught my attention, but the fact Dante still looks like the lead singer of My Chemical romance still grates on me. Ninja theory still need to do a bit of work to make me really want this game, but maybe just maybe DmC will be a good game.

Garv

When I was younger, I dabbled in fighting games. First was Mortal Kombat on the Mega Drive – the attraction of the special moves and the gore getting me hooked for hours at a time. When the PlayStation came around, I then found myself in love with the cast of Tekken – I’d never seen a fighting game with such graphics, on a 3D plane, well, on a home console that is. The demo of Tekken 3 was included with the PS1, and me and my sister would play it for ages – even though we could only select Eddy and Xiaoyu – but we were young and penniless, and played what we could.

I remember receiving Tekken 3 for Christmas one year, and spending the whole day repeatedly beating Arcade mode with various characters to unlock the rest of the roster. I found myself growing attached to the cast – Jin being my favourite, alongside Xiaoyu, Heihachi, Yoshimitsu and Julia. I later moved on to Tekken Tag Tournament, but found myself converted to Capcom’s style of fighting with Capcom vs SNK 2, and never turned back. While I loved Tekken’s cast, Capcom opened up a world of a more controlled, less button-mashing style of fighting, complete with stunning super moves to top it all off. I was hooked, and since then, I’ve accumulated a collection of Capcom fighters – from the earliest Street Fighter titles, Street Fighter Alpha, Marvel vs Capcom 2,  and more recently Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs Capcom 3.

With Mortal Kombat 9, Netherrealm Studios have revived my love for Mortal Kombat – taking the best parts of the series I used to love and bringing it into the modern-day with Street Fighter-style updates. It was great seeing my old favourites brought up to Capcom’s standards – but sadly Tekken 6 offered me nothing similar – I only found myself remembering why I love 2D fighters so much, feeling far too unsatisfying and unresponsive compared to Street Fighter IV and Mortal Kombat. It was a shame, since the cast looked great – I was just an outsider to the Tekken style now, and I doubt I’ll ever go back.

But then came the news of Street Fighter X Tekken. A game combining the cast of the two games – however I didn’t really see how good this idea was to begin with – the impending release of Marvel vs Capcom 3 overshadowing it for me at the time. It’s only now that I see it’s true potential – finally bringing my childhood favourites kicking and screaming into an engine that I love. While Tekken purists may hate me for saying so – this could be the best game that the cast of Tekken have been in for a long time, and I can’t wait.

So what do we know? Well, so far SFxT (as it will now be referred to) has an officially announced roster of 18 characters – 9 from each side. Announced first were Ryu, Chun-Li, Kazuya and Nina – first showed in the game’s announcement at 2010′s Comic-con. Since then, Capcom have been trickling out new characters over time - Ken, Guile, Abel, Cammy and Sagat on the side of Street Fighter, and King, Bob, Julia Chang, Hwoarang, Steve Fox and Yoshimitsu. Interestingly, Poison was announced on the Street Fighter side – not strictly from SF, but actually Final Fight, the same universe as Street Fighter – from which Guy and Cody recently emerged in Super Street Fighter IV.

Interestingly, it looks like the Final Fight characters won’t end there. The most recent trailer featured Poison and Hugo, as well as Mike Haggar (who was more of a brief appearance, so maybe not one of the roster), battling against King and Marduk. The end of the clip made me grin from ear to ear – as who should gatecrash, but Guy and Cody themselves. Assuming Hugo, Guy and Cody are in – those are some great additions to the roster. As for Haggar – well, let’s just say I would expect Zangief to be in this game before him, seeing as this isn’t Capcom vs Tekken. But we’ll have to wait and see. Oh, but we should be seeing a lot more characters yet – Yoshinori Ono stated that the 18 characters so far are only “near the halfway point” of the roster.

As for the gameplay – it’s 2-on-2 combat that resembles that of Street Fighter IV – which is no bad thing, that’s for sure. However, I’m actually inclined to say it looks even better. The game utilises the Super gauge from SFIV (renamed the Cross Gauge), along with the EX moves that are activated in the same way. Incorporating Tekken’s style, the game will allow players to chain up larger attack combos than usual for a SF title, and also has an emphasis on character juggling – which ties into the tag-system for chaining up combos.

So what new mechanics will we be seeing introduced into the game? Here’s a rundown of some of the cool features we’ll be looking forward to:

Super Charge

Where Street Fighter IV introduced EX attacks, SFxT has the “Super Charge”. The general idea of this is that each character has one special move that they can charge into various stages. For Ryu, it’s a Hadoken. If you charge the move a little, to Level 2, it will become the EX Hadoken – dealing more damage with a nice flame effect. Charge it the whole way to Level 3, and Ryu will unleash a Shinku Hadoken. Best of all, going to the effort of charging these moves means they don’t consume any of your Cross Gauge to perform. That’s if you can pull them off, of course…

Tag Supers

This is something that Capcom have been a bit quiet about lately, but we’ve seen a few bits here and there. Perhaps one of the best things you could implement in a Tag title – the Tag Super utilises both characters to pull off a special attack that does a huge amount of damage to your opponent. An example of this is the Ryu/Ken tag, which has Ryu throw an opponent to the floor, then punch them into Ken’s spinning kick ultra as he launches the poor soul into the air. These moves are looking to be the most powerful combinations in the game – and I expect they will cost the entire Cross Gauge, as single-character Supers cost 2 bars.

Cross Assault

The last feature I want to talk about is one of the newest that has been revealed – the Cross Assault. While tagging in fighting games is not a new concept, SFxT looks to emphasise it more than most. The idea of Cross Assault is that you can actually fight with both characters at the same time.

Of course, it’s impossible to completely control both characters at once (unless they both followed the same inputs, which would be a bit of a cop-out), so how it works is this: when activated (the pre-requisites are a little unclear on the exact method at the moment), the health bars of both of your characters merge into one, and both characters are on-screen at the same time. You control one at a time, and can switch between the two by returning the control-stick to a neutral position. While this mode is active, your super bar drains, and the Cross Assault ends. This looks like brilliant fun, and could be a whole new level of gameplay to master.

And that’s about all I have to say for now. Although I hope you’d agree – it’s plenty to be excited about. It’s going to be a long wait, however – the game’s not due till March 2012. But here’s hoping we’ll be seeing more at Eurogamer.

- Leon

When the original release of Marvel Vs Capcom 3 (or MvC3) was first announced I was pretty excited. It couldn’t have come out at a better time either as my love for fighters was in full swing (and it still is) and my love for Marvel comics was growing bigger.I was glued to every single announcement that was released but when the game finally came out, I felt a bit underwhelmed.

The game mechanics were pretty good and the game as a whole was good fun. But I couldn’t help that they were missing a lot of characters. Over time I chose to accept it and got on with playing the game.

It has now been five months since the release of MvC3 and Capcom this week have made the announcement that Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3 will be coming out, not entirely sure when mind, but the announcement has given me mixed feelings.

First of which this is another rehash of a fighting game. Capcom seem to making a habit of this as technically Street Fighter IV has been released about three times now with constant updates. When Capcom rehash a fighter I can’t help but feel that they should have included all of these updates in the initial launch of the game, making me think it’s just their way to get more money.

Ranting aside though what has been announced is quite interesting. Firstly MvC3 will feature a Spectator Mode, eight new stages and various improvements to the game’s balance and online functionality. Secondly twelve new characters have been leaked, four of which have been confirmed by Capcom: Strider,Firebrand the villain from ghosts ‘n’ goblins, Ghost Rider and Hawkeye have been confirmed. Some good announcements but the leaked characters make it a little bit sweeter, here is the character list that was leaked to the masses:

Capcom:
Firebrand
Strider Hiryu
Phoenix Wright
Vergil
Nemesis
Frank West

Marvel:
Hawkeye
Ghost Rider
Dr Strange
Iron Fist
Rocket Raccoon
Nova

Capcoms official statement about the leak further proves that the character list is official:

“Today we announced Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 for PS3 and X360 as well as the first four characters and a playable build for this week’s San Diego Comic-Con. As part of that, you may have seen some of our new characters for the game pop up on the Internet a bit earlier than anticipated.

“We are very happy with the positive response to the lineup, but at this point we’re only going to focus on the four characters (Strider, Firebrand, Ghost Rider, Hawkeye) we have officially revealed. As for the other eight additional characters, we will have a ton of info, videos, screens and playable code in the coming months. Stay tuned!”

I can’t wait to get my hands on Vergil, Nemisis and Ghost Rider. These announcements and leaks whet my appetite for some more MvC3 action. Stay tuned for updates.

Garv

If you’ve read any of my previous articles, you’ll probably know that I’m a huge fan of Devil May Cry, specifically the original Devil May Cry, and Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition. Sadly, in the current generation I’ve felt my hunger for Devil May Cry a little unsatisfied – while Devil May Cry 4 was enjoyable, the game really lacked replay value, and Dante got reduced to only having a few backtracking stages to play.

While I could always pick up my PS2 again, the advances in game technology have sadly started to have a detrimental effect on the original trilogy, starting to look dated in comparison to the most recent entry in the series. And the less said about upcoming title “DmC: Devil May Cry“, the better. I’m not saying I won’t give it a shot, as I’m not THAT closed-minded, but so far I’ve seen nothing save for a butchery of an established series that I’ve grown to love over the last decade.

But recently, some rumours have come to light that make me very happy. A little while ago, it came to light that a Spanish site had listed something interesting - a Devil May Cry HD Collection on PS3 – stated to contain HD updates of the original trilogy. While the box-art was proven to be fake, I was of course intrigued by the news – but it wasn’t really concrete enough to get excited about.

However, current activity on Capcom’s website has given me enough reason to believe that a collection is indeed in the works. A competition posted on their European forums asks budding artists to submit artwork based on Devil May Cry’s classic characters, bosses and weapons – to be “featured in a new, to be announced Capcom game“.

With previous rumours of a collection already existing, a new “Devil May Cry” title already in the works, the request for classic characters and, of course, the timing with Devil May Cry’s 10th Anniversary, all of these things seem to point toward one, obvious conclusion - a Devil May Cry 10th Anniversary HD Collection.

If so, this is something I’ll welcome with open arms – seeing some of my favourite games revived in HD glory for the current generation. I just hope they include the Special Edition of DMC3 so Vergil can receive the same treatment!

-Leon