14 DAY TRIAL // I'm not an unreasonable man. I watch trailers just like everyone else and even if I try to be much more objective than most, I still get my hopes up for some games. I've got burned before with Caesar IV, Hellgate London, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and a lot of other supposed-to-be-AAA titles. I've found myself in the same position with Devil May Cry 4.
I have no quarrel with consoles in general and I'm sad when some games don't make it to PCs even if they appear to be extraordinary on their platform. But sometimes, a lot of games have to stay there and the producers shouldn't even dream of getting them to PCs. Most of you have read how console games are a "little" dumbed down to make them more accessible for all kinds of players. I got to play a few years back the PC version of Halo and felt betrayed. The game was mediocre at best, although it featured an interesting story and many other titles have proved over the years that even if they were immense hits on the consoles, they didn't measure up to PC standards. In 2006, Capcom launched a PC version of Devil May Cry 3 and I simply could not believe my eyes. The level of crappiness was off the charts and I couldn't care less about story and "non-stop gothic action". I must have set a Guinness record on how fast someone can uninstall an application after the first use.
The next-gen era was upon us and with it came the screenshots and the gameplay trailers from the next installment, Devil May Cry 4. The game looked great and the gameplay dynamics was ok, even for my doubtful eye. As time passed I actually got my hopes up and I actually got a little of hype going around in my head. The launch date was getting near and I spotted a demo for it. I downloaded it and a little creeping voice started seeding doubts as I was waiting. The statement that accompanied the demo - "This download includes a demo with 10 minutes of gameplay and a complete boss fight" - triggered this: "What do you mean by 10 minutes? What is this, a demo of FIFA with one half of a game?"
Anyway, the demo was installed and I was in. I liked the fact it featured DirectX 10 and I put everything to highest setting. The next step was to see how I could configure the controls and? surprise: there was no mouse support and I had to rely entirely on the keyboard. Lucky for me there was a gamepad at hand so I unwillingly chose that second option. You can't really configure the gamepad either, the best you can do is to select from a list of profiles (which were all untranslated from Xbox 360, with A, B, X and Y buttons). I finally get in the game (again) and I felt like playing Mario but in a bad way. The decors were nice but they looked and acted like pictures and had no physics whatsoever. The character moves on a few predetermined directions (eight, I think) like right, left, diagonals and such and the monsters are governed by an AI that wouldn't be suited for a game ten years ago. I'm gathering red heads and I scream slam-dunk whenever I smash a guy to the floor. The same kind of action over and over again? and I'm starting to think that ten minutes is not such a bad idea after all.
It's a good thing I got to play a FREE demo because that's the only way I'm ever going to play this - even if Capcom actually pays me. I won't touch it even if it comes free with deodorant samples in the mail. I honestly have no idea how, in the name of all that's holy, this game made it to a forth edition. An entire discussion should be organized on why some console games have a cult status if they are in fact second hand ones that should collect dust somewhere and why console gamers settle with so little. My personal belief is that the average age of PC gamers is a lot higher than that of console gamers and that PC games are still stimulating the player's brains. On the other hand, console games are contented to play the Polka on our circumvolutions until they're completely flat.
My conclusion is that Capcom is insulting my intelligence. People from all over the world are pulled into this swirling storm of the next-gen fantasy and I have to say that, for very few exceptions, I am completely disappointed in what I've seen so far. I would rather see the PC suffer a long and painful death than more titles like Devil May Cry 4 ported. Amen.