Grave Gamer News & Views — ps3

How’s about a demo, Ninja Theory?  Prove your Dante.  He’s starting to look badass, yes, but a demo could push a mess of hesitant (though curious) DMC fans right your way.

Just what the hell is The Last of Us?  We apparently don’t deserve to know until Spike’s VGA show next weekend.  In lieu of the upcoming announcement, we’re given no more than 45 seconds of real world stock footage depicting flashes of violence, dystopian narration, and the most chilling use of music in a video game commercial outside of a Just Dance release.

Last of Usis definitely making with...

I’m mighty curious what this reboot means for the series.  Will we see a more traditional Devil May Cry 5 after this featuring an angst-free Dante?  If the reboot does well, will this gritty reinterpretation become the mainstay direction the series will take onwards into sequels?  That would make classic Dante as good as dead for the rest of this console generation.

I hope Ninja Theory is playing their best cards with DmC; they can take me whichever direction they want if the game can blow my mind through a wall gameplay wise.

You might’ve missed out on this one during the entirely over-saturated gaming market of 2011.  Shadows of the Damned, produced by the warped minds of Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil) and Suda 51 (No More Heroes), played better than it sounded on paper.  We’ve seen grindhouse tributes in video games before yet those suffer from a painful condition called “trying too goddamn hard to be cool.”

There’s definitely some of that sickness here, especially in the characterization of Garcia Hotspur and his oversized Johnson (his demonic weapon sidekick that also serves as the most subtle cock reference the game contains).  Atmosphere, quality gunplay, and an enjoyable mix of Evil Dead meets Devil May Cry storytelling serve to keep Shadows from completely giving into the bargain bin, however.  Plus, anything Akira Yamaoka lays down notes to is worth scoping out.

I just really hope you can stomach a dick joke at every checkpoint.  Shadows offers up better juvenile humor than, say, this year’s Bulletstorm but only by a fraction.