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PAX Prime 2012 Previews

PAX: Hands on with DMC – More Flash than Lil’ Wayne

Written by Barry Villatoro

Upon starting the DMC demo at PAX Prime 2012, I was told by PR that there were two demos available. One, in which Dante is pulled into Limbo and you fight through demons and engage in some challenging, yet fun, platforming. The other, is a boss battle which we’ll get to soon.

The first demo began with Dante walking down the street and slapping a Virility drink out of an overweight man’s hand. A video camera spots Dante and turns into a demon eye. The demon eye creates a wall Dante cannot get through, because DMC. Soon after that, Dante is pulled into Limbo and this where the fun starts. Demons begin to materialize and attack.

Throughout the demo I was consistently being taught new techniques and how to use some of Dante’s weapons. The triangle/Y buttons are used for your basic attack, Dante’s sword Rebellion. Simply holding a different button like R1/RB modifies the attack and changes which weapon Dante uses. I found this “hold button to modify attack” fairly useful, especially when it came to chaining together combos. Along with Rebellion, I was able to use Arbiter (Dante’s axe) and Osiris (Dante’s scythe) in the demo. Yes, of course Ebony and Ivory were there too. The action remains at breakneck speeds. Demons appear, the musical sounds of metal kick in and it’s time to get down. Chaining together attacks, crowd controlling, and the oh-so enjoyable feedback of the slow-motion last kill are all pieces of the demo that I loved.

Chaining attacks together was a breeze, but getting out of the way of your enemies attacks, not so much. I somehow forgot how to dodge during the demo. I figured, no problem it can’t be too hard to figure that out. Nope, I never figured it out. Each time after clearing a section of enemies, a platforming section occurred where I learned to pull the environment to me and to pull myself to the environment. At first this was a little hard to get used to, each action had a different corresponding color tied to it. I just had to learn which color corresponded to which action. After finally getting the color to action correlation down, these areas of demo became more agreeable.

After finishing this demo in the epic church stretching scene that we have all seen in the trailer, it was time to move to the next demo, the boss battle. At some point in time Dante is looking for the “Secret Ingredient.” He finds it as a horribly disgusting demon, that looks like blend of  a witch, a slug and just gross stuff. The interaction between Dante and Poison (as the Wiki calls her) is less than friendly, with an obscene amount of obscenities being thrown around.

The battle starts with Dante being on one platform and Poison hanging on to said platform with two hands. Attack her hands, she let’s go and slams down on the platform. Before she squashes Dante, you must get him to another platform by using the pulling technique mentioned earlier. This when I realized boss fights don’t necessarily need to be done away with, just bad boss fights do. This one wasn’t bad,  I very much enjoyed the fast paced platforming that need to be done along with chopping this nasty demon to pieces.

Throughout the entirety of both demos the one aspect that I loved, was the style. Devil May Cry has always been known for being an over-the-top stylish third person action game. Although, this isn’t your Grandma’s DMC, the style has been turned up to an eleven. From Dante’s new look, to the world of Limbo consistently trying to eat you alive, DMC has more flash then Lil’ Wayne.

The game as a whole seems to wrapped up tightly into a neat little package of demon killing, curse words and metal. Fans of DMC will be pleased, fans of third-person action games will be pleased. You may even find yourself saying a couple f*ck yeahs whilst playing.

About the author

Barry Villatoro

Twitter : @IamWeapon | Former citizen of Azeroth and Atreia | Favorite fighting game - DefJam: Fight for New York | Favorite RPG - FF6 | MMA | Sushi | ATV's |

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