Demo Lookat - Kane & Lynch, Devil May Cry 4

Kane & Lynch:

Last I heard got a bunch of bad reviews, but this demo was pretty fun. Squad-based 3rd person action game this is. From the start, it reminds me of Killswitch, which if you may not know was this lil old game where you ran around Iraq-looking places looking to take down this empire blah blah blah, and oh by the way the whole thing might just be a VR simulation. Also could be similar to Gears of War, which I haven't played too much, but both are squad-based and require a lot of hiding. I think Gears of War had more depth. From this demo, you have very few options of attack: 1, shoot the gat 2, hit the dude with the gat 3, get someone else to shoot him 4, throw a smoke grenade and make him all woozy then hit or shoot with the gat. The game is squad-based, but they're only essential for bringing you back to life. I could not figure out how to use them properly, nor did I really care to since I can shoot just fine thank you.

So, that's it. Find cover, shoot, find cover, shoot, reach an objective, move on, find cover, shoot, advance the plot. I like that when your character dies, you hear voices, which I assume are imagined, of other people in your life that you've let down by dying. You sad fucker. P.S. Lynch hates you. He's the one with the shotgun and the angry look, and the unproductive comments about your ability as a...umm...whatever you are. 

You are not very nice, for sure. You kill Japanese people and police officers, Personally, killing Japanese policemen makes me sad. I've seen some burly, oldtime motherfuckers that probably inspired Mad Bull 34 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Bull_34), but generally they've been nice people. Mant a time, a Japanese police officer saved me when I was lost and needed directions. Much better than mapquest! Why I have to shoot them? Also, you can shoot unarmed women and suffer absolutely no consequences...joy!?! For a long time I thought they had guns. I also thought, "Even unarmed people make me nervous. It's hard to see if they have a gun. I may just kill her anyway."

I didn't though! I'm not a fan of killing innocents unless you can do it in cool ways like Jedi Knight: Outcast or I don't remember how many different combinations of death I imagined for a sad Black Mesa cop in Half-Life 1. Accidentally hitting a woman in the crossfire just kills me a little inside, but feels realistic. What doesn't is the scream sound they picked, which I recognize as the scream sound everyone uses, and...well, fuck you for cutting corners.

The game looks fantastic. The environments are great and detailed. The game itself is pretty challenging. Bullets and people come from everywhere, and it is very difficult to track where because of the flurry of activity; however, Call of Duty 4 had this in spades, and it had a better control scheme, better feel, better use of squad tactics, better melee attack, and a first-person viewpoint. Kane & Lynch's over the right shoulder camera makes aiming difficult, although gives the game a really interesting feel and look. Almost like you, as the player, are an observer rather than Kane himself.

I have only played the demo, but I would be curious to see the full game, and also the movie.

Devil May Cry 4:

Looks goddamn beautiful. From the first game, the designers always made wonderfully-detailed cathedral structures; however, the environment itself never really seems to become a limiting or advantageous factor; except I think in one of the games you could do a pole dance attack or something. This game has a beautiful port. I guess that's weird, I just like it.

 Mostly, you walk around until you hit an arena-like place, and then you fight in it. Anyway, a lot of this game feels like the first one, but not as cool. The first one had great environments, and great bosses. This one has a firey centaur so far. He was tough, and challenging. I didn't actually beat him because I was frustrated that the demo doesn't have a continue option.

There's a lot of repetition: grab with cool hand mechanic thingy that stretches like your mom when I'm in her (well...actually much farther, but she likes it, I like it), slice until enemy falls down, jump up, grab with the stretchy love muscle, slicey slicey, shoot maybe, enemy fall down. The boss fight changes everything up, but I really couldn't do any damage to the motherfucker.

It's fun. I like stuff like this. Back to the environments, for some reason this game resembles Onimusha 3 to me in that devil something or others have invaded a city, and Chaos Legion (another capcom game) in the way the enemies look and the icy location. I feel like this is rehash. I feel like adding a stretchy, grabby, oh-yeah-that's-the-way-I-like-it mechanic does not really add much to an already played-out concept, but I did enjoy playing this game.

My problem is: I think the first one had more varied moves, and I think Ninja Gaiden kinda blows this game out of the water. Ninja Gaiden isn't as "Badass," it's more feudal, but then again, some of that has always seemed forced. Nero (the new main character) doesn't really say much badassery, or you can tell what's coming or something. It's not well written.

Ok, back to the other demos!