Just Doing God’s Work (DmC prank call)

Dante, disturbed by what he believes to be demonic subliminal messages during a recent news broadcast, decides to call his local news station and complain.

Platinum Report: DmC: Devil May Cry

I got the platinum for DmC: Devil May Cry. I had been looking forward to playing this game for a long time and let me tell you I was not disappointed! Here are some of my thoughts on the game.

First of all, let me address the issue of the reboot/Dante redesign. Like many hardcore Devil May Cry fans I was skeptical about Capcom’s decision to redesign the DmC characters and reboot the series, but I figured as long as the combat and gameplay were top notch I would enjoy the game just fine.

Once I had the game in hand and started playing, I actually started to appreciate the reboot. The newly redesigned DmC world is a world parallel to our own, but the twist is that demons are controlling the populace with subliminal messages and media propaganda. So you spend the game fighting demons and eventually face Mundus, whose appearance and role in the series has been completely revamped. Plot-wise the game draws elements from Devil May Cry 1 and 3 and I think it really sets the foundation for future successful DmC sequels.

In terms of the combat, this game offers the same addictive gameplay that is expected of a Devil May Cry game. Most of Dante’s signature moves and weapons are back, which makes the combat instantly recognizable. The problem for me and most fans of the series is that the difficulty this time around has been severely reduced. I think that maybe the developers were trying to keep this game from being overly difficult so as not to scare away new players to the series. To give you an idea of the difficulty reduction (and this is entirely my opinion), I would say that playing DmC on ‘Dante Must Die’ mode is easier than playing Devil May Cry 4 on ‘Son of Sparda’ mode. While the game is easier this time around there is still challenge to be had on the upper difficulties should you wish to attempt them. DmC isn’t as brutal as past Devil May Cry games, which may be a plus or negative for you depending how much of a gamer you are.

Surprisingly, the shining star in this game is the level design. The game offers some of the most creative levels and backdrops I’ve seen in a while, there are even some fun platforming sections that do a good job of breaking up the combat. DmC also has great bosses, some of which I found genuinely disturbing my first time through the game.

All in all, I liked this game a lot. Sure there are things that I would like to see changed for DmC2, but I am just happy that Devil May Cry is back and getting the attention it deserves. To me, this game will always be the king of the hack ‘n slash genre.

Oblivion and the ‘leveling problem’

In preparation for Skyrim, I’m doing a new playthrough of Oblivion. I really like this game but hate its broken-ass leveling system. If you’ve played Oblivion before you know what I’m talking about. The game’s enemies and treasures level up as your character does, which sounds like a great idea in theory but it’s entirely possible to screw up your character to the point where you are ‘behind the curve’ of the game and the enemies all own you. To figure out why this happens we have to analyze how the leveling system works.

When you create your character, you’re asked to choose 7 major skills that basically define your character’s abilities and also determine when you level-up. These skills have their own independent skill levels that are raised as you use those skills in the game. When you have a total of 10 skill levels across your major skills you level up. If you are playing as a warrior, for example, you might want to choose ‘Blade’ and ‘Heavy Armor’ for major skills in the interest of improving your character’s fighting ability. This would most likely be fine because with these skills you should be able to handle the stronger enemies as the game progresses.

The problem arises when you decide to try a more interesting character build, like say a thief. As a good thief, you will most likely want to choose a major skill like ‘Sneak’. What good is a thief that can’t sneak? Just imagine yourself in a dungeon, shrouded in darkness, bow and arrow in hand, just ready for that sneak attack on an enemy guarding a treasure you so desire. Sounds awesome, doesn’t it? Here’s the problem: choosing a major skill like ‘Sneak’ for a thief could actually hurt your character. You will sneak pretty much constantly and your character could level up too fast, causing enemies to become too powerful for you to defeat. What you will end up having to do is stop using ‘Sneak’ and the other major skills you chose in the interest of not leveling up. That’s right, in this game you want to avoid leveling up. This is inherently flawed because as an RPG gamer your sensibilities are to choose the skills that your character is going to use most, but some skills level up so quickly through normal play and don’t really contribute to your characters ability to stay alive that they end up hindering you more than helping you.

So what’s the solution to this problem? What I am going to try for my new playthrough is the following: I’m going to pick major skills that I can generally avoid using in the game, things like ‘Hand to Hand’, ‘Heavy Armor’ and ‘Conjuration’. Basically my strategy will be to have all my good skills as minor skills, level them up until I’m satisfied (gaining minor skill levels does not cause your character/game to level up) and then level up a throw-away major skill 10 times to trigger the character level up. How ass backwards is that? This will be my first time trying this strategy but I think it will result in the best character for me. The beginning of the game might be harder due to the fact that I will not be getting the initial stat bonuses from choosing such skills as ‘Sneak’ and ‘Marksman’ as major skills for my thief character, but I think in the long run it will make my character better and the game more fun.

I’ve purposely been avoiding looking up Skyrim info to avoid things getting spoiled, but I’m very happy to say that Skyrim will be adopting the (much better) leveling system from the Fallout series.

TLDR version: To make the best character in this game, choose major skills that you don’t actually want to use.