Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening (PS2) - Review

Introduction

Devil May Cry is an action-adventure-horror game franchise (just a little of horror^^) that focus on Dante, the main character, kicking the asses of demons and monsters, from beginning to the end. After the disappointing Devil May Cry 2, Capcom releases DMC3: Dante’s Awakening to do justice to the series, bringing back Dante’s personality (that was reduced almost to nothing on DMC2) and the bizarre environments, also the action and boss fights  are better than ever!

 Story & Characters

DMC3 is a prequel , is the first on the DMC timeline. It begins with Vergil, Dante’s twin brother, sending an “invitation” to Dante come to the evil tower, that he has just revived, with the help of his advisor Arkham, so he can get their mother amulet back, to  open the gates to the Demon World. On the way to face Vergil, Dante will encounter a mysterious girl, that he calls Lady, and an annoying creature called Jester. All this characters has a very important role on the story and they get very interesting while the game goes on. The story and the characters are good reasons to make me go until the end of the game, it really caught my attention.

Gameplay

The game is hard as hell! The boss of the mission 3 probably’ll give you some trouble for a while, but after replaying the firsts stages you’ll be able to buy itens to recover health and get use to the gameplay. Dante can use 4 different styles (in total are 6, you unlock 2 on the lately stages), that you select before starting a mission, each one focus on something: swords, guns, agility and guard. Also Dante gets a good variety of weapons on his way, while fighting a lot of demons. This is a type of game that you have to evade the attacks of the enemies, so you can survive, because every attack you take’ll drop precious health, specially on harder dificulty. After the first fight against Vergil, Dante can use the Devil Trigger, that recovers health and increases Dante’s attacks for a short period (you can increasse the period buying items). The combat is very good, you can combine different attacks to make a cool combo to increasse your style.

Visuals

The environments looks awesome, and some are very bizarre , and the characters looks great. The cut scenes are very well-made and fun to watch, having some really cool effects and motion capture.

Sound

The musics on the game gives it a nice feeling of a horror environment and Dante’s personality. When you are exploring you just hear some bizarre low noises, but when the action begins comes a heavy metal music, what is very cool. The voice acting are amazing, a really good work of the actors, specially the actor who plays Dante.

Replay

The challenge of the game can be a little frustrating, but after some hours you get used to it. The boss fights are also pretty cool and challenging  There are  a lot of different levels of difficulty, but believe me, the easy mode is not easy at all. But the challenge mixed with a adctive gamelay and a nice story is enough to keep me coming back for this game.

Good & Bad

The Good: Adictive gameplay, cool story and cut scenes, challenging game, Dante is cool and funny and the boss fights are memorable.

The Bad: it is too hard from the beginning and you can’t fight Jester in his normal form.

Conclusion

IF you like a good story, a cool and fun main character, a deep gameplay, amazing boss fights and a big challenge, them Devil May Cry 3 definitely is a game worth of you take a look, specially if you like a challenge. A really great game on the PS2.

Price of Games in Brazil

Sometimes I see people on the internet , that lives in the US or Europe that complains about the price of U$:60.00 for new game releases, very well, but what these people think about the price of U$:120.00 (R$180.00) of new game releases here in Brazil? That’s because of the high rates of importation, estabilished by the brazilian government.

 For this reason, in Brazil most gamers buy “pirate games” (games copied without permission) or download them via internet to make their own copy. These “pirate games” coasts something like U$:5.00 or U$:6.00, a more fair price by the way, compared with the original ones here. But they weren’t able  to hack the PS3 system to make these pirate games on the PS3, because it uses Blu-Ray disc (at least not yet), as they did with every other console, them the gamers that were used to buy games by low prices, now faces high prices on the PS3. And since they were able to hack the Xbox360, many brazilian gamers turned to the Microssoft’s console.

But what is really crazy are the pirate patchs they made from games like GTA, there’s: GTA Batman, GTA Sonic, GTA Dragon Ball and GTA Spiderman, these are very bad made patchs  for the GTA San Andreas, where you play with the appearance of the characters of those franchises, but the game itself is the same.

 I buy PS3 games, but lately, I wait sometime before buying, so the price drops, because if I don’t wait and buy every new release that I want, soon I wom’t have money to buy food(^^). So gamers on the US and Europe be happy to pay U$:60.00 on a new game, while we Brazilians struggle with our prices.

Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis) - Review

Introduction

Two years after the Sega Genesis’s release, Sega releases: Sonic The Hedgehog, and at that time, little do they know that Sonic would become one of the most famous characters in the world of games. And finally Nintendo’s Mario got a real “rival”.

Story & Characters

As most platform games, at that time, the story is very simple and acceptable for this type of game. The evil D.r Robotnyk is capturing animals and transforming them into robots, and that’s when the blue hedgehog, Sonic, comes to the rescue. The game could has more characters, because the only ones are Sonic and Dr. Robotnyk  (Now called Eggman), besides the robot enemies.

Gameplay

Sonic The Hedgehog had one major difference between other platform games: Speed! Sonic runs really fast, do some looping, and that was really “hardcore” for the time, although you have to break down the speed to evade obstacles and enemies. To defeat his enemies Sonic can do a “spin jump” and can roll, after a run. On the stages you can find some items like the rings, that prevents Sonic from dying as long you have at least 1 ring, a protective bubble and the “shining stars” that makes you invincible for a little period of time. The controls are very responsive and intuitive, and the “bosses” are challeging but they have a pattern that is easy to memorize.

Visuals

The graphics are well done and very colorful, but what really impress me is how well Sonic runs through the stages, without the screen slow down.. The animations for Sonic and his enemies are also good.

Sound

Some of the music are very fun to listen while playing, the Green Zone theme is just epic! The sound effects is what you expect for this type of game, with those “happy” sounds.

Replay

The game is very addictive, the stages are fun to go through, also some stages have different routes, you can try to get all Chaos Emeralds, on the bonus stages. The stages themes are interesting, but the firsts ones are a lot more fun.

Good & Bad

The Good: Sonic is fast, addictive gameplay, different routes, colorful visuals and fun musics.

The Bad: Getting the Emeralds can be a little annoying and all bosses are Robotnyk.

Conclusion

Sega made a really good work on this game, because it isn’t just another platfoming game, it add a new element, the speed, that was never seen before like this on any Video Game. After this big hit, Snoic became the Sega’s mascot and will became one great game franchise.

Gran Turismo 5 (PS3) - Review

Introduction

Gran Turismo is a Sony’s exclusive  simulation racing games, focusing on realistic driving aspects and always having a really good career mode. After some delays on the release, Gran Turismo 5 finally comes out to the PS3 with online mode, internal view from the cars, some cool special events and driving looks better than ever.

Story & Characters

The game has more than 1,000 (one thousand) cars, but they are separated into 2 types: Premium cars and Standard cars. The Premium cars are incredibly detailed, you can see the driver perfectly inside the car and the car’s inside are also very well-done. The Standard cars are not so detailed but still good looking. Compared to other GT games, GT5 has less events, but they are fun to play, specially the Special Events, that includes: Rally, Kart, Nascar’s driving leassons and Gran Tour. All these events take place in some of the 60 courses, some real ones and the classics GT courses.

Gameplay

The gameplay is amazing! Each car feels unique and when you make some modifications, the car’ll feel different from before. In this aspect GT5 is perfect: Driving. Driving in the game is very realistic. In the other hand however, the damage system is weak and takes a long time to unlock it, they should give an option to play with damage right in the beginning of the game. Also the fact that only Premium cars has internal view annoys me, cause’ you get use to this camera, but when you´ll drive a Standard car you don’t have this option of camera, for the Standard cars they could have done like in GT for the PSP, where all cars has the same generic inside view, to resolve this little problem.

Visuals

The intro is very beatifull and cool. But the game itself is a little unstable when comes to visuals, some tracks looks better than others, you’ll be racing in courses with amazing textures, other tracks are not so detailed. The cars are divided in two types: Premium and Standard, but those differences are not that big, they’re  tolerable. The menus are simple, but easy to navigate. Overall it’s a very good looking game, specially with Premium cars or in the Photo mode.

Sound

The menu’s musics are very nice and relaxing, the racing musics are okay, but other GT games has better racing musics. The sounds of the cars are awesome, they feel very real and each one sounds unique.

Replay

GT5 is a really long game if you want to try out all of what the game has to offer. You can just pick a car and race, do Time Trial and play Split-screen with your friends, in the Arcade mode. The “GT Mode” is the main mode of the game, is the career mode, where you buy cars and participates in various events, the events usually has some requirements like: Only 80’s cars, only japaneses or only lower than 250HP, also you can take care of the career of other racers, in the B-Spec mode, giving orders to the pilot like: Speed up or maintain the speed. The online mode is solid and fun to play, is good to test your skills against real people, but it could have more options like tournament. You can also take pictures of your cars in cool locations to show to your friends.

Good & Bad

The Good: More than 1,000 cars, a lot of tracks, Special Events, Premium cars looks just great, Online is fun and driving is fantastic!

The Bad: Cars are divided in two types, unstable visuals and Online could have more options.

Conclusion

I waited a long time for this game, and the wait was worth. A deep gameplay, good visuals and sound, a lot of cars and tracks to try out  This game has enough to keep you busy for a long time. A game made for people who love cars, since the game is a really Driving Simulation.