Written by Jayson
Actually January (2013) was the month of arguments. We are seeing fan-bases divided between the ones who accepted change and the ones who don’t (as well as the ever on-going feud of who would win or should’ve won in a fight between Dragonball’s Goku and Superman).
That same argument will definitely rear its ugly head once again when Dead Space 3 comes to our systems. Console fanboys aside of which console will the game perform better on (in this case it’ll be the PS3 of course that will perform perfectly but Digital Foundry will be paid well by you know who truly), it’ll be another case of accepting the direction it is in rather than accepting that it’s the end of a story since the incident began on the Ishimura.
Seriously all this talk about how the redesigning of a main character ruined the game of how it was is utter bullshit. The new look Dante making the series look bad? That’s what a lot of Dante loyalists believed.
Seriously?
Rather, I was more concerned on the combat system, namely the changing of swords during fights. Yeah in a sense the one Devil May Cry game that turned me off was the fourth game, not with the introduction of Nero but the game’s combat system that required a lot of timing issues, jump-cancels and a lot of weapon switching in between combo and during combat; something I am not very fond of. Maybe using Vergil during Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition made me turned back to it for that time but that was it.
Ninja Theory’s reboot of the franchise made me accept the combat system rather than the character design itself. I managed to download the demo and if you ask me; I’m impressed. Maybe the weapon switching will give me some trouble but it will take some time to get used to after some weeks or months if I can make time for it. Because of Devil May Cry 4, I eventually turned my back on the series. The game was just too extreme for most players like me who lacked the luxury of time to understand the extremely complex combat system given our daily occupations. The problem was also seen in Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition, though not to an extent; where mashing through the game with the Force Edge & Yamato combination was just enough for me to plough through even Vergil Must Die mode almost without problems….
Even with the ZERO scores given by users (registered members) on Metacritic, sales and professional reviews have been more positive than mediocre with 6 or 7/10 being the lowest. That’s pretty good for a rebooted game.
And soon the issue will fall on Dead Space 3. Gone (somewhat) are the dark corners of a space station now replaced by an icy snow-filled planet, two player co-op and enemies that now shoot back with bullets and grenades thus turning Dead Space 3 from a horror to a shooter (though the horror theme still remains). Many will say Dead Space 3 has ripped off from Lost Planet have surely not seen John Carpenter’s The Thing, since that alien horror film’s location is also icy and snowy too!
If a change is really that bad surely it didn’t hurt Capcom’s Street Fighter IV when all the characters looked 3D. Or Need for Speed Most Wanted by Criteron, is based on Burnout Paradise (also made by Criteron) as well as their own revival of Need for Speed Hot Pursuit back in 2010. Or back to Capcom when Resident Evil 5 became two players and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 has three attack buttons with the 4th being a launcher for air combos (not counting the assists/tag functions). All of them mentioned here succeeded.
Maybe some changes are bad yes, game in question being Ninja Gaiden III and their ‘Steel-on-Bone’ system, thus making killing every goon a guessing game instead. And Team Ninja admitted their mistake on that, only to make it even worst by not porting Razor’s Edge to the PS3 and Xbox 360 as well, making it solely for the Wii-U (hopefully that will change).
Even with the change the said game can still be enjoyable if some things are ignored. Metal Gear Solid 2 where the remainder of the story is finished by some rookie-boyband-wannabe-lookalike named Raiden. And Metal Gear Solid 3 where people like me who are used to relying on radars to accomplish our goals have to make do without them. Again both games are success. And speaking of Raiden, he’s more SOLID now than he once was and I welcomed that change.
February will be one to look out for, with Gearbox’s own re-visioning of the ALIENS franchise with ALIENS: COLONIAL MARINES. No Predators this time round; it’s strictly humans and bugs affair. DEAD SPACE 3 will be the final chapter of the DEAD SPACE series and we will all see through Isaac Clarke’s final journey to destroy the marker and the long awaited METAL GEAR RISING: REVENGEANCE where for the first time in MGS history; stealth is (almost) not an option.
And basically in the end whatever, it will be how we judge the game not by how it looks but by what its title stands for and how it is represented.
And by the way; here’s to a Happy Lunar New Year in advance to all Chinese gamers out there.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not represent the views of the site, SGamers.org.
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