Preview: DmC

As some of you may know, our very own Neil Gorton was recently appointed as Community Manager at the Europe arm of Capcom, and what he did to celebrate was invite a handful of community sites to play some upcoming games. We got to try out the latest entry into the Lost Planet series and the Devil May Cry reboot, DmC, the latter of which is featuring in this preview. Be sure to keep an eye out for a Lost Planet 3 preview soon.

As Neil initially described when we made our way into the games room was that the translation of Dante from the eastern market to the west was lost. Known as a bit of a lady killer in his native land and always brandishing roses, this didn’t come across so well when the game came out over here. This was part of the reasoning behind the company’s decision to reboot him as a younger male lead with a cocky attitude to match. This is certainly the effect you get when you first see a brunette Dante strut down the street with a devil may care attitude, pardon the pun. When the real world morphs into limbo the only expression that our protagonist musters is that of exasperation.

Now I might not be one for hack and slash games, but DmC certainly feels fresh now that it’s in the hands of new developer Ninja Theory. The streets transforming from their very mundane grey colours to the bright, vibrant and very deadly Limbo is incredible. This alternative world changes to create new challenges for you, such as chasms emerging as you walk and messages of de-motivation being displayed on the environment or whispered from unknown sources.

Combat is an absolute pleasure in DmC, having mixed and ranged attacks on the fly to deal with different foes that come your way. On top of this you also get angel and demon weapons that offer both fast paced chained and heavy attacks respectively. Combat is easy to jump into but will take players a bit of time to master, by the end of the demo even I was able to get at least one A rating and could juggle enemies pretty well. The bad guys also have a good variation from some standard grunts that just need to be pummeled, harpies that can be jumped between to gain some massive height, while shielded enemies that require different tactics to expose vulnerable spots.

DmC feels like a completely new experience, and should surprise both newcomers and fans of the Devil May Cry series. Look out for more on the young demon hunter as we approach the games release in January 2013.