Why Gamers Need to Support Ninja Theory - News

@GamesBond:

Lousy semantics. Ninja Theory showcased above average story-telling abilities.

@demonfang178

You said "in a post-apocalyptic setting how one obtains is not a skimpable detail."

Trip says " We grow our own food, condense our own water and make our own energy."

That is a direct answer to your point, answered by the game itself. Our debate has reached its end. I believe you are avoiding your payment of admission. "Ninja theory is an above adequate story-teller."
You have a choice, Be a person of your word and pay your debt or hold to your own interpretation and refuse. Either way its up to you. I can't make you do anything.

Whoops. Sorry. Forgot this was still ongoing.

@GamesBond:

3. Doublechecked and confirmed. A bit of a wierd plot device explanation, but okay.
   

4. That bit of exposition helps and hinders simulataneously. If that's true then that makes the question of them never eating only more pertinent. I still don't think this qualm is a pedantic though based on the environment alone. Really, we're just going have to agree to disagree for this.
   
   However, despite Ninja Theory's apparent risk-taking, I still don't think they truely explore the premise of their worlds enough to breathe much life into them.

@demonfang178

3. That it hints at the ending is the reason. It's explained that Trip rewiring an enslaving headband (right after the boat mission, right before the dog chase) has tuned monkey into the signal being sent out by pyramid. And then confirmed in a roundabout way in the epilogue.
   

4. First off let me say that, I think complaining about the lack of food presence is splitting hairs. I mean, when does Jack Bauer go pee? How does master-chief put on all that armor by himself? etc. I'm just not sure its necessary for the narrative. I understand that you are talking about food and not bathrooms, etc. I just wonder if that becomes a slippery slope. That being said, check the cut scene where they find the fish alive in the tank. Trip explains that they grow their own food, condense their own water and make their own energy in her village. Also, in the DLC Pigsy collects canned food that he finds left behind. Hopefully that satisfies your concerns.

@GamesBond:

Fine. I'll agree that for future semantically purposes, it would be better to say, "Trip is least likeable characters ever made" while it is, of course, still being a slight hyperbole.

1. They explained that? I must have missed that.
   

2. I know it hints at the ending, but there's no reason for it. If Pyramid said, "I have selectively chosen you, Monkey, to share these images with because you possess the amptitude of change" or something like that, I'd have no gripe with it.
   

3. I personally think it is a stretch, but I'll let it go.
   

4. Yes, seriously. I consider the exclusion of a substance that keeps the characters alive to be a plot hole. The fact that the setting makes this substance more rare only serves to make its absence all the more vexing and pertinent.
   

5. In retrospect, I may have be zealous with this one.
   
   And I don't believe Pyramid's blatant hypocripsy to be a plot hole, just poor writing or as an indictation that he may be a little psychotic. Trip not killing Monkey is one I'll have to replay the game to comprehend.
   
   You're right. No backies. Which is why I am not rewriting or augmenting any of my points, just arguing the validity of 2.

@demonfang178

You can dislike Trip but to say she is "one of the worst characters ever made" doesnt make sense objectively. I hate Halo games but I would never say they are the worst ever made, there just isnt evidence to support such a statement. I believe if you broaden your view(objectively) you would agree that while you make not like Trip she is not the worst character ever created (in the sense of character and not personality).

Ok lets look at the alleged Major plot holes,

1- It's also explained that if you can not be capture than you would be killed. So a mech no longer attempting to capture them is hardly a major plot hole.
0/1

2- Never seeing a mech with capture equipment is a legit beef. I'm not sure that constitutes a major plot hole but lets count it.
1/2

3- The illusionary masks hint at the ending, while you may not like them. They are not a plot holes
1/3

4- Trip is a gear-head and tech-chick, it is not a stretch to believe she removed a panel and hot-wired something, or picked the lock or Magyver'd a way out. While one could question the escape its not a major plot hole.
1/4

5- Hacking a computer from any terminal should be able to access any of ships systems. However, an explosion 2 seconds later and hull integrity at 30% (even assuming that it wasnt at a 100% to begin with) is a stretch. I agree it should have taken a little more effort to bring down the ship.
2/5

6- Absence of food. Absence of food? ...Seriously?
2/6

7- Initially I want to say that those bots are reprogrammed, but after checking through that level. You are correct it does not make sense to have mechs beyond that point. Including the massive mech-dog.
3/7

8- Having a defense system that keys in on vehicles and not individual weapons is not far-fetched in a syfy setting.
3/8

3 out of your 8 make sense. While I would argue that some are not major plot holes, you would argue what defines a major plot hole, in any event I counted the ones that worked.

perhaps you should have brought up the fact that the villain wants to help the people yet has been trying to kill them throughout the game. The conflict of interest brings up a plot hole. Another would be when trip ran away while in her village but it managed not kill monkey.

In any event, no second chances. 3 out of 8 is not 4. Time to pay the piper good sir.

I am not saying that the game they are making is bad, what I am saying is that what they are developing IS NOT A DMC GAME!!!. The should just change the name and create a new franchise, just like they did when Capcom was making RE4; the game they were doing was so different to what people expected for a RE game, so they create a new franchise which is Devil May Cry. Weird how things work lol

@GamesBond:

The fascist statement I am referring to is the one where you state, "It's a good thing that everyone has a right to an opinion. Otherwise some of the poster's should have their keyboard taken away," but then state something along the lines of it being unfathomable for Trip to be seen as one of the worst characters ever with some light tengential opinion shoving for support. If one were to base how much they like a character on, well, how much they like a character then it's fairly easy to see how one can dislike Trip. Also, the camp fire scene is exactly the pseudo-romantic scene I was referring to.

Now for the real bulk of this messange. I will not only accept your challenge, but exceed it as my listing 6 major plot holes, and 2 arguably minor ones. I don't think it's any coicidence that most of these are related to a game mechanic, level design, or failure to really explore.

1. It's established that mechs capture people, and yet not once do they attempt to capture you.
   

2. How you never throughout the whole game see a mech with capture equipment. It's always combat mechs.
   

3. Monkey randomly seeing Pyramid's images. Despite how much I hate the ending, this is the only hole I have with it besides Pyramid's flimsy argument. Unforunately, weak strawmans from the antagonist aren't plot holes, just the poor writing.
   

4. Trip's escape from her pod in chapter 1. I only caught this one while watching a Let's Play. When Trip escapes, she is not seen with any of her equipment out even assuming the mechs didn't take her equipment like they did Monkey's. This obviously brings up the question of how did she escape.
   

5. Again in chapter 1, after Trip escapes from her pod, she begins to fiddle with the nearby computer console. Within two seconds on this machine she compromises the ship's integrity up to 30% complete with haphazard explosions within the ship. Unless Enslaved is trying to take liberties from cartoons, it's impossible to cause that much damage within two seconds unless one of the buttons was "Blow **** up." Also, what is such an important console doing in the prisoner holding area?
   

6. The complete absence of food shown in the game. In any other game, I would let this slide, but in a post-apocalyptic setting how one obtains is not a skimpable detail.
   

7. Prior to meeting Pigsy while still in the boat with the machine gun, you come across a sensor system designed to detect and snipe mechs. What's on the other side of this? Mechs.
   

8. In Chapter 6, Trip tells you to not use the motorcycle any further on the account that it would trigger defense systems and yet all the electrical and EMP equipment they both carry won't?

@thoughtforspeak and everyone else interested. i made a thread a year ago discussing the new direction of DmC. which i have just updated with the new trailer from E3 2011.

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=116862&page=1

i really like Ninja Theory and like it looks like there creating a more psycological driven story with a very similar combat system to before. so people can moan but the trailer is bloody good imo.

@demonfang178

Fascist? What are you talking about?

You say Trip is unlikeable. Well clearly I liked her and the pseudo-romantic moment begins at the camp fire early on, Or even earlier if want to consider bickering the beginnings of a romance. While you may not like her, the character has motive and depth. Albeit this character is annoying to you it doesnt change the fact. If we are talking about worse-characters ever one could make an argument that Link is among the worse. I wont because he was a part of my childhood gaming, but still, how great can a mute character be? Objectively he's probably down there.

I tell you what, Let me issue you a Challenge: You said the "plot has a lot of holes". If you can point out 4 major holes I will recant, delete my original statement and concede that NT story-telling could still be better. (not the characters). If you can't then I expect you to post that while you do not like Enslaved, Ninja theories story-telling is above adequate. (you dont have to claim they are epic, just above adequate)

I think that is a fair challenge. Lets put a 36 hour time limit. Do you accept?

This is for Demonfang178 ONLY. No helping. After 36 hours all you haters can blow it up and respond to this post if you want.

@GamesBond:

While it wasn't directly aimed at me, I do have to respond to that hypocritical post you made a while back. The one where you threw the "opinions can be revoked" canard, but then went on to make the fascist claim that Trip couldn't be seen as one of the worst characters ever (which is an obvious hyperbole) when the plenty of reasons for this, not least of all her being unlikeable. Personally, next to wasted potential, few things annoy me more than fascism.

All of Trip's belivablility and line delivery doesn't save her if the player doesn't care for her. To add this, discontent of Trip can even be seen from Monkey, the immersion specter of the game. This persists for the nearly the entire first Act and the only thing stopping it from consuming its entirety is the pseudo-romantic moment the two leads share at its end. One only has one chance at a first impression and when that level of an unemotional relationship between the player and a character exists for roughly a third of the game, not even the latter two acts can pick up the slack. This is evident even by a good deal of people who cleared the game. I can assume Trip's last action didn't help much in swaying this opinion. To ask a player to play through a game with a character they consistently don't like is poor character pacing.

If Trip were the only mark I had against Enslaved (in terms of plot related items), then I would have been able to walk away a content consumer. The overall arching plot has a lot of holes in it, things should be explained but don't, and statements that don't make sense. For these strikes against Enslaved I have to concur with thoughtspeak with his declaration that even Ninja Theory's storytelling abilities are lacking.

@thoughtspeak

initially I was excited to debate with you,( A fellow kindred spirit and gaming enthusiast) To have intelligent correspondence and spirited respectful discussion. But it is clear to me that you are rather close-minded and stubborn. Compromising on nothing, you have seemingly chosen to ignore comments while picking out the things you can tear apart. You bypass an apology for your error, bypass any agreement with any statement, and simply look for something to shred. And while the great temptation is to respond back to you (which i really want to do), I will not. This was not my intention when I responded to you. If I wanted to have a stubborn one-sided discussion, I would talk to my mother. So go ahead and type your 3,000 word response. I will not reply to you.

@A203D you and me have obviously been playing different games then. There is a clear character progression within DMC3, wiehter it is a satisfying one or not is up to subjective tastes. Likewise, Neros story within Dmc4 had depth and was 3 dimensional . it was just the story itself was clearly written by Committee. What you guys are confusing is a satisfying narrative to your personal tastes, with one that is functionally intact.

As a DMC fan, i find it laughable you invoke the design decisions made in the GOW series. This is the exact things we do not want in DMC. QTE's, cannon fodder enemies, unskippable cutscenes, limited weapon selection, both in in variety and function etc. Regardless of the fact that Kratos is one dimensional as they come, using your own criteria, the action set pieces detract rather than enhance the gameplay.

What they do do, is give a scene of epic scale that for some more than makes up for it. The sales speak for themselves and its clear, unlike ninja theories offerings there is actually a market for that. Regardless, comparing santa monica and Ninja theory is a fallacy in itself because regardless of if i personally like it or not, even GOW1 is by far a more polished and well done title that anything Ninja theory has created. Based on their previous titles, expecting a title of even that pedigree is wishful thinking.

Now i need to point out that supervision from capcom by executives does not automatically make sure this will be a good game. Let us not forget get that the same team that made DMC3 also made DMC2. Regardless of the logistical concerns, if such a assertion were 100% true, it has been proven that the director Itsuno is working on dragons dogma. At this point, it is safe to assume that outside from previewing a few builds, and the greenlighting of the character redesign, itsuno has very little to do with the game.

A comparative situation is mercury steams reboot of the castlevania franchise. While both konami and kojima claimed that this was a collaborative effort during development, once the game released it was discovered that they had very little day to day involvement. Its simply not possible to keep an eye on a team that far away.

At end of the day, nobody is saying that capcom will allow the game to be total garbage, or even than Ninja theory would put out such, but if you guys really think that capcom developers, programmers and artist are jetting back and forth every few weeks to the other side of the world to england to check on NInja theory every couple of weeks your living in fantasy land.


@Gamesbond.

It cannot be a logical understatement if it is a subjective opinion. I don't have to be logical to explain how i feel about a title :- it simply is what it is. I really cannot see the leaps and bounds in storytelling that you do. I can see an increased emphasis on motion capture, voice acting and set piece generation, but these in my view amount to a difference in focus, not anything particular innovative.

If you want to see innovation, i suggest you look to la noire and heavy rain not enslaved. Almost everything Ninja theory did within that title has been done by others and much more effectively. The only thing that I would give them is their use of color, which i will concede is quite refreshing in an gaming generation where the default colour is brown.

The marketing for enslaved was actually more than most new IP's have recieved this generation. While in the states it seems the title was largely under marketed, in the home territory of the developers it had an higher marketing budget than even tekken 6. At one point you could not walk 5 metres without seeing enslaved adverts on bilboards, they had a television campaign and several promotions. I could do the exact same survey of middle school children over here and still have similar results. But that is not because the title didn't have enough marketing, but rather as a videogame it simply was not memorable enough. In fact, it suffered very badly via word of mouth compared to other titles.

I have to make a contention with your point about the acting in videogames. within the medium of the videogame, its is in fact the player who is both the actor and the audience. The most important narrative is the one you yourself create in the process of beating the game. What skills did you have to develop, what tricks did you devise to beat the game, how did you manipulate the game engine to your advantage. One of the reasons the achievement and trophy systems are so popular is that the provide a visual marker for the gamer to prove his or her ability to find and overcome these challenges. These are the things that bring gamers back to a title again and again and should be give equal if not greater weight to any designers story.

Within the context of the devil may cry universe this narrative takes the form of the stylish system. From the release of the original title whole communities have sprung up solely based on the players manipulating the engine for greater and greater displays of skill. while you may be draw to the acting performance of andy serkis and co., these are the performances that excite and enthrall DMC fans

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BGp1an_PMw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATpe0f-WasA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMH2JT7AMM0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWDTY8eboLY&feature=related

Now to achieve this kind of narrative, the underlying game engine needs to be complex, flexible and robust. In 3 titles, Ninja theory have proven that they simply not capable of doing such a thing. The fact that they are using unreal engine, a engine totally unsuited for this level of gameplay only suggests that this will continue. While you think this is a worthwhile sacrifice, to a DMC fan it simply is not.


The fact is, it really doesn't matter if the voice acting or the motion capture is excellent if the underlying game suffers as a result of it. I hate cutscenes and very rarely watch them more than twice. in a series that up to this point encourages multiple playthroughs , (ive played DMC3 over 20 times from beginning to end and DMC4 at least 10 with countless hours in the bloody palace mode of both titles.) I just cant see the same mileage being created by this change of focus.
How many times have you played HS and enslaved to completion?

The fact is you haven't played enough of the series to understand why we are so angry and simply have no idea why NInja theory is such a bad fit for such a title. I have no problem with NT creating a new IP or creating a game such as la noire or heavy rain. I just know its not my thing and id ignore it. What we have here is a team that is fundamentally unsuited to touch the series developing the next one. In this era of HD game development, a bad entry can kill a series. That is the burden Ninja theory carries and in my view their shoulders are far too weak for it.

you may just want to see them keep making games and keep improving but not at the expense of my favorite franchise, thank you very much.

Id rather a DMC with a god awful story and polished combat than a NT title and its really as simple as that. Im not expecting anyone to feel the same, but i do expect people to stop trivializing the fan bases genuine concern about the game and the developer.

Story is not enough. This is not a DMC title without DMC's gameplay.

@thoughtspeak. the point is that while you may not like Nariko or Ninja Theory. the characters that Ninja Theory develop exist in shades of grey. they have various personality traits and are 3 dimensional - as in they have a depth to their character that evolves as the story progresses.

DMC's characters are just 1 dimensional - with no depth, ie Trish, Vergil, Mundus, etc, even Dante just trash talks the whole game and his character never changes throughout the game. we dont even know what his aims are in the games - since he dosent seem to care about saving peoples lives - so why is he even a devil hunter??

the point i'm making is that storywise and characterwise, DMC has never been good. since Santa Monica and David Jaffe uped the scales with the God of War series, no action game in the west or Japan has been able to match it in terms of critical and commercial sales.

so Capcom tried to westernise Dante and the DMC series with DMC4 - and it was shit. so now they've enlisted the help of a developer who has been credited with accolade in the field of storytelling and motion capture - while still being supervised by excutives from Capcom Japan to maintain the action flair of the previous games. so i think the new DmC will be very good, if handled effectively.

@Mo-Mo Killer, i have many reasons why i think Castlevania is better than God of War 3, but imo God of War 1 and 2 are better than Castlevania, i just didnt like what Stigg did with the 3rd game and i think David Jaffe wouldve put the man to shame had he directed the game.

@thoughtspeak Your comments both anger and excite me. I respect a well thought out response and opinion. I will attempt to respond in order.

NT may not have won a plethora of awards, but they have been nominated for many. While I agree that their game-play has stopped them from taking home gold (or even silver), they have always been in good company. So to say that their story-telling is “only marginally better” is a logical understatement.

I would argue that 59 “likes” is a testament to the lack of marketing for NT games and while 1500 views definitely does not mean 1500 people read the article, I will concede that NT is clearly a niche developer. However consider this, in speaking with middle(and high)-school gamers less than 1% (4 out of 500) have heard or played a NT game. This is only from two schools so it’s obviously not official but I think a point can still be made.

Table the DMC topic for a moment.

Superior voice acting and motion capture is exactly what I’m talking about. I’m not mistaking it for anything. The voice acting was passionate as was the motion capture. In the video game realm that is the acting. And while you may argue that the characters were “whinny” or “TMNT’s shredder” (depending on which version you are referring to may be a complement, I am assuming you mean the 80’s cartoon version) the delivery is what I was referring to. I am sure you would agree that the delivery is excellent.

Now on to DMC. You did a great job shredding apart my comments. However, you missed one thing (and it’s a small thing), I Never mentioned anything about DMC at all. I can’t comment on it because I have never played them. (I played about 50% of the first one a long time ago and from what I remember, it left me with a positive experience). I will avoid the obviously quote about assuming, but that sentence that gave you such offense was a general statement directed at no specific game. However if you like I could bring up a game that fits the comments.

Personally I hope that Ninja Theory just continues to improve. I agree that the industry should focus less on evolving graphics, and while I'd liked to see game-play improve, my priority would be story. But that’s just my whiskey of choice.

To spirited discussions. Cheers ;)

@ gamesbond ill answer for him.

1) yes I have played heavenly sword to completion
2) yes as an avid reader, someone who works within the UK film industry and a amateur writer, I am well aware what a competent story consists of. However within the medium of the videogame, Ninja theories storytelling skills are not only marginally better than the competition they are largely inappropriately told.

In your previous post you made the crass assumption that only "some" gamers like the features of the devil may cry series that you scoff at. Not withstanding the fact that your opinion is highly contrasting with the popular view on what DMC is about, or even the fact you ascribe strawman features to the series that arent there at all, the proof is in the pudding. This article has had nearly 1500 views at the time of this comment, but only 59 people agree with it to the degree to endorse via the facebook like system. While this is hardly the most scientific of measurements, it is rather telling how niche the author's opinion truly is.

I for one do not consider ninja theories approach to storytelling to be significantly different enough to warrant the praise it has. I felt no more connected to nariko than I would sonic or master chief. Rather, I found myself irritated by her pretentious whining. While you could argue that heavenly sword did have a level of character development, to argue it was better constructed than dantes development in devil may cry 3 is in my view reflective of a misunderstanding of what character development actually is.

Likewise, you are mistaking superior voice acting and motion capture with a superior performance with king bolan. Never once did I find him to be a believable villain, within the sense of the medium. Rather he reminded me of TMNT'S shredder : an idiot presented for comic relief. Compare that with DMC'S Vergil : cold, cunning, ruthless, the very antithesis of Dante. A much more believable villain who's pursuit of power had a very human motivation : he felt weak when he couldnt protect his mother from a demon attack and will stop at nothing to become powerful enough to never feel that fear again.

So that defeats your first argument about the story of dmc being mindless. I can do a similar analysis of enslaved and dmc4 but let's move on to your next claim about "pretty explosions"

Dmc is an action series, not action adventure, not rpg, action. That means by its very definition it must be about the spectical, the adrenaline rush, the, for lack of a better word, action.

Just like you dont expect the terminator to recite Shakespeare, you should not expect prolonged redundancy in an action games storytelling. What ninja theory have yet to realise and the thing that Is ultimately is going to destroy their company is that AAA development and consumption is geared towards action games. If they want to be considered a AAA den, they need to make sure their games provide the action FIRST, then worry about evolving the storytelling after. Their approach so far is to make the gameplay work around the story and that why they are considered such unfit developers for such an action oriented series. It's also why their games have such a niche following but the metal gears and la noires sell millions in a few short weeks. Make the game good first, then tell the story.

While your "facts" are backed with little more than your own opinion (heavenly sword actually won very little awards overall) this idea can be backed up by academic theory ( read the game studies journal, especially the ludology articles) financial performance, and overall customer satisfaction.

You mention the analogy of wine, but the reality is your not going to get much appreciation for a fine wine in a room where everyone drinks spirits. Doesn't make the wine bad, just undesired. Likewise, a whisky drinker should not feel demonised because he prefers jack daniels to a 1933 Irish port.
Ninja theory need to review their business model. They cannot and will not be able to continue making games with great voice acting, high production values but substandard gameplay and little to no replay value. You make love their work, but sorry this is just the reality of the medium they are working within.

We as devil may cry fans are angered that our franchise has to go down with them. We have every right to be becausr they simply aren't a good fit for what we want and are willing to pay for. The fact that there are people such as yourself that can't wait to sink your teeth into the next nt game is immaterial. As capcom is going to find out to their dismay, there is alot more of us than there Is of you.

And while you and Jake may be upset to see them go, I can't wait to hear of the end of ninja theory. I hope their employees find gainful employment In the cgi and effects industries, where they belong. But the less misguided games developers there are, the less focus on evolving graphics there will be.instead of trying to be hollywoods little brother, let's see developers try to push forward and innovate in the place that It matters: the gameplay.

I have two questions for you, Boradis.

1) Have you ever played a Ninja Theory game to completion?

2) Do you have any idea what a competent story looks like?

I have two questions for your, Jake.

1) How much did Ninja Theory pay you or your company to write this "editorial?" Please include the cost of any dinners and/or hookers.

2) How do you sleep at night? Alcohol? Barbituates? Or do you combine the two?

It's a good thing that everyone has a right to an opinion. Otherwise some of the poster's should have their keyboard taken away. I understand that some gamers like the mindless story, loose plot, and pretty explosions. I understand that some gamers like the tightest of controls (and thats a good thing). However, what about the art of telling a well crafted story; of developing a character that feels like a person, of actually caring about your protagonist. Ninja Theory is one of the best in the business at doing that. While they may have their flaws (as any studio does), few studios can approach their level of story-telling. (by few I mean maybe 3).

Nariko was a flawed determined character, fighting for her people and her friends. A story we may have heard before but never seen with such passion. Passion that was not only visible in her face but also the face of the villain. The Villain's performance was on par with any Hollywood Oscar nominated film. Thats a fact.

Trip, while slightly less confrontational, was a deep character as well. Someone who appeared strong but underneath was scared and fragile like the rest of us. How many people can relate to the false bravery that we put on daily. For someone to say that she is "one of the worse game characters ever" is ridiculous and they should punch themselves in the taint (cough* zim).

I dont like Wine, but i can recognize the look of appreciation when other people drink a good glass. Engrossing character development and story may not be your thing. Ninja Theory may not be your thing. But don't attempt for a second to prove that it isnt amazing or that they're "broken". All that serves to do is make public your lack of video game knowledge.

after showing their hatred to PS3 gamers i don't know why we should support them -_-

I appreciate your desire to promote this studio, but it makes it difficult for a reader who hasn't played their games to read an article that contains spoilers for those games. I cannot be persuaded by you because I don't want to spoil the games. With that said, I do intend on playing Enslaved when I get the chance.

Heavenly Sword and Enslaved were honestly broken games, so they have a lot to prove before they gain my support........hope they take good care of DMC, please dont mess it up!!!

I just don't understand what all the risks being taken by Ninja Theory are. I loved HS, but what was the risk there, that they took a tried and true combat formula, and attached a good, not great but good story line to it? That was the risk? Or was it the fact that Nariko was designed with proportions in mind?

Cause lets face it, we have had stronger female characters in gaming, and according to the author's logic, bigger risks taken in other games, like Good and evil, perfect dark, System shock (the female is am AI, and she is the bad guy, but you can't tell me she is not the main character). All those characters were stronger female representations than Nariko.

Besides, the author praises Ninja Theory for not giving Nariko some absurd proportions and playing into the fact that she is a very well drawn woman? She is half naked for the entire game!!!!!!

I don't have a comment about enslaved since i have not played that game and it doesn't interest me because of all the things I have heard about it.

That said, is not the fact that they are rebooting Devil May Cry, or the fact that they are redesigning the characters, its the fact that they have so obviously chosen to go with what is "in" now and are therefore taking absolutely no risk at all. They have taken a supposed badass and have made him look like a whiny EMO teen with daddy issues.

If they do not address the obvious fail in the design of Dante, this game will be a bigger flop than the Virtua Boy.

@A203D
I loved Castlevania Lords of Shadows, but to say that it is better than GOW3 is just stupid.

I suppose those are some good points about Platinum Games. on a side note RE5 was a POS designed by Capcom Japan to capitalise on the western market. now instead of Japanese developers trying to westernise a Japanese game for the western market, i would rather a western studio (like Ninja Theory) have the project outsourced to them.

about Trip, yeah okay fair enough Zim you dont like her, but when it comes down to it, shes a well developed character who exists in shades of grey, rather than the 1 dimensional characters Capcom develop; who only exist in either black or white - Albert Wesker comes to mind, as does... Vergil - motive - to kill people and get the ultimate power of Sparda.

and Capcom tried to westernise Dante and DMC in DMC4, and it was shit. so i would rather they outsource the project to a western developer like NInja Theory who can a least do the western aspects Capcom wants a lot better than Capcom, rather than Capcom giving us more DMC4 and RE5. look at how good Castlevania Lords of Shadows was when outsourced to Mercurysteam. okay it had its problems, but everyone i spoke to loved it and imo it was better than God of War 3, much better!!

Guess my posts are too long because they keep getting cut off. Either Way, Zim your points are gold. Back you up all the way.

@Heavenly Warrior - Again read what I say. I said hard mode, not the hardest. Didn't play Hell mode cause the gameplay wasn't there, no inspiration.

Also Dead Space, not boring, I beat that game 3 times to get all the trophies. That's a well made survival horror game in a media where there are very few games of it's genre.

@A203D - I know RE4 was better then Vanquish, and Dead Space was more stategic, but Vanquish was still good. I only compared it to RE4 because Vanquish and RE4 are among the best purely single player games in the last 2 generations. Dead Space is up there too, but I found Vanquish funner. RE4 is also somewhat of an action game nowdays, RE5 was not scary at all, especially the Hummer level.

Also, although Vanquish was just go to point A take everyone out, then proceed. There were a lot of twists, like your ally being one of the biggest villans. Also battles where you had to fight large enemies had some strategy, not that different from GoW's sequence events. Level environments varied significantly for a shooter as well. I mean yea it was all in a space station, but there was one stealth level, one level where you're running up to larger tanks, one level where the middle of it a giant transport ship comes in, shooting over a cliff, comming up to the giant tank, scaling fortress walls, etc. Most shooters only offer a sniper sequence, and that's it.

The only reason Vanquish is in this debate is because I said Gamers should support Platinum Games instead of NT. Vanquish sold <0.6 million combined 360/PS3 sales, Mad World sold about 630k, and Bayonetta sold less then 1 million per console. If you look at the reviews for these games, they typically get scores between 8.5-9 million, but why are sales so poor? Lack of Advertizing, and I think if there is any company people should support, it's Platinum games.

After all, most people (except Heavenly Sword) would agree, Bayonetta > Heavenly Sword, and Platinum Studios takes much bigger risks then NT.

Play DMC 3 for more then an hour. Yes it's starts that way with the cinematic with the pool balls, but DMC gets more deep then that. Particularly the relationship with Dante and his brother.

I won't argue, character design in Enslaved 3 is really good, but the gameplay the worst this gen. However in an Action game, should the big emphasis be on character design? Dante typically throws 1 liners, but the gameplay is fun, and some of the cinematic sequences are funny as hell.

Also remember HS has none of this character design. So why should we support a company with 1 good concept for 1 game? Heavenly Sword was terrible, it has no redeeming qualities, but Enslaved had potential. Ninja Theory had a good concept in mind, but couldn't deliver in the end, so why support them when many other smaller studios (Like Platinum Games, or Silicon Knights) which do deliver?

@Zim - You go man, everything you say is gold. I was shocked when Heavenly Sword said Dead Space was boring.

@heavenlywarrior Anything you now say is invalid anyway as I proved you talk about games you haven't even played. For all we know you haven't even played HS.

I'd also wager you have never played Dead Space. Because hey you talk about other games you haven't played. Dead space has tighter gameplay, a better plot, better graphics, is longer, more replayable etc etc than HS.

@A203D I don't think any DMC fans are crying out for a deeper more realistic Dante though. I like the fact that he is comical and over cocky. I don't care for Dante but I like him and I like playing as him. Whereas in Enslaved.... I would say that Trip is perhaps one of the worst and most detestable game characters ever. Spoilers for enslaved She crashes a slave ship killing everyone inside without caring, leaves a man to die who is begging for help, then enslaves a freed slave immediately and forces him to risk his life to protect her. She then refuses to release him when she had promised. The fact her motivations are good doesn't matter once she has done all that. She is worse than the villains in most games. I don't want a company that thinks she is a good character to handle a series I like.

I actually agree with some of the points about Enslaved, but it did have different types of gameplay, like the air surfing, platforming, etc. Vanquish was just a shooter, RE4 was survival horror, where you would explore the village, the castle and the island. you would customise your weapons. and it was a lot more tactical, because you have to strategitically attack your enemy to conserve ammo.

RE4 had a lot more varitey to the environments, like the lake where you fight a huge la plagas in the water. Vanquish never threw in varitey, it was just go to place A, shoot X amount of enemies - do this for 6-10 hours - your done!

Vanquish was nothing more than a shooter, Dead Space and RE4 are a lot better because they offer more gameplay options and because the environments have a better atmosphere because they are also survival horror games.

DMC3s Dante starts off eating pizza and then killing enemies, with some sort of 1 liner thrown in here in there. the character never offers anything more than that. none of the characters in DMC have depth - they just do things to save the world. thats it, at least i think Ninja Theory know how to create believable motives for their heroes and draw out realistic character traits. i think Monkey and Trip (and according to this article Nakriko) present very deep character development. and make you feel like their situation is real. eg, i could really believe that Trip was desperate to get home so she enslaved Monkey, and you dont hate her by the end of the game because the story explores her character so you feel empathitic to her cause. in DMC you never care for any of the characters, because they are never present anything more than 1 liners and too cool for school attiudes. so i can appreciate what Ninja Theory can do for the series, but at the same time i think the gameplay might have problems if it is indeed running on Unreal Engine 3, which is really not good!

@Michael-5 Then you're lying cause you can't play hell mode on your first HS play-through

and c'mon guys, games length don't matter, I prefer 5 hours of HS rather than 11 hours of boring dead space

HS keeps changing the gameplay, everytime, you have to do something different, and everytime, something happens, and then, there were the times when you play, and the screens gets smaller, and another screen pops up, with a scene happening at the same time, and the combat was pretty good for me, the counter atack system was the best I've seen and the number of combos we had was good too

@A203D - On easy you can almost literally run throught the game. Every game on easy is significantly shorter, you shouldn't judge overall length of a game as the time it takes to complete it on easy. I play all my games on Hard, and on Hard Vanquish (which is still a short game) took 10 hours, where Heavenly Sword took 4.

Also Play Vanquish, the reason why I compared it to RE4 is because the game is very similar. Really good pacing, about the same length, well designed boss battles, and a challenge mode once you're done. Vanquish is one of the best games without a multiplayer mode.

As for enslaved, character design, and animations (such as facial expressions) made them seem realistic. I'll give you that, for an action game a lot of effort went into designing believable characters. However the gameplay isn't there. You critisize Vanquish by saying "the whole game was a rehash of the same enemy formations in different environments", but Enslaved is much more rehashed. Ontop of which the gameplay isn't as deep.

Also you can't generalize Devil May Cry as being plotless. Each DMC game is so different it's as if a different developer made each. You really can't say that the character's in DMC 3 are not believeable. Dante is freaken amazing in that game. I don't know how else to describe it, but you really connect with each character in that game. That doesn't hold true for something like Heavenly Sword.

@Zim - I agree with you again. HS is a 4-6 hour game, with no real incentive to replay the game. The graphics are good, and the story is meh, but once you're done there is no reason you'd want to go back and play it. The gameplay just isn't there. At least in Devil May Cry, you want to come back and play it on a more difficult setting. InFAMOUS (very different game I know) has multiple endings and plays differently on weather or not you're good or bad. Even Vanquish has collectables, and a Challenge mode, which will take any gamer at least another 6 hours to complete. HS has nothing, 4-6 hours and you're done with it.

@HeavenlyWarrior
The fact it took a bad gamer 10 hours to complete a game is meaningless. Your average gamer can easily complete HS in around 6 hours. Including cutscenes, deaths etc. Hell on Doritos crash course some bad gamers have taken over an hour on single levels doesn't mean anything. You said vanquish is 4 hours long. I proved that you talk about things with no actual idea about them.

Length doesn't dictate value but when HS has no other redeeming except graphics (rough gameplay, story, writing, short length and almost no replayability) well it clearly isn't a game worth defending.

Address my original point that you have clearly never played Vanquish and tried to talk about a game without knowing anything about it.

with the latest rumors that the game is using the UE3, is at 30 FPS (bad news, very bad news), and that for some reason firearms have cooldown it just goes to show that NT has NO clue how to make games. Maybe their plots would be a saving grace were they actually good but they're not. At all. Saddest part is that they have to rely on people from OTHER mediums like Rhianna Pratchett and Alex Garland to make a story instead of making one of their own. They're pathetic and deserve to fail.

Well, I've been following this for a while, and I've heard it all and told it all.

"I don't think Capcom will let Ninja Theory stray too far from Devil May Cry's tried and true gameplay formula."

The problem is the gameplay engine used is going to be the Unreal Engine, which won't allow for the same gameplay as the DMC series. Maybe similar, but the fans don't want those corners to be cut where they definitely are going to be cut, because they have to be cut. This is cold cut information.

Unless things have changed, Capcom has like one or two guys on working with them. They're not "in charge" type guys either. This isn't "we're going to keep a close eye on you". This is "here's two of our guys who have worked on the series so they can help you with your vision". This is my perspective, it could be untrue, but it's also a lot of other fans perspectives too.

As for the story, no ones saying "oh it's going to have a crappy story". We're saying "we loved DMC's characters and story, and we don't like someone ripping them away from us and giving us a ragged torn up prepubescent version".

"Ninja Theory should be rewarded for taking risks, not punished."

And the problem here is, would you say the same if Ninja Theory had been handed Halo, or Gears of War, or Final Fantasy? What if they'd been handed Pacman, or Mario? My guess is no. Anyways, they aren't even taking a risk, it's not their title, and they're getting payed by Capcom either way. They're DEALING a risk to DMC, and Capcom is the one taking the risk. There wouldn't be many people having issues if the games in question were Heavenly Sword 2, or something to that extent.

In the end, what it's about is the fans of DMC are going to lose out, either way, no matter of "DmC" is the game of the century, or if its the most craptastic game in the world. On one end, it means DMC found a bigger place and is moving on, on the other hand, DMC is dealt a hard blow and it may not last for another sequel or two.

@Michael-5. Vanquish is no where near as good as Resident Evil 4. you say that on easy Vanquish is 4 hours long and on hard its 10 hours - all that means is your pressing the retry button a lot more. dosent make a game better at all. the whole game was a rehash of the same enemy formations in different environments. the only place the gameplay really stood out is when you had to use boost and slow motion in the boss fights and the tactical challenges.

yes okay the gameplay in Enslaved was mediocure. but the characters were realistically developed. the story was really well written with a great ending. as opposed to DMC, were all the characters shout out 1 liners like a Saturday morning cartoon show. the story is never well written, just about you having to go kill the big bad demons who want to destroy the human race. the characters are 1 dimensional with no depth.

the thing i love about the DmC trailer is that NT look like they're taking Dante into a psycological story - and NT know to tell there stories and develop realisitc characters within a belieavble world setting.

Terrible, terrible article with blatant contradictions. So NT's games had gameplay that was "slightly derivative" but "Nariko is supposed to handle with grace and beauty, but she suffers from unintuitive controls and clunky animations and Monkey fairs even worse, relying on unresponsive platforming to navigate and gets through battles with simple button mashing?"

But the biggest offender is the "they take risks" canard that thoughtspeak touched up upon rather well. Although, I will add that using that Nariko is somewhat moderately clothed (and she really isn't) is as example of taking a risk is one of the weakest justifications I've ever seen in journalism. I am supposed to drop $50 because the lead wears clothes? Has gaming really fallen that far? Screw CoD map packs, this puts that to shame.

I've played Enslaved, and while anything I could say about the gameplay (if you can really call it that) has been said a dozen times over, I'll address the story as that's what it is rarely criticized for some reason. From the get-go, the premise fails. Robots conquer the world but you're never told why (until the end anyway)? Robots are supposedly suprerior in intellient and yet they can't solve a simple bridge puzzle despite having jet packs anyway? And Monkey gets thrown in without any backstory at all? How am I supposed to get attached to the leads when I despise one of them and the other I can write all I know about him on a sheet of toilet paper? I won't even bring up the horrid pacing on the ending or the ending itself. Basically, gamers are 110% justified with what was and is displayed by DmC and the awful trailer didn't help ease doubts.

Conveniently, Mr. Author forgets that to mention wishy-washy interviews and NT's overall attitude (Enslaved failed because DMC fans, "I don't care" that sort of thing), which is arguably more of a driving force to lost sales than the change itself.

Let this article being the poster child for how NOT to write an editorial. As a professional, there's a limit to how subjectively biased literature can be and this broke that limit in the third paragraph. That couped with the lack of research done make this the worst written anything I've seen since Sonic 06 defenses.

@ thoughtspeak - couldn't agree more with what you're saying - why should we openly accept and praise mediocre shit games? The Ninja Theory is a fucking joke, Jake, you know it - i know it - hell, we all know it - why Capcom picked them up for DMC is beyond me - they dont MAKE ANY MONEY! i mean above all else, regardless of what i think of their games, they dont sell FOR SHIT - if their games were as good as you foolishly believe then they would ATLEAST sell a bit more

@ Heavenly Warrior - Wait, Heavenly Sword isn't just straight action? Have you played Vanquish? Maybe on Easy you can beat it in 4 hours, but on hard it's closer to 10, and after that you have Challenges. Vanquish is up there in terms of quality with Resident Evil 4.

HS was about 4 hours on my first play through, on Hard. Demo was about 5 minutes long too. Unless you stopped to look at the scenery, I don't understand how you took 10 hours to beat this game......wait a second.... This is the shortest game I ever played, ever! Except for the original Metroid, I never played a game so short, and for Metroid I used a guide.

I know action games are not suppose to be long, but every action game that comes to mind this gen is longer, more polished, and has more content. Ninja Blade, Ninja Gaiden 1 & 2, DMC4. Bayonetta, God of War, every one of them is better. Heck Boss fights in Vanquish involved action game-esk button sequences, so you could even count that too, and that was a far better game.

@Demon Fox - NES was a console that was around 25 years ago. Gaming has evolved since then. Back during the NES era, games were developed by staffs as small as 2 people all together. I believe the original Zelda had <30 people working on it. Heavenly Sword was only an average game, with little replay value. Being 4 hours long, and charging $60 full retail is unacceptable. At least Killzone, Call of Duty and Halo have online, and even then they are still about 8 hours long, and often have co-op.

Really if any studio needs support it's Platinum Games, or even Silicon Knights. For those who actually played Too Human, and Eternal Darkness, you would know those are two of the most interesting games around. Too Human simply needed more polish.

@Zim and elerion - Thats exactly right.

Even tho I loved Heavenly Sword, Devil May Cry needs to be Devil May Cry.

@HeavenlyWarrior you must have been terrible at Heavenly Sword then. I died a bunch and still beat it around 6 hours.

UNBE-FREAKING-LEAVABLE!!!!!

Yet another disillusioned article from the increasingly inane gaming press, pleading with us to take Ninja theory to our busom and support their mediocrity. Its getting quite frankly, ridiculous.

Whatever happened to standing by the quality of your product? why do we need you to cheerlead the developer to help them achieve sales. Ninja theory, regardless of whether you agree its fair or not, have earned their reputation fair and square. No one has forced them to create games that are niche and hated by the hardcore, while being ignored by everyone else. Nobody has forced them to bring extremely bad design decisions to one of the most iconic action franchises in gaming history and finally nobody has forced them to put a emphasis on MO-cap and cheesy stories over making sure they supply tight, immersive gameplay.

This is not a sport, this is a business. Either you provide what the market demands or you go out of business. I find it absolutely disgusting that after failure to tap the launch era market (HS), failure to capture the multiplatform market (enslaved) and the imminent failure to capture the stylish action market, Im still reading overblown opinion pieces from journalists trying desperately to justify their overrated opinions.

You liked heavenly sword and enslaved. We get it. You want more games like that. We get that too. But who the bloody hell are you to think that we want our favorite franchises dragged through the mud just so you can get your daily andy serkis jerkoff?

"Gamers" like any consumers, should support the products the like and enjoy. Simple as that. If people prefer the enslaved, hand-holding, bad framerate and crappy performance mixed with great facial animation style then they should support it. If Gamers prefer the iconic, slightly cheesy excellent gameplay style of DMC, they should support that too. You are up your own ass, giving your subjective opinion as facts why we should alter our subjective choices.

What maddens me the most is where are the similar articles for platinum games, rare, game republic, grin, 3D releams ,Ubisoft Montpellier, etc. What is so unique about Ninja theory that they invoke torrent after torrent of sycophantic articles, lambasting gamers for voting with their wallet and making their preferences known? Why can those developers go through the same difficulties without champions and cheerleaders such as yourself?

I will make this quite clear. I cant wait for the day NInja theory closes its doors. Not because I hate their work, i could actually care less. I dislike the developer because its clear that they rely more on "favors" within the industry than on their own talent. When Enslaved flopped, there was a bunch of articles complaining just like you are, there have been twitterings that thy only got the DMC contract because they were pally pally with someone inside capcom US, not their talent, and now this. If their games are so great? why do we even need articles like this? Great games are self evident to mature gamers who have a good understanding of the art form.

The only conclusion is NInja theory create crates of crap, wrapped in pretty bows. Gamers can see through this and rightfully critique the company. If you don't like it, tough tits.

Good read, and personally, I didn't mind the platforming too much in Enslaved. It wasn't the greatest, but it wasn't enough to deter from the whole product. That game's storytelling really was some of the best I've played in awhile.

Devil May Cry has "notoriously bad writing"? Since when?

@Zim And my HS first playthrough was 10 hours, what can you say about that? But there is no difference between a 5-hour game and an 8 hour game, if I want a long game, I play RPG, 50 hour rpg like star ocean, resonance of fate and final fantasy

I loved whole half human half demon, evil brother, hero of human kind Sparta (their father).
I have read all books and they really make story of the games fit.Devil May Cry 4 was bullshit tho..Dmc 3 had just that kind of story that action game needs.
And Dante was the coolest guy ever.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like they didn't change Dante that much. They made his hair dark and gave him the foresight to invest in a shirt, as opposed to hacking and slashing essentially topless. He also looks a little bruised and bloodied, but those seem like they would be business as usual in his line of work.

@demonfox13 - The fact you listed games from over 4 generations ago should tell you something is wrong. Do you think games haven't changed at all? You also listed CoD a game that is mainly played for multiplayer. How good was Heavenly swords multiplayer? DmC 4, NG2, GoW3, Bayonetta are all much longer than heavenly sword and in the same genre. They also have far more content.

@heavenly warrior You haven't played Vanquish or are lying. Or more likely are reading an ill informed article. My first playthrough of Vanquish took around 7 hours. The developers even commented on the 4hour comment stating that it would surprise the hell out of them if someone did their first playthrough in 4 hours. Eurogamer even tested the 4 hour comment. They timed their first playthrough and ended up with nearly 9 hours. They then even timed how long the game had been with all their deaths cut out and all cutscenes cut out and it was 5 hours.

So to have a 4 hour playthrough you would have to not die at all, skip every cutscene and still be extremely good to make up the extra hour over a normal gamer. The reason for so much confusion about how long Vanquish is is actually due to people having no sense of time and relying on what the game says. The in game timer doesn't count cutscenes and also if you die it resets the timer back to the checkpoint it loads. So even if someone finishes vanquish and the in game timer says 4 hours it wouldn't actually be how long they played the game unless they didn't die and skipped every cutscene.

Stupid article, developers make stupid decitions with simple stuff like character design and we (the gamers) are suppose to be the "patient" and "comprehensive" ones?

Support games to are made to be fun and just for the sake of being "artistic". Support games where you write your history instead of trying to understand whatever the designer was trying to tell you

Don't support this crap

I never like the character models in any of their games. Only heavenly sword I some what enjoyed. Enslaved sucked and I regret paying $20 for it. This new Dante looks ugly and I'm not excited about it at all. If combat is reminiscent to HS or Enslaved I refuse to even give it a chance.

if heavenly sword gets trophy patch, i would get it

I don't understand why people don't like HS, I love the gameplay, love the story and love the characters

Enslaved is the evolution of heavenly sword, but it isn't a hack and slash game, it's a new thing

You complain about HS, but vanquish is a 4-hour game

platinum games games don't have any content, just action, it's like an nes game in HD

I loved Heavenly Sword so much. The first PS3 game i played :)

Wait a second...people complain that games like Heavenly Sword were short???? Hmmm how long does it take to beat Super Mario Bros. 1, Castlevania 1, SMB 3, COD SP campaigns, among many games out there that were considered "great"? Alot of these so-called gamers are either new, or have forgotten the NES era games that weren't RPGs or called Metal Gear. Hell I was able to finish Megaman 2 in roughly a few hours if that. I am not saying Dmc will be great, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt despite me not liking Dante's look.

For some reason VGC cut off my post.. It's sad Platinum Games titles don't sell as well as other less polished games. They need to advertize more.

@ HeavenlyWarrior - I never said a good clone. Ninja Theory does not have a good track record of making good action games, and what's sad is that's all they make. DmC is going to be anohter 8/10 game, and it's a shame because Devil May Cry 3 was probably the best action game ever made.

Also Heavenly Sword was only an okay game, doesn't justify the 4 hour story. Enslaved was meh. This gen the action genre has suffered.

Ninja Theory just doesn't make Action games to the level of polish and quality Shenmue, Ninja Gaiden, or DMC3 were.

If we are to support any company, it's Platinum Games. Not only are there games risky and different, but they are all really awesome. Vanquish was like no other game I ever played before, and it's sad that such a game sells <1 million in combined HD console sales. On top of that, they are Japanese, when was the last time a good Japanese studio flourished? We have to support them, without major Japanese companies like Nintendo, Sony and Square Enix, who knows what gaming would have been like today. Imagine how diverse gaming can be if Platinum Studios games sold better.

While i loved Heavenly Sword and Enslaved i do not want Ninja Theory messing with Devil May Cry. If it was a new IP then i would be happy to give them a chance but this is like Nintendo deciding that for the next Zelda game you play as an emo who goes around killing people with a shotgun "just because".

yeah, crappy imitation punk culture. This isn't channeling the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones, or Black Flag. It's AFI.

Time to rope it in there, haters. "Fanboy-ism"..seriously? ...READ the page, people. It's an EDITORIAL. Editorials are OPINIONS. Full stop. The article was dead on in terms of NT's strengths. Undeniably excellent graphics and storytelling as well as generally well received reviews. So long as Capcom sends in a team to help tighten the controls there are no reasons why the game can't be a successful revamp. I have to comment on the 'twilight' crack. Can anyone actually logically explain what that means? How exactly does he look like a character from twilight? Which one? Does this Dante look like someone 13-year old girls would put up a poster of in their bedrooms and swoon over? The new Dante's based on PUNK culture, which is different from goth/emo and world's removed from the clean pretty boy image of twilight.

and whoever said the gameplay was dark and depressing...there is absolutely no indication about how DEPRESSING the game actually will be. Cool it and wait till you actually see the bloody thing.

I prefer short games that are well developed than filler games like dead space

@radha Stop baseing your opinions on what you read, if you want to read good things about enslaved, go to the AIAS website, Enslaved competed in 6 categories, and only red dead redemption was in more categories than enslaved

but anyway , why are their games considered a risk? because they are new ip? no sir, red dead redemption was a risk and it succeed, why? it was well made and long. For what i have read their games are simple clones and short.

oh i would like to correct that i dint pay for enslaved, i got a US$20 gift card from amazon for buying LA noire and i decided to give it a chance

i have never played any of their game, i bought enslaved the day my ps3 was fried by la noire, but there is one thing im sure of, new dante looks like hilary swank in boys dont cry and i want to play a bad ass dante not this androgynous dante. I decided not to buy this after reading tameen antoniedes's "i dont care" reply to the fan reaction so i wont care about their games, lets see how that goes.

Without getting into spoiler territory, I'm still not really sure how I felt about it. It probably depends somewhat on how it was meant to be interpreted. For me I'd say there are a lot of parallels between Trip and P___ (can't remember when it was talked about in the story, but to be safe). I found Trip incredibly selfish all the way to the end. I don't really think that is what they were going for though. I just couldn't find Trip and Monkey's relationship believable after all she did.

And tell me
What do you think about the ending of enslaved? Isn't it perfect?

@Yakuzaice That's cause you played the ps3 version, I played it too and I don't care abot these bugs, my friend played the 360 version and he didn't experience any of those. Enslaved just have simple mechanics, why does it have to be complex? In god of war you just press 3 buttons

This article in no way makes me want to support Ninja Theory.

@heavenlywarrior
You can check the trophy thread, I have the Enslaved platinum. Both IGN and Gamespot gave Enslaved an 8. Probably about 2 or 3 points higher than I'd have given it. The framerate was awful, the audio was regularly absent or out of sync in both gameplay and cutscenes, I encountered multiple freezes or bugs that forced me to exit the game. Then you get into the completely mindless platforming, and boring waves of enemies. Enslaved, in my opinion, is a rather bad game.

If you want a long game, go play an rpg, I don't mind if the game is 5 hours, if they are 5 good hours, there are 10 hour games with 6 hours of unimportante things, that doesn't happen with heavenly sword

If heavenly sword was a clone of god of war, you wouldn't bash it

Ninja Theory takes risks? HEavenly Sword was a 4 hour clone of God of War, and Enslaved was nothing special. No Ninja Theory will ruin DmC.

Gamers need to support Platinum Games. For those who have played Vanquish, Mad World and Bayonetta, you know what I mean. Every game is very different, and very good, yet none of them sell well. Support Platinum Games, one of very few newly developing Japanese companies.

Half of the people complaining about HS and Enslaved didn't beat the game, and are complaining cause IGN and Gamespot complained. Return to call of duty, that's where you belong

Simple as that: All their games are mediocre, their idea of Dante's look is horrible and I don't care if they take risks or not. I take risks myself in my job but I got talent at what I do and they don't.So no, I don't need to support anyone I don't want to.

I'm afraid I need to agree with the accusation of fanboy-ism here. This is mostly trying to get people to buy from a specific company cause 'they're really cool and stuff'. Now, I rather enjoyed Enslaved, because I generally am a fan of platformer style games designed in that way. It wasn't everyone's cup of tea, but that's normal. However, Heavenly Sword was probably one of the single most disappointing things I played back when I got it. If you know what you're doing, the game doesn't take more than four or five hours to finish. It looked pretty and had some interesting points, granted, but it was far from the blockbuster that was promised with it. So, not great, but reasonable stuff. Very middle road.

Either way, the author is missing the point quite thoroughly, I think. People aren't angry because of who's making it, but because a lot figure that they're pissing all over a relatively iconic franchise while the company screeches how the fans are basically not getting it because new Dante is an artistic difference.

Plead all you want with the readers, Mr. Author, but when someone posts that picture up of the new Dante, followed by pretty much telling the fans that they get to suck it up and deal with it because they're not changing it back? Yeah, that's not going to translate into sales...

HS is one of my favorite games. I really enjoyed the way the story grabbed you, pulled you in, and made you not want to stop playing the game until the conclusion.

I havn't played Enslaved but I did play Heavenly Sword and that game was trash, I want my 20 dollars back. There were so many flaws with the game design and enemy design it was completely monotonous I had more fun with Beast Rider. And the story was garbage, there was no background story to anything and they explained nothing. Though I'm sure Enslaved has a good story, but I doubt they got the combat down. I highly doubt Ninja Theory knows how to do a combo system, which is what Devil May Cry prides itself on.

Really Ninja Theory? There are much more worthwhile companies to write about. They take risks? Where exactly? In the half naked female lead? The one where you even posted a picture of her half naked? A female warrior who wears a bikini. That is taking risks?

And adapting Journey to the west is risky? Did the writer do any research at all? Journey to the west has been adapted into multiple movies, Tv series, comics, video games and most of all lets not forget that Dragonball was initially an adaption of it. In fact I imagine a fair amount of the millions of people who know of dragonball were reminded of it by the talking pig and character using a staff with what looks like a tail.

I mean the premise of the article is ''DMC is a game series that has always been liked for super tight gameplay and over the top coolness and extremeness is being handled by a developer who make loose gameplay and grounded characters''. I would imagine that many people who like DMC (like myself) like the fact that it is crazy and over the top and don't really want a depressing and more grounded Dante.

Why not write about companies like Platinum games? A company that makes games with near perfect gameplay and amazing style. Double fine who inject every part of their game with character. Remedy with trying to create a complex psychological thriller. Quantic dream for trying to blend cinema and games. Or jeeze even mistwalker for integrating short novels into Lost Odyssey to tell side stories.

To long didn't read, but i like Ninja Theory and imo its a good developer for a DMC game. But unless they change the look of Dante i will not buy the game, why change what already works?

"Interaction doesn't necessarily mean you get to make all the choices."> But the more choices you have the more you are really interacting with the game. But on the other hand the more you add narrative aspects the more those choices are going to be limited. Thats' the contradiction. In other words interaction and narration never go well together : if you add more narration then you have to give less interaction and the opposite is of coursealso true as well.

Of course video games give you a big sense of involvement but... again the more you have narrative aspects the more you have to follow a strict narrative path so the less you have choices and so the less you feel like you are really involved... Do you see what I mean?

Narration in facts makes this involvement less important while interaction enhances it, which again proves that interaction is what should really matter when it comes to video games not narration. So who is missing the point again?

Just because a developer takes risks doesn't mean that they are anything special. The argument is very flawed. I've played both games and they are average at best. If a game developer wants my loyalty, they need to make games that are more than average.

Gum: You're completely missing the point. Interaction doesn't necessarily mean you get to make all the choices. Granted there are games like that, but interactivity merely means you personally partake in the story. I'm not talking about lame choose-your-own-adventure ripoffs, I mean that the unique aspect of video games is that you feel like you are the one living out the experience, not passively watching someone else. When you play a Zelda game, you don't say "Link just beat the Water Temple," you say "I just beat the Water Temple." When you read Lord of the Rings you don't say "I just threw the ring into Mount Doom," you say "FRODO just threw the ring into Mount Doom." You have a very limited definition of what the game medium can do, and I feel like that's a bit hypocritical considering it's exactly what you're arguing about. I'm glad people like Fumito Ueda, Ken Levine, Warren Spector, and Tetsuya Mizuguchi recognize and are exploring video games' distinct opportunities to tell compelling narratives.

@A203D
Why do you expect DMC to prove they are a better developer than Santa Monica when they couldn't come close with Heavenly Sword or Enslaved?

Was anyone asking for a new DMC with lousy combat, an awful framerate, and full of bugs, but a decent story?

mouse_clicker: the point of video games is basically interaction and this aspect is in total contradiction with the point of telling a story because if you give interaction you give choices and so you can't force the player to follow a narrative path. That's pure and simple logic and you can't change that. There have been many attempts to tell complex stories in an interactive way with games but really none of them has been really compelling for that matter. But really who cares? Video games don't need to tell stories to be an art.

The companies that need support are ones like Platinum Games (former Clover) who create licenses as strong as DMC not the ones that as they aren't able to change those mechanics can only focus on BS aspects like "characterization", "interactive story telling" or cinematics... Trying other approaches like this one, ok why not but is it really the kind of games that gamers should mainly support? Certainly not. People that like games should probably support much more the developers that really want to make games not the ones that are movie makers wannabes.

You highlighted exactly where the problem was: if you yourself think their gameplay is at best mediocre, then what are these guys doing? If they're good at cinema and storytelling and only so-so in the gaming dept, that just says it's a team of people in the wrong industry

I like ninja theory so yea.

Gum: I both agree and disagree with you. I agree that video games, and art in general, don't necessarily have to tell a story, and our push for innovation in game design should not reside solely in narrative structure. However, I disagree that a push for innovation in video game story telling is an exercise in futility. I think gaming has the potential to tell a story in a truly unique way, and this absolutely needs to be fostered in the way Bioshock, Shadow of the Colossus, and REZ are doing. That is to say, ditching the pseudo-film approach of telling a story through myriad cut scenes and taking advantage of the game medium's interactivity, which is its real strength. Both approaches need to be taken, one is not better or more important than the other.

excuse me, RISKS?????? Don't make me laugh, NT is full of nothing but a bunch of pompous, unproven hacks who are passive-aggressively ashamed of being game developers. Antoniades' comments regarding criticism towards their crappy attempt at DmC only prove that he's a pathetic man-child with security issues. They DESERVE to fail with how pretentious and dull their games are

This "interactive storytelling" crap is exactly what is wrong with video games nowadays. I will certainly support companies that take risks in terms of gameplay which is what video games are and always should be about and where they really shine. Some people like the author of this article probably don't get that art doesn't mean necessarily telling a story but that creating an addictive gameplay can be art too and that's what video games are about. Video games are at their best artistically speaking when they try to innovate in terms of gameplay not when they try -and inevitably fail- to tell a story. So no, sorry no support from me, quite the opposite in fact to companies like this one and the author of this article that just don't get what is the real artistic strength of video games.

Why is anyone excited about a new Devil May Cry anyway? The first one was great, and it was a real kick in the pants to the action game genre. And the other 3 were boring retreads of the exact same thing, just never quite as good. Add on to that the countless ripoffs released since (the God of War Series, the modern Ninja Gaidens, Heavenly Sword itself, even Kamiya's own Bayonetta, ie DMC with a girl), and that action style is played out. I'd rather see DMC and its ilk go away for good, I'm sick of people acting like it's not a decade old.

I've supported Ninja Theory since i heard they were taking on DmC. while i thought Enslaved couldve been a bit better, i enjoyed it and i think NT are great at creating realistic characters in believable scenarios. fans should stop complaining. would you prefer to have a game like Bayonetta (while i loved it) it was a perverts wet dream - and western gamers arnt going to buy that - yes of course some will buy the majority will not.

or would you rather have something like God of War, where the characters are believable, the story is excellent, the gameplay is accessible to a wider auidence and the game itself is a phenominal experience. which is what Ninja Theory will do - why? because frankly they're better than Santa Monic and they will prove it with DmC.

"How many other developers look to ancient Chinese literature as their source material?"

How about Koei, who has made almost a dozen Dynasty Warriors games, not to mention Romance of the Three Kingdoms which is based off the source material of the same name? Or Konami, who made Suikoden which is based off Outlaws of the Marsh?

This is nothing new, exciting, or important. Quit drooling over a derivative, awful developer.

Imo it's SEGA that needs that support.

Taking risks and falling flat on your face is not commendable. Heavenly Sword was unplayable trash and Enslaved was only a tiny bit better. If I cared that much about the fact that they ripped off Journey to the West, I'd just read Journey to the West instead of playing a bush league attempt at a video game. Good stories in games are nice, but they are icing on the cake. A game needs to be playable, and until Ninja Theory makes a game that even comes close to that, I will take a big pass on this and every other game they release.

Also, how is this news? Blatant fanboyism in the guise of game journalism pretty much illustrates why the entire video game community will never be respected.

Game-play is most important to me so if they screw up the awesome fighting style in DMC I'll not buy the game and encourage others not too. They have been mediocre at mechanics so far and the mechanics are what make DMC so great. Heavenly sword isn't terrible game-play wise and I'll forgive it because it's a new IP but if they screw DMC I'll swear them off forever.

I don't care about stories that much. A good story is a strong point for a game for me but game-play is the selling point. This is the reason I think the Uncharted series is pretty good and not excellent. Great cinematic but the game-play is nothing special. I will be buying Uncharted 3 btw I just won't praise it.

Sorry, but the support of a developer hinges on the output and quality that they have already released. Both HS and Enslaved were average to poor games. HS was short, full of technical problems and really was a backward step in gameplay over other action games. Enslaved had an interesting, but cliched story, fairly decent art direction, but a poorly executed, simplistic gameplay style. When they are now in charge of a reboot of DMC, a fan favourite that hinges on strong gameplay elements and a smooth framerate, it causes concern and rightfully so.

An article like this seems nothing more than fan lip-service.

DMC and Heavenly Sword can be left behind for all I care, what I really want is more Enslaved. It's a great world and the character are so well developed. With some platforming tweaks a sequel could be even better.

I read it- and Ill just say this. Ninja theory makes bad games. And bad stories.

I have to admit I cringed when I read 'Twilight'. Fanatic teen girls piss me off more than anything.

To many ps3 exklsuive games releasing. So no i wont be buying their next game. They did much better as ps3 exklusive but as they are multiplattform now they are not on my list. Only buy big multiplattform games if i buy a multiplattform game.

tl;dr

But new dante sucks