So I finally finished the (first?) installment of so hated Devil May Cry franchise reboot.
Before I go any further, it is very important to note that, before tackling this, I had only played a tiny bit of DMC3 and a few missions from DMC4. If this automatically invalidates the rest of my post, feel free to stop reading!
I played this game while trying to keep in mind that this is just a game. I tried to play this as "a good hack n' slash game" and not exactly as a "Devil May Cry game". And it's a good game. It's not over the top great, but it's definitely not bad or mediocre at all. It's a pretty good and solid game.
The reason I shamefully haven't played more of the original DMC is because, for some reason, the hack n' slash genre was something I never really cared much for until I played the first God of War back in 2010. How the hell did I miss this? This is awesome. So, at what it does, DmC is pretty good. I suppose there are some things that might be lacking and others different, but from my experience in DMC3 and DMC4, this is undeniably a DMC
I get it that people can complain about the character not being so badass and being instead some kind of "eurotrash emo punk faggot" whatever blah blah, sure I didn't really appreciate it much at first, but by the second half of the game I didn't really find this new Dante dislikeable at all.
One thing I can say is perhaps that, as the original trilogy kind of represented stuff that was cool in the late 90's and early 2000's, this one has a 2010's vibe. And be it good or bad (dubstep + nu metal = bad, for the most part), it's still some kind of representation of what's going on right now, culture wise, a registry piece.
I also particularly liked the visual aesthetics of the game. The whole thing of everything breaking down into bits looked pretty good and worked well.
My wrist hurts alot, so I'm just going to stop writing. Overall though, if you're looking for a good hack n' slash game and have already played others and/or are out of viable options, then yes I recommend this. You might however want to try out DMC3 and DMC4.
Just accept that it's a different game. This won't replace the original series. This is and will always be the "new" DmC. The old DMC is still there and is still the original, still kicking ass, any time you want.
Since this is a rather personal blog I suppose it would be best to profile myself in a few more ways, although the more obvious reason for me to do this is to be able to look at this post 15 years from now and laugh at it because MEtAL fr0m TEh FuTuR3!!1!11oneone
Anyway, as a gamer and musician myself, I'll just make this list of my 15 favorite albums, in an effort of not repeating artists and varying music genres, because meh.
Also easter egg somewhere hidden in this post!
15 albums. Then why are there 17 here, you ask? I just had to leave these two special mentions.
Rammstein have carved a soft spot in my heart because they are THE band that got me into metal when I was about 13 years old, so they deserve a special mention. And at the time, their most recent album was Mutter (2001), and even though I might not have listened to it as much as I did 2004's Reise, Reise, this is their best work in my opinion. For the course of their 5 first albums, they evolved their sound to be less crispy-riffy to be more melodic. This is the middle album, and it shows that perfectly. It showcases the blend of both old and new Rammstein.
Dream Theater was the band that got me into progressive rock/metal a couple years later. And Images and Words (1992) is possibly their best album, next to masterpieces like Scenes From a Memory and, what I usually say was their last great album before they went downhill, 2002's successor Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence.
Moving on!
15. Stupid Dream (1999)
Porcupine Tree
Had real trouble picking between Spawn of Possession's Incurso (immediatly scraped because there's more tasty death metal on this list), Camel's 1975 prog rock masterpiece The Snow Goose, and The Flashbulb's Love As A Dark Hallway. Went with this one, because, well, because Porcupine Tree. This album is love.
Beautifully crafted classic album, blasted it alot during my late high school days, so it always reminds me of good times. Surprisingly, their latest album that just came out this year after a long hiatus, Surgical Steel, isn't very far behind, it's packed with amazing catchy riffs and I feel it could totally pass as Heartwork's direct follow up. Bill Steer and Jeff Walker haven't negatively aged a bit in musicality.
The whole 'djent' thing was alright while it lasted, but by the time of Periphery's successor to this album in 2012, it had already gotten old, with every band trying to do exactly the same. Putting that aside, I can't deny this is a great album with some great riffs and moods, and I loved listening to it during the time I did it extensively. - - Buttersnips
12. Play (1999)
Moby
This is a classic album. Nearly every song on it is great. It got 12 music videos and 8 singles in the span of about 3 years, and there's a funny story behind the conception of the album. Definitely had to put this one on the list.
Necrophagist was the very first tech death band I had the pleasure to listen to back when I started high school. While I wasn't very keen on the genre at first, Onset of Putrefaction eventually grew on me. Epitaph takes its place here instead though, but both albums are equally amazing and incredibly fucking tasty. Unfortunately we'll only get a new album in 2047 if we're lucky. - - Only Ash Remains
10. Focus (1993)
Cynic
Born from ex members of Death, Cynic incorporates technical death metal, jazz fusion and prog rock in a unique blend of styles that makes this album some of the finest and most unique ear candy around, and this one album won't be easy to top. - - I'm But a Wave To...
9. Colors (2007)
Between The Buried And Me
It's hard to pick an album by BTBAM, but this is possibly my favorite, as a whole. I had a blast seeing these guys live, it was probably the tiniest international venue I've ever been to so far. No further comments need to be made on this album when there's this link:
This album came out on 06/06/06. And while that's not a reason to make this an absolutely excellent album, it really is that awesome. This was a truly pioneering band, and it's a real shame they ended up splitting up after only a couple albums. This was the second one, and it features some amazing songwriting.
Planetary Duality is an amazing album as a whole, but it's some of Akeldama's singular tracks that strike me more memorably, and the addition of keyboards add even more uniqueness to the already very distinct riffing and composition style by this band. Also that title track <3
I first listened to this album when it came out, and by the time Omnivium came out I somehow kind of just forgotten about it and spent more time listening to its successor. But this album is indeed superior, with a wider load of catchier riffs, and a fine example of modern technical death metal. - - Universe Momentum
5. Moving Pictures (1981)
Rush
Rush should be labeled "happy rock" or something. It gets you in the mood for anything. It's hard to pick an album by this very progressive yet very accessible classic band, but this one's the most nostalgic one for me, and also generally their most well known album. Their whole discography is very worthy of listening to though. Many times over.
Gold/Silver has one of my favorite game soundtracks of all time, and the DS remake of the games brought some very instrumentally rich arrangements of the original songs, a true breath of fresh air after Diamond/Pearl's rather unoriginal and dull music (in my opinion).
If Rush is happy rock, Devin Townsend is happy metal. This guy is hands down my favorite music artist of all time (if I don't count Nobuo Uematsu, but that's another story). I had some trouble picking between this album and his first release, Ocean Machine (1997). I actually listen to the latter more often, but the mood in this one is so great, always makes me feel like I'm lost deep in a forest without a single care in the world or some shit. And the production is so good. (To note that it's Devin himself who produces his own music).
If you're not into metal, well first off, shame on you! And secondly, this is a good album to start off. And perhaps the Devin Townsend Project's first 4 albums, they're also an interesting experience, and feature one of the best female singers around, Anneke van Giersbergern. Then you can move on to Ocean Machine, Infinity, or Ziltoid: The Omniscient, if you like aliens, coffee beans, hyperdrive, and overall zanyness.
Also known simply as Illinois, this is the second album of what fantastic artist Sufjan Stevens later admitted to be a "promotional gimmick" - the Fifty States Project, which as one may guess, would be a series of 50 albums, one for each American state. It's a shame, because the first album, concerning Michigan (2003), is such an incredible album, and it's outstanding how Illinois is even so much better.
And this guy is unreal. He records his material using lo-fi equipment and cheap ass microphones, and literally plays almost every instrument featured on the record.
I couldn't count if I tried the number of times I've happily fell asleep with this album playing, be it in bed at home or in a tent somewhere in the middle of the night staring at the stars. Yes this just sounded cheesy as fuck, but I can't really put into words just how much I love this album. It's impossible not to.
1. Final Fantasy VI Original Sound Version (1994) Nobuo Uematsu
To be expected, but hey, my favorite game of all time actually has my favorite soundtrack of all time. And we're talking about over 60 tracks of pure goodness.
This IS the album that got me into wanting to learn to play the organ in the first place when I was about 12 years old, when I first listened to Dancing Mad. So I really owe a lot to this magnificient piece of music. The extensive use of leitmotiffs that really put both the tracks and the game itself together in a way that hadn't really been seen in other games at the time is amazing and a true landmark. And don't get me started on that opera. It's not even among my favorite music of the game, but it's undeniably unique.
Seeing as this game ranks in my all time favorites list, I won't talk much more about it until some other time. In the meanwhile I'll leave a few tracks here (it really is impossible to pick anything), and my own attempt at covering the game's opening theme. Hope you enjoyed anything on this list!
Ah, Summer. It's coming to an end. These scenes will probably be a lot less frequent.
To be fairly specific, this is me falling asleep during one of Metal Gear Solid 4's cutscenes. I usually only have time to play after 2 AM so I'm sleepy as hell, and the cutscenes and sneaking don't help much, but I'm loving it so far.
This was my first Summer in 4 years in which I wasn't either getting fucked up in some god forsaken place, working on some impossible music project, dating, in a relationship, or all of those together in some awkward mix that would barely leave me time for much else. So I figured I'd do something I haven't had the time to. Make a list.
There are some games missing from here and a few others that I probably won't play, but I WILL play the majority of these. IT IS MY CAUSE.
Now, even though I've
only finished 5 of these so far - and 3 of them I had already finished
years before, mind that (MGS1, 2 and 3) - (and I'm a few minutes away of
finishing two others), I'm already getting kind of cool with it,
because my play time lately has greatly surpassed what's normal to me,
even though I've only been playing on average 1-2 hours a day,
considering I haven't been playing every day either.
As I mentioned before on my first post of this absurd blog, I've never been much the kind of guy who dedicates himself to one game. The only times when I did that were the times during which I played Habbo Hotel during 2004-2006 if I'm not mistaken (one day I'll write a post about that, I've had many funny stories to tell, not counting the 4chan habbo raids and all that), and Conquer Online, which was a fun free-to-play MMORPG that was a total ripoff of Diablo, which I played for about a year back when I started high school. I was pulled into it by the girl you'd least expect to spend more than 5 minutes straight in front of a computer so I was curious, and it was a pretty fun game. After that though, I couldn't play jack shit on my PC until 2011, when I built my own, so I found myself with a massive library of games I wanted to play, and even until this day I sometimes am not quite sure where to start off. Even with this list I made.
The only online game I've consistently played was Team Fortress 2. The game is absurdly fun, and in my last months of playing I used to spend more time on item trade websites and ingame trade rooms, in attempts of making profits trading keys and hats and whatnot. I've had many friends trying to pull me into MMO's and stuff like that (obviously mainly World of Warcraft), but I never really bought into it because the idea of having to pay a monthly fee to be able to play a game that I wouldn't ultimately play much because I'd be busy with my little creative things and my band, a very good idea.
A person who's very close and dear to me really tried to get me to play League of Legends with her, just as recently as some months ago. Everyone in my engineering college plays LoL. Every. Fucking. One. I remember when I started college, I actually thought there'd be alot of people using Steam and playing the regular stuff. But not really, only the few close friends I had made there. Deep down, I really wanted to play LoL with her, I know she really wanted to have something to play with me, and we did play Team Fortress 2a couple times, but she had played WoW for some years, so a MOBA was more of her thing. I really wanted to avoid playing a MOBA because I have a weak wrist, and I always avoid using mouse/keyboard for games, save for FPS's (which I rarely play, mainly for this reason) and a few other exceptions, but 90% of my gaming is done with a controller. But my main reason for not wanting to play, at least for the time being, is because of my massive pending library of games. I have over 120 games on Steam, and many of them I really won't ever play, but there's still so much stuff to play, I haven't even finished Half-Life 2 as of the time of this writing. Not even the first BioShock. Yep.
There are just too many masterpieces I need to finish before tackling something of the magnitude of an MMO or a MOBA (in this last case, if I want to get competitive).
Eh, part of me still feels like I owe an apology, because as a true gamer, I really should be able to open myself up to anything, especially with someone who you've been sharing gaming experiences for a while. However, I simply didn't want to dedicate most of my gaming time to a game that would require me to be constantly playing to be improving my skils, gaining experience, money, items, blah blah whatever, in a game in which I'd ultimately never be amongst the best playing. At least in Team Fortress 2, I could pop in and out whenever I wanted to, I could play for 5 minutes if I wanted to, I wouldn't have to wait an hour for a match to end if it lasted for that long, just to have intense backlash for my awful playing at the end of the match. In TF2, everyone's just having fun. All the time. TF2 really surpassed Ratchet & Clank 3 in terms of online fun for me, it was a fantastic and memorable experience. Are these bad reasons? Does this make me a bad person?
Random photo of stupidly huge game collection, for obvious illustration purposes.
Anyway, even though I haven't played that many games, I've finished more games than it's usual for my standards of... finishing games. And it feels great. It really does feel good. It's like connecting loose ends in my life. I wanted to play Metal Gear Solid 4 tonight, but I ended up playing two hours straight of Sacred Citadel with two buddies. It's a short game, and it has co-op, so fuck it, let's have some fun! And it was pretty fun. We're nearly half way through the game, and even though one part of me doesn't feel that much like picking it up again, the game is so short, that my dedication to finish those games makes me want to pick it up once again to get to the ending and achieve one more finale.
And as soon as my classes begin later this month, things will shift to what's usual. I'll be playing a couple of games in extremely long intervals (one of which is FFVII which I've been playing for over a year and I'm about 70% done with, because I play in bursts), and one will be wither Deus Ex: Human Revolution, or probably stuff I'll pick up on the PS3. But I'll be playing very sporadically, so it'll take me ages to beat them. And they'll probably only make around 20% of my extremely short gaming time.
The other 80% will probably be reserved to Borderlands 2 or sporadic online plays of co-op games, hopefully Dead Space 3 when I find someone to play with.
What I mean with all this though, is that I kind of feel like I've played enough, for now. Maybe I can hold off some months feeling good about my pending games, until I feel a need to finish a dozen of games again. Until then, I feel like I could tackle some online game for a while. Hell, maybe even League of Legends. I said one day I'd probably pick it up and play it for a considerable while, and one day I might just do that. I don't feel exactly ready yet, but I feel closer to being able to.
What I really feel closer to, is that after I finish Uncharted and MGS4, I'll really almost just stop playing games altogether. I've had my good run, I can hold it off for a few months now. Until that time comes, I'll just go blast shit up and pick up endless loot and laugh like a jackass with my friends on Borderlands 2. Damn, I've forgotten the appeal of awesome loot drops for over half a decade. Sounds like a plan!
To be perfectly honest, this will sound absurd, but after I finish a few more games I think I'll reach the point where I'd actually be up to play something like WoW vanilla if I had enough friends crazy enough to play with. For now, I just want to remind myself why it feels so good to finish many single player games and many different storylines and experiences. This.
The reason I shamefully haven't played more of the original DMC is because, for some reason, the hack n' slash genre was something I never really cared much for until I played the first God of War back in 2010. How the hell did I miss this? This is awesome. So, at what it does, DmC is pretty good. I suppose there are some things that might be lacking and others different, but from my experience in DMC3 and DMC4, this is undeniably a DMC 
I also particularly liked the visual aesthetics of the game. The whole thing of everything breaking down into bits looked pretty good and worked well. 
