OK the deep freeze taking over Northern Europe at the moment has meant that I at least had an excuse to be lazy and stay at home today so I have managed to play a couple of hours into both games. Here are my impressions.
Bayonetta first.
Story: WTF is going on ? Seriously I know it's the love child of the original Devil May Cry guy, but seriously can't we have a plot and cut scenes that make 'some' sense for a change. I'm all for quirky japanese pop culture but sometimes I really wish they would make a tangible story told in a way that people who haven't been pumped full of LSD can actually get to grips with and follow. Maybe I'm too old or somthing ? Basically its all over the place and makes little sense, just like most Japanese action titles.
Gameplay / Presentation : The game really does shine visually. The first 20 minutes of the game however feel a little out of your control, as the story takes over and your left playing a couple minutes here, 5 minutes of cutscenes followed by 2 minutes gameplay and then another 5 minute story cutscene etc... However thankfully once your over the first 35 minutes the gameplay settles in, and you realise that somehow you have learnt a 'few' basic combat moves to get you going. I say a few as the amount of combo's and button combinations is mind boggling.
Graphically the game does shine, if it's choice of locations don't really gel together, a problem I had with Devil May Cry's last outing also. That being said the frame rate so far has been lock solid, the pace frenetic (thank goodness for witch time) and some really nice particle and visual effects.
So far the game is very good, however it's certainly not worth the 'perfect' scores it acquired in some gaming press, but it is pretty much the 'pivotal' and essential example of its game genre and style.
However I do prefer..
Darksiders.
A tangible, well crafted story hold Darksiders together, and is interwoven into the solid game mechanics. Vigil's tale of Heaven, Hell and the Kingdom of Man is both well presented and realised.
Graphically the game certainly isn't as impressive as Bayonetta, it does have some lovely moments. However these nice moments are often tapered by some ugly Anti Aliasing issues during gameplay sections. What is interesting however is that during the in-game engine cutscenes there is an obvious utilization of AA absent from gameplay sections. I'm therefore unsure as to whether the game is using real time cutscenes / or pre-rendered cutscenes (albeit in-engine).
If they are real time, then it leaves me with some hope that maybe a patch by Vigil could bring in some measure of AA to the main game. They have already said they will patch the 360 version to fix the screen tearing issue, so maybe they will fix the PS3's jaggies.
However despite that issue, the gameplay thankfully is more than strong to make you overlook it's visual downfalls, and there are some lovely touches too. Bosses are well realised, Demons are impressive and animation is fluid and some of war's acquired abilities look impressive too.
Whilst I can understand the nods to Zelda and GOW, the game reminds me most of Viking Battle of Asgard, albeit a lot better. * I must be one of the few who liked Viking *
Both excellent games and it very unusual for two quite formidable and accomplished games to be released in January which normally remains a dead period of gaming.
Both certainly worth a purchase in my opinion.
