The life of a guy in China, a crazy life it is......

• 15Aug 07

  God of War VS Ninja Gaiden VS Devil May Cry Part 3

  The battle continues...after a long delay....

  Round 6:Enemy (Including bosses)-DMC>NG>GOW

  Note here that DMC refers to the entire Devil May Cry series, so if count them one by one, that's a lot of enemies. All very well designed with quite a bit of creativities, from Marionets to the 7 hells, from Nelo to Vergil. Grunts and bosses all look great and original (though the 7 hell idea's pretty dumb). Ninja Gaiden also has a large amount of enemies, BUT many of them are just upgraded lesser grunts, they still has the same moves but just hurt more. Still being a ninja could havemeant just fighting bunch ofother ninjas, but in NG it means fighting commandos with guns and rockets launchers, fiends from the depth of hell, and zombies(what?!). Fightings these enemies with a katana is just pure fun, the bosses aren't all that original, but seriously, ninjas don't go fighting tanks, choppers, cyborg, worms, and fire dragons in the old days. So the great thing about the enemies in NG is not its originality, it's just that...it's hard to imagine a ninja fighting those things, and been able to fight them is just pure fun. God of War has some great enemydesigns, but due to the game's background (ancient Greece), the enemies really don't have that much space to further develope, so we end up seeing generic and classic enemies from Greece mythologylike minotures, harpies, gorgans and such. Only in this game they look more violent and bloody, it is true that the bosses in the game are just awesome to see, why? Cause they are huge! But size doesn't mean much, for they are pretty similar to what I've imagine they would look. Can't blame them, the enemy designs are seriously great, and we really can't expect Zeus coming out in a cyber suit now can we?

  Round 7ifficulty-NG>DMC>GOW

  I used to call Ninja Gaiden a game where the health slot is no more then a decoration, why? Simple, people hurt you and they hurt you good. Aggressiveness is the key word here, if there are four or more enemies in the room, you'll know what's good for you and never let go of the block button, Ha! Then I'll been safe right? HELL NO, try blockinga Lava Dragon's bite. Pretty much EVERY enemy in the game has a unblockable grab attack (except bats) and they hurt as hell, same to the bosses, no matter what they do, if you get hit, it hurts. Not mentioning on harder difficulties, there will grunts helping the boss out. So after dodging and dodging and you finally see the boss' opening, you lunge forward to attack only to be knocked down by a worthless grunt(Can kick your A$$ though), how frustrating is that!Now to Devil May Cry, hell the third one is just hard, listen to me, DMC 3 is very hard! It's not like NG where it's just hard all round, DMC 3 tends to get incredibly hard on higher difficulties. For a DMC veteran, the DMD difficulty is just a hardcore mad stylish party (but I said nothing about easy...), but your first time through DMD will be grueling, bosses' attack patterns change, grunts become super aggressive, in many levels enemies change into the most annoying combination possible (Hell Vanguard+Soul Eater=Dead Dante), and of course, enemies can now devil-triggered, meaning higher attack, higher defence, and harder to be launch in to the air. All these are made solely to made your life harder playing DMC. As for God of War, because it sort of lack the replay value needed for people to try out higher difficulties, the difficulty design is quite simple, more enemies, higher damage, higher defence, less power ups. That's it.

  School is starting again so I'm not sure if I'll ever finish the fight (where did thatphrase come from I wonder), but bye for now.

  • Posted Aug 15, 2007 8:26 am GMT
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• 30Jul 07

  God of War VS Ninja Gaiden VS Devil May Cry continues

  Sorry for the delay, I was busyplaying Ninja Gaiden to get a better idea for the game. Now let's continue shall we?

  Round 4:Combat-DMC>NG>GOW

  The word combat here means many things, I did plan to give DMC and NG a draw, but I thought "no". Why? DMC games are famous for their fluid and responsive controlls, you want to do a combo, as long as your fingers are fast enough, you can. And the fact that DMC abandoned much realism, mean Dante can switch between weapons instantly and do stuffs that don't make much sense (Jump Cancel for instance). And the thing that makes DMC different for the other two is that pretty much every move can be cancelled into another move, how to explain this? For example, tap square 3 times to use a Rebelion combo, but you can tap it twice and immediately use a high time, or maybe a stinger, all even which a weapon to continue the attack. With 5 different weapons and 5 different guns, plus 7 different styles, the possibilities here are countless. So why isn't NG better? Well, because this is my opinions only, I'll say it. NG also has responsive controll, and all the accesible skills of a ninja(wall run for example) can make a battle really fun a play,absorbing essence to use ultimate attack is fun and quite stratiegic, much is the same if not better than DMC. So why do I think DMC is better, NG falls behind, but only by a very very small margin. NG has a really complex combat system yes. But every move is fixed, when you fight, you don't connect move but you choose moves to use, so you see, sometimes things are not good if they're complicated. God of War, I belive, also suffers the fixed-movelist problem, and the action gets quite button-mashy, not to mention many moves are pretty useless, you use it, watch kratos go nuts with the blade of chaos(or Athena),but you don't kill many dudes.But I do believe GOW is a great leap for the western action games, Japanese seems have a clear idea of how to make combat feels so good.

  Round 5:Boss Fights:GOW>NG=DMC

  The boss fights in god of war 1 are disappointing, I mean....there are only 2 or 3 in the whole game. But in God of War 2, things changes, there are cool bosses everywhere, and they are all ready to stomp you into pieces. "Grand" is the word for the bosses in God of War 2, possibily "bloody" too, but definitely fun. The ways to defeat the bosses are always different, but always fun to play and breath-taking to watch.The boss fights in NG and DMC have their own good and bad, fighting bosses in NG usually means dodge dodge and dodge some more before the boss leaves an opening for you to quickly go in and strike. While in DMC, it means attack attack and attack some more before the boss lays a strike on you(some can be different, Nevan and Doppleganger). What I don't like about NG boss fights is that sometimes the boss tends to just purposely pock its head outand literaly says "Hit me I'm open!"and let you chop it for a while before sticking it back it (Fire Dragon is a good example),in DMC chopping the boss can be unsatisfying because many occasions, you attack them so hard but they don't even flinch (Cerberus, Beowulf.....). This round doesn't talk about the boss designs btw, only the gameplay during fights.

  Man that was long, the battle will soon continue, for now, I'm tired...

  • Posted Jul 30, 2007 6:20 pm GMT
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• 19Jul 07

  God of War VS Ninja Gaiden VS Devil May Cry

  Three familiar faces. Three games that stand at the very top of all 3D action games. Kratos the Spartan, Ryu the Ninja, and Dante the devil-hunter.So who truely is the greatest of all action games, I made a comparison of the 3 games in different catageries, I have played all 3 games, I've finished God of War and played a bit of God of War 2, I've played devil may cry 3 for more than50 hours, and I've finished Ninja Gaiden and played several missions, and I've pretty much got a basic idea about all 3 games,but I'll still need more info for the comparison to be fair, so I collected information from websites, and other friends. These comparisons are my opinions only, if anyone begs it differ, I'm happy to listen. So, let the battle commence!

  Round 1:Graphics-GOW=NG>DMC

  At first it's clear that Ninja Gaiden comes up at the top, with really smooth frame rate, detailed textures, and great animations. But then I realized that NG is on the Xbox while the other 2 games are on the ps2. By default, the xbox is more powerful than ps2 when it comes to engine. Then look at GOW, man, it truely is the best ps2 graphics I've ever seen (except Okami), especially when you stand below tall buildings or looking down upon city of Athen. So considering the console difference, GOW and NG is drawed on the graphics round.Well...DMC is not a BAD looking game, it's done pretty well, but clearly not as good as the other two. Occasional clippings here and there, and the texture is not as detailed. Maybe Capcom should do an Okami style action game sometime...

  Round 2:Sound-GOW>NG>DMC

  No arguements here right? Cinematic action with one of the best orchestral background music I've ever heard, that's what god of war offers, sometimes you in the middle of a puzzle and everything is quiet, when puzzle is solved and the gate opens suddenly this really grand orchestral music starts playing and feels so satisfying. It's always good to hear the god of war soundtrack occasionally.Ninja Gaiden has a great variety of music. from traditional japanese music to heavy metal, of course a bit of orchestrals,so the music changes as the story progresses.Well, devil may cry's music is usually just hardcore heavy-metal mixed with some chantings here and there and crazy sound effects, still good to hear when performing crazy combos to kick demons' asses, but because the action gets a bit too wild andsword slashing effects goes so loudsometimes, it's easy to ignore the music all together. and the battle song is pretty repetitive.

  Round 3:Story-GOW>DMC>NG

  Com'on, we all know how good god of war's plot is, it's got twists here and there, secrets about Kratos past, about the Gods.How Kratos escapes from death...twice! About Zeus' betrayal,the Titan's history,I was shouting "God that's just awesome!" when I see Kratos pick up the huge sword that he used as a bridge before to fight Ares in the first game, and meeting with all those cool Greece gods is also great. the game also quite long, so getting to know Kratos is a big thing about the god of war, no doubt, not many action games really cared so much about the story-line, but god of war did, and it worked. Devil May Cry series tend to have a theme for each of the games' story-line, the first game is "Love" and the third one is "Family"(never cared for the second), works pretty well, gives you an excuse to beat up tons of demons, and because the charactors are quite connected, not too repetetive, a few not-so-surprising surprises, generally it's nice. Ninja Gaiden on the other hand, is just abusing the old revenge plot over and over and over. The original game's about revenge(I believe....), and now in the 21st century,ninjas arestill going on revenge. It's just not funny...can't Team Ninja think of any other possible ways to get Ryu to go out and cut dudes??

  The first stage of the battle is over now, I have to go to bed, the second stage will come out within a week for I shall be going travelling for the next few days. Bye now!

  • Posted Jul 19, 2007 7:33 am GMT
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