"Let's Rock, Baby!"

With these epic words, Capcom's new Stylish Hard Action game begins. Is it stylish? Oh hell yeah. Is it hard? Surprisingly, yes. And action? You better believe there's action! Devil May Cry is a return to gaming's action roots; a mix between a 3D Castlevania and Street Fighter II Turbo. It's all action, all the time. Did I mention the action? Let's just say there's action, and leave it at that.

You play the role of devil hunter Dante, son of the Legendary Dark Knight Sparda, who vanquished the armies of Mundus 2000 years ago. That's about all you need to pay attention to, really. The story is utter b-movie tripe, and the dialogue is awful in some places, and downright hilarious in others. You'll end up skipping most of the cut scenes just to get past the stupidity and back to the sweet, sweet action. Action.

It's obvious the focus of the development was in the graphics and play mechanics, because that's where this game shines. The visuals are super excellent, featuring high-poly models and environments, nice textures, and great lighting. The architecture of the castle and it's surroundings are incredible. Capcom has crafted an incredible fantasy setting that would be right at home in the Castlevania universe. In fact, I often felt like I was playing a true 3D Castlevania game at times. Each and every enemy is rendered in exquisite detail, and everything is extremely well-animated.

The graphic engine isn't perfect, though. For one thing, Capcom refuses to acknowledge the existance of anti-aliasing on PS2. While most other developers have implemented some sort of edge-smoothing filter, Capcom is quite content with rampant jaggies. The aliased edges stick out all the more here, due to the bright, colorful environments and sharp lighting transitions. Shame, Capcom. There are also lots of seam-shredding issues, something that is quite rare in the upper-echelon of PS2 games. A little extra development effort would have alleviated some of these issues, and I'm a but disappointed they weren't addressed. The visuals are superb, but they could (and should) be much better.

But despite the nice scenery, the gameplay is where DMC shines. Simply put, this game is fucking awesome. Playing this game is akin to having a continuous mental orgasm. The controls are absolutely perfect, the best controls I've ever touched for a 3D action game. The amount of things Dante can do is staggering. Hack up enemies with Alastor, the lightning blade. Put the beat down on enemies with Ifrit, fiery gauntlets of DOOM! Blast away with 5 different ranged weapons, including handguns, shotguns and grenade guns. Dante can transform into a demon, and rain destruction down with lightning bolts, flames of hell or demon bullets fired from his guns. Dante can also fly, double-jump, duck and roll, climb walls and generally do whatever the fuck he wants. Juggling an enemy into the air and then blowing him to pieces with a grenade blast is fucking stylish!

Speaking of which, DMC constantly rates your peformance. Higher ratings yield more red orbs, which you'll need to unlock doors and purchase new skills. New skills will allow you to dispatch enemies more efficiently, thus earning higher ratings and more orbs. It's fun! There are 5 rankings: Dull (which you'll see often at first), Cool, Bravo, Absolute and Stylish! Obtaining a Stylish ranking requires continual comboing against hordes of enemies, so you're encouraged to jump right in and fuck some shit up. Action, yeah!

Each enemy requires different tactics to defeat. These fuckers are not one-trick ponies, either. They all possess multiple attack strategies and will have no problem tearing you a third corn chute if you're not careful. The boss fights are truly epic, and you'll end up fighting each of the 5 bosses a total of 3 times each. You'll need supreme patience and skill to defeat them, especially on the higher difficulties. If you think Nelo Angelo 3 is tough on Normal, wait until he kills you in 2 hits on Dante Must Die...

The camera is the fixed variety that Capcom is so fond of. At times you might be yearning for a fully-rotatable 3D camera, but I think it would just be an added layer of complexity to deal with in the heat of battle. It's great that I don't have to worry about playing with the camera when I'm surrounded by hot action. God, the action.

There are 4 difficulty settings in Devil May Cry. Easy Automatic, which is for pussies. Normal, which is hard. Hard, which is very hard. And DANTE MUST DIE!, which is... well, it's goddamn impossible. Bad kitties! BAD FUCKING KITTIES!!! *ahem* Unlike most of the games released in the past half-decade, Devil May Cry is challenging. It's hard, and you'll end up swearing at your television and punching yourself in the skull quite a few times. And really, this is a refreshing change. I honestly believe that this is the first good action game to come along since the 16-bit era. That's over 5 years, folks. Oh... um, action.

So yes, where was I? Oh right, action. This game is pure unadulterated action. Capcom has produced a nearly perfect hack-n-slash-shoot-em-up-balls-to-the-wall action gaming masterpiece. This type of game has long been gone from the landscape, and it's a breath of fresh air to throw my controller down in frustration once again. Buy this fucking game. 23 action-crammed missions, 12 secret missions, 3 playable characters, 3 insane difficulty levels and Trish's tits hanging out the whole game.

In the words of the immortal Dante: "Jackpot."