The Scoreboard #6

Even though it might still be too cold where you live to play your 360 without wearing gloves, a mini-stampede of promising pre-spring games has arrived at retailers. Thank the maker! What does that mean for you, heroes? It’s time to warm up those fingers cuz we gots the hot skinny on the newest Achievements around, right here, right now. Devil May Cry 4? Check. Turok? You know it. Culdcept Saga? Frak yes! We also have two more supa-dupa Xbox Live Arcade titles for your consideration: Discs of Tron and Rez HD. Plus, in case you missed the Achievements-fest that is The Simpsons game, we have another reader review, this time by Nick Norman aka shadowdude55. (Email us to send us your reader review).

Per usual, The Scoreboard puts every other pantywaist gaming site to shame by giving you the most crucial, investigative and probing gaming coverage you’ll find on the intertubez: we cover goddamned Achievements, biatches!

Devil May Cry 4

For all you Dante (and Nero) fans out there, you’re prolly smitten by now with the butter-smooth graphics and the beyond-frenetic gameplay in the DMC series, and the first to double-jump its way over to the 360. Thanks Capcom! For all you achievement fans, unless you’re really, really good at DMC games, this might as well be called Achievement Whores Will Cry. Meaning, the average gamer will unlock about 200 points (if you’re really trying) with a decent but par playthrough. Ouch! For everyone else, most notably those of you who pride yourselves on actually becoming truly skilled at a game in order to unlock these little gamerscore-boosting bastards, you will feel like you’ve died and gone to heaven. By far, DMC4 offers the most challenging and “most worthy of being called Achievements” Achievements…maybe in the entire 360 back catalog. That is, until Ninja Gaiden II comes out, of course.

Best achievement – Tonight, We Dine in Hell (10 pts.) Clear All Missions in Hell or Hell Mode. Faaaaaak. Remember the Dante Must Die Difficulty from DMC3? Hell or Hell is sooooo much harder. So much. This is one of the greatest tests of gamers mettle and hails back to a time when the simplest-looking games actually took months to master and beat. Remember beating the Toad Mother Ship on Bucky O’Hare, or that tortuously fast Wind Tunnel level on Battletoads? If you do, you know what I’m talking about. If you’re anything like me—I know I am—you’ll agree that few achievements in any 360 games can be classified as truly epic. This is one of the greats, one for the history books, one that will be immortalized in song by warriors in mead halls, spilling ale whilst they boom on and on in Gaelic verse about your kick-assery. You should get a medal from Capcom for unlocking this, emblazoned with 1000 karats of diamonds that spell out WIN!

Worst Achievement – Skill Collector (50 pts.) Acquire all of Nero or Dante’s skills. There are two of these, each worth 50 points (one for Dante and one for Nero), but they are a bit lame because they don’t really stand up to many of these gnarlier feats. That, and they’re not all that critical for gameplay. Sure, it’s great to have access to every important ability, but you’re going to be able to buy all of these skills if you keep playing through, and there are more than a few skills that don’t do anything to make combat any easier (like Air Hike, WTF?). For a game with such smart, challenging achievements, these and the Proud Soul achievements are a bit on the meh side. 

Easiest Achievement – Smokin'! (10 pts.) Complete a Stylish Rank S (Smokin'!) combo. Not that this is really easy on a Simpsons level or anything, but once you get the hang of the combat mechanics you’ll be pulling off Smokin’ combos and putting the smackdown on Scarecrows, Frosts. and Mephistos in no time.

Hardest Achievement – King of the Palace (20 pts.) Clear All Bloody Palace stages with an S Ranking. There was a time when one of the biggest brags in gaming was reaching the 9999th level of the Bloody Palace in DMC 3. In case you don’t know, Bloody Palace Mode (unlocked once you beat the game on Devil Hunter Difficulty) is simply an arena test where the game turns on the enemy faucet and never shuts off. This go-around, there’s 101 stages stretched over 10 circles, each with a boss at the end. Oh yeah, and it’s timed. Poop. You’ll actually unlock circle achievements along the way, which is a bonus, but beating this mode  is no short order; its nonstop barrage of enemies makes clearing every circle with an S ranking close to a godly achievement. More singing will ensue from stein-wielding warriors once you unlock this. I still haven’t made it past the 6th circle. For better or worse, this is my Mile High Club or Free Runner achievement for DMC4. God be with me!

Time Investment vs. payoff – 2 (out of 10) You can sink hours and hours into DMC4, often getting nowhere if a certain challenge proves too great. Once you’ve beaten the game on Devil Hunter Difficulty and start making your way through Son of Sparda Difficulty, Bloody Palace and the remaining three difficulties (there are a total of six difficulties, requiring six playthroughs. Ugh!), you’ll have lost more of your life to Dante and all the backtracking in this game than you handed over to Oblivion and Mass Effect combined. 

Overall – 8 (out of 10) Even though the game is hella difficult and will likely not yield much of a gamerscore boost for the average gamer, Devil May Cry 4 represents a return to truly difficult hardcore video games, and stands out with few peers among it in the 360 library. Personally, I think this whole casual-game thing is softening up gamers like too much Pizza Hut and Hohos. Too many games make things easy on players these days, whether it be removing the consequence of death (Prey, anyone?) or even doing away with “lives” and health packs in favor of regenerating health (why couldn’t they have thought of that for Super Ghouls and Goblins?). DMC4 is tough and makes no bones about it. If you can earn any of the toughies here, I predict there will be few other Achievements that you’ll be more proud of.

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