New Devil May Cry, bitches.

[AJR]

I think this game is better than DMC4. I don't think the actual fighting is quite on the same level, but I like just about every other aspect of it more. And yes, I'm even throwing in the dialogue and story too. As a whole package it's just behind DMC3 as my favourite DMC game.

And yes, I will expand on that later.

[Alisha]

i dont neccissarly think reviews are paid for but i do think they are written from the perspective of thier target audience. i remember a fiasco some years ago where someone from game informer said they scored some paper mario game lower because they felt the target audience of GI wouldnt like it.

[Eusis]

I believe that was an extreme case, I think (or like to think anyway) that if a reviewer understands they're on an extreme side that most people wouldn't be they'd try to dial it down, but you still may be under/overestimating your audience.

I also believe Game Informer wasn't supposed to be as good then as it has been in more recent years, so that's worth keeping in mind.

[Yggdrasil]

Comparing their first DmC game with DMC 3 and 4 (the pinnacles of the DMC team's development) hardly seems fair, especially since it looks like the DMC team didn't give them anything to work with and Capcom just made them do everything from the ground up.

As far as I know, that's not entirely true. Capcom Japan had people that worked on DMC3 and 4 on DmC but I think their role was like supervise the project and not much else. Ninja Theory had the freedom to do the game they wanted to make but they also had to make the effort of doing something above average.

[Parn]

And they most certainly did make something above average.  You may not like the direction they took, but they have made an excellent action game.  Go play Dante's Inferno or Blades of Time if you want to see what an average action game is like.  There's a lot of them.

[John]

I think that reviewers being paid for reviews on this is a reasonable guess, or at very least a possibility for IGN since it baaaarely glazed over its plot, and seemed to praise the dialogue like nothing was wrong with it.

Please stop talking. You don't have to agree or even like the reviews but accusing every single reviewer that gave DmC a decent score corrupt is idiotic.

I didn't accuse every single reviewer that gave it a decent review of doing that, it just seems too "convenient" for me.
I could understand even giving it a positive review, but having its story pretty much overlooked is suspicious to me and thinking that some reviews may be influenced by Capcom giving incentive is reasonable.

Why not?  I couldn't care less about the story in a game like that.  It could have the plot of Bad Dudes for all I care, as long as the gameplay itself is good.  Also, I have to laugh every time I see that game companies buy people off.  It's a giant conspiracy theory, based on everything I've seen.  The only time I ever see the concept of pay for review is in the world of mobile games, where developers will pay outlets for publication space. Fact of the matter is, a lot of people love DmC, you just might not be one of them.  And that's A-OK.

[Taelus]

I think that reviewers being paid for reviews on this is a reasonable guess, or at very least a possibility for IGN since it baaaarely glazed over its plot, and seemed to praise the dialogue like nothing was wrong with it.

Please stop talking. You don't have to agree or even like the reviews but accusing every single reviewer that gave DmC a decent score corrupt is idiotic.

I didn't accuse every single reviewer that gave it a decent review of doing that, it just seems too "convenient" for me.
I could understand even giving it a positive review, but having its story pretty much overlooked is suspicious to me and thinking that some reviews may be influenced by Capcom giving incentive is reasonable.

Why not?  I couldn't care less about the story in a game like that.  It could have the plot of Bad Dudes for all I care, as long as the gameplay itself is good.  Also, I have to laugh every time I see that game companies buy people off.  It's a giant conspiracy theory, based on everything I've seen.  The only time I ever see the concept of pay for review is in the world of mobile games, where developers will pay outlets for publication space. Fact of the matter is, a lot of people love DmC, you just might not be one of them.  And that's A-OK.

A thousand times this, John.

[Annubis]

You don't have to buy reviews. You just cancel exclusivity over your games to the site if they give you a bad review.

[Agent D.]

Not to defend the theory, but it wouldn't be completely outlandish to assume that some of these reviews are a little bogus, but not based on insetnamehere's suggestion of capcom buying them out. I remember reading an article years ago about how reviewrs try very hard to give favorable reviews to games because of a simple reason...if they cause a game to sell poorly due to the negative reviews, why would the company send them more games to review? I can understand smaller companies like xseed and atlus, who release fairly niche titles, but capcom or bioware or EA? These companies are huge, and to not get hands on access to their titles would generally hurt their magazines or sites. I know if ign didn't get a review in for DmC for example, a large number of people would stop looking there for information. His logic is a little reversed in my opinion, but it's not outlandish to think that some of the reviews are a bit too favorable, given the shit story and horrible voice acting.

However, I don't give a god damn in those regards, the gameplay is solid. I played dogma for many days with nothing but a desire to beat shit up, and DmC does combat waaaaaayyyyyy better.

Edit: FUCK YOU ANUUBIS, YOU NINJA'D MY POST BEFORE I HIT ENTER!!!!!!

[Yggdrasil]

And they most certainly did make something above average.  You may not like the direction they took, but they have made an excellent action game.  Go play Dante's Inferno or Blades of Time if you want to see what an average action game is like.  There's a lot of them.

There's definitely a lot of wannabe action games out there even before DMC was a thing. At the end of the day though all this mess comes down to certain standards that a group of people have with this kind of genre, in this case however is with one series.

In any case I personally don't care if DMC5 is made or not. Capcom rebooted the franchise and they have shown interest in buying Ninja Theory since most of the people that were busy at Capcom years ago with DMC is now working in stuff like Dragon's Dogma, taking all that into consideration if they want to keep pumping out more of this "soon to be a" franchise that's great for them. As for me, I have bunch of others games that I'm more interested in dedicating time.

Besides, we have PlatinumGames to cover the need for crazy action games. And that's that.

[Kevadu]

If you want an actual example of a publisher using their influence to bias reviewers then read about Activision's Call of Duty review events.  Yes, events: reviewers aren't allowed to take the games home and review them objectively.  They don't have to accept Activision's terms, of course, but if they don't then they won't be able to publish their review until well after everyone else in the industry.  And we're talking about the biggest game of the year for a lot of people...

Capcom and DmC aren't nearly big enough names to pull that kind of stunt, though.

[Agent D.]

I think capcom has enough pull for that kind of thing. They may not be selling 6 million copies in one day HOOGE, but their franchises pull in fairly large numbers, definitely respectable to say the least.

[Kevadu]

There are lots of franchises and publishers that do "respectable" numbers.  That doesn't mean they can pull that sort of thing.  Activision only gets away with it because it's Call of Duty.

[John]

Not to defend the theory, but it wouldn't be completely outlandish to assume that some of these reviews are a little bogus, but not based on insetnamehere's suggestion of capcom buying them out. I remember reading an article years ago about how reviewrs try very hard to give favorable reviews to games because of a simple reason...if they cause a game to sell poorly due to the negative reviews, why would the company send them more games to review? I can understand smaller companies like xseed and atlus, who release fairly niche titles, but capcom or bioware or EA? These companies are huge, and to not get hands on access to their titles would generally hurt their magazines or sites. I know if ign didn't get a review in for DmC for example, a large number of people would stop looking there for information. His logic is a little reversed in my opinion, but it's not outlandish to think that some of the reviews are a bit too favorable, given the shit story and horrible voice acting.

However, I don't give a god damn in those regards, the gameplay is solid. I played dogma for many days with nothing but a desire to beat shit up, and DmC does combat waaaaaayyyyyy better.

Edit: FUCK YOU ANUUBIS, YOU NINJA'D MY POST BEFORE I HIT ENTER!!!!!!

I think that logic cuts both ways, though.  If you stop providing games to major outlets for review, you're losing out on a very large number of potential impressions for your title.  And let's be honest here - most publishers know when they're publishing a mediocre game and what to expect from review scores long before they're published.  Modern publishers to boatloads of focus groups, mock reviews, etc.

If you want an actual example of a publisher using their influence to bias reviewers then read about Activision's Call of Duty review events.  Yes, events: reviewers aren't allowed to take the games home and review them objectively.  They don't have to accept Activision's terms, of course, but if they don't then they won't be able to publish their review until well after everyone else in the industry.  And we're talking about the biggest game of the year for a lot of people...

Capcom and DmC aren't nearly big enough names to pull that kind of stunt, though.

From personal experience, review events are relatively common, though you usually go home with a copy of the game. We attended a review event for Deus Ex Human Revolution, but the difference was that it was a few weeks before the release of the game and Stephen went home with a copy to play. That being said, review events where you don't walk away with code?  Those are pretty bullshit. Usually just for very large titles where they think there's a very significant chance of piracy, but I completely agree that playing a game in a studio isn't a replacement for the experience at home.  I still love preview events, though.  One of my favorite RPGFan memories is playing Reckoning at Big Huge Games and watching the developers go from station to station observing all the different journalists playing and taking notes and asking questions.  Those guys really did love that game.

Edit: Also from personal experience, I can tell you that providing consistent coverage of a game is more important than a review score 9 times out of 10.  Certainly every company is different, but I can tell you that I haven't met more than a handful of people in the games industry over the 11 years I've been writing that struck me as being deliberately conniving.

[Kevadu]

From personal experience, review events are relatively common, though you usually go home with a copy of the game. We attended a review event for Deus Ex Human Revolution, but the difference was that it was a few weeks before the release of the game and Stephen went home with a copy to play. That being said, review events where you don't walk away with code?  Those are pretty bullshit. Usually just for very large titles where they think there's a very significant chance of piracy, but I completely agree that playing a game in a studio isn't a replacement for the experience at home.  I still love preview events, though.  One of my favorite RPGFan memories is playing Reckoning at Big Huge Games and watching the developers go from station to station observing all the different journalists playing and taking notes and asking questions.  Those guys really did love that game.

Review events might be common, but review events where they put you up in a luxury resort for three days and give you helicopter rides are another matter.  It's pretty impossible to think that you're going to be able to give an unbiased opinion of the game in those circumstances.