Waking Dead

There’s a real spate of new fighting games coming out in the new year. God of War, arguably the king of this particular pile, returns in glorious High Definition for its third installment. The original Devil May Cry team is joining the party with its new IP Bayonetta, a combination of angels, boobs and Japanese kitsch so heady it had EDGE all in a fap. Even the venerable Castlevania series has been deemed fit for a fighting makeover.

There are even two new boys entering the fray: Darksiders and Dante’s Inferno. Both look agreeably pleasing to the eye, although the latter’s lead character appears to have an unfortunate case of Clive Owen. And whilst Darksiders would appear to borrow equally from the Zelda series, it’s still very much in the same camp. Unfortunately I don’t know a lot about Darksiders, so I’m going to concentrate on EA’s latest money-spinner instead.

The Dante’s Inferno demo hit the US store at the weekend, and I’ve given it about an hour’s play overall. The first thing that hits you is just how many gratuitous nipple shots there are, and not just female ones either. The second thing that hits you – at least after you look past all the boobs – is whether or not you’re actually playing God of War by mistake. You see, whilst some games may steal a little here and there, EA has effectively reverse-engineered Sony’s classic and reconstituted it with a slightly different set of textures.

I’m really not kidding. Five minutes with the demo ought to convince you. It doesn’t just look the same either, it even plays the same; it is uncannily familiar. Yet whilst it has taken considerable skill to achieve this level of mimicry, something got lost in translation.

After playing Dante’s Inferno the other night, and having previously spent some time in Bayonetta’s company, I was jonesing for more high-velocity fighting action. It was at this point I remembered I still hadn’t finished Ninja Blade. Now, as anybody who follows my Twitter updates will know, I’m a bit of a Ninja Blade apologist. Despite being the very definition of a 7/10 game (Metacritic currently has it at 68), I absolutely love it. Most of that is down to video gaming’s ultimate badass Ken Ogawa. Frankly, you can keep your Dante’s and your Kratos’ and your Ryu Hayabusa’s – there’s only one man for me.

Yes, that really is a ninja on a motorcycle.

Ninja Blade is, by and large, a mix of Ninja Gaiden and God of War. It has combos, power-ups, QTEs, and massive end-of-level bosses. It even features bi-lingual dialogue so you can clearly see the team’s aims. But none of this comes across as cynical. In fact I get the impression that the team wanted to make a game in this genre because they fucking love it. The game is infused with utterly hatstand moments that can only be born out of love. From surfing a sidewinder missile to uppercutting a 747, Ken Ogawa is every doujin fantasy rolled into one. And then covered in awesome and set alight.

Contrast this with the aforementioned Dante’s Inferno. At no point during the hour I played it did I ever experience anything approaching pleasure. Sure, my gamer brain was being tickled by the pattern-matching and pretty lights, but like a MacDonald’s meal I was ultimately left unfulfilled.

So here’s my point for those of you in the cheap seats: if you’re going to copy something at least understand why you’re copying it in the first place. Visceral know how to make a compelling game – they proved as much with Dead Space – but the EA machine appears to have gotten the better of them. Instead of copying the underlying mechanics and re-purposing them, they have mathematically analysed God of War to the point where any potential joy has been replaced by a formula. It’s like taking a delicious meal and trying to replicate it chemically; what you’re left with may appear to be the same, but you’re missing the nuances the chef applied in the cooking.

And seriously, what’s with stitching fabric to his skin? At least Kratos had a pretty good reason to be covered in ash.