Devil's Third [Wii U]

My copy has arrived

First thoughts tonight once I get to play after work

I AM EXCITED

(also the T-shirt is absolutely awful I must upload a picture)

Picked up my (pre-ordered) copy from game this morning ,it was the only copy they had instock ! Played through the fist level and really enjoying it so far .
Can't wait to try the multi-player if there's anybody actually there

Obviously I meant "first" level : o

Copy-paste from the thread on SONM:

I've been playing this all night, and can now report back my impressions.

The singleplayer is incredibly average. The story is just bad - it lacks enough insanity to carry it over into the wacky enjoyable region, so is just left completely uninteresting. All of the characters are generic and I don't really care for any of them. The bosses, which come across at first glance as an MGS styled team, are severely underdeveloped (you literally meet them as you fight them, so there is no build up) and the bosses are the worst part of the game. They are just very badly designed so that you will die with lots of cheap one-shots until you work out which attack you should be cheesing them with.

Having said that, the gameplay in between is better, and this is the majority of the game. It's super fast paced, and you can blitz through the levels at breakneck speed (the traversal in the game is really fun and satisfying). The mixture of action brawler and third/first person shooter is the real novelty of the game, and when it works, in a few brief but enjoyable moments, you get a glance into the game that could have been. Both the shooting and melee combat are perfectly serviceable, with melee made up of light hits, heavy hits, dodging and blocking. Simple, proven stuff, and it's always fun to parry an attack or dodge round behind an enemy for a counter. The shooting is pretty much the same as any shooter ever, and while it is third person cover based, you switch to first person to aim down the sights and this switch is unobtrusive and immediately familiar to me, being an MGS fan.

The traversal/movement elements (basically, you can sprint super fast all you like, jump up pretty much any wall, and do super-long powerslides) are what tie the two distinct combat styles together - or at least, they do when the game is working at its best. There was one section for example where I started by sniping from cover, moved into running and gunning my way forwards, and ended by rushing the final stragglers and slicing them to pieces with my katana. It's satisfying stuff, especially with the bodies exploding into pieces on bullet impact and being sliced in half with the sword strikes. The aforementioned powerslide is a very fun mechanic that should really be given more weight - when sprinting you can crouch into a slide, from which you can still fire your gun, and in any direction. One of the boss rooms is full of enemies at the beginning (like, full - probably 2 dozen on screen all firing at you) and I tackled it by sliding back and forth through them, firing every which way and throwing grenades. It was great. Unfortunately, the boss himself was boring and cheap.

The levels are also quite distinct, and offer up different playstyles. The first level opens with melee fighting before leading into gunplay, while the second is pretty gun-based cover shooting throughout. The third then suddenly takes a left turn as [censor]suddenly zombies[/censor] and you find yourself running out of ammo while fighting in close quarters corridors. So far this has been the level that has forced me to mix up and join together both gunplay and melee, and it has been the best because of it. Unfortunately, as you can probably guess, the boss fight was rubbish.

The one major complaint I would raise against the game's regular levels is that, especially to begin with, the game tries to be too cinematic. In doing so, it keeps pulling away control from the main character, which breaks up the gameplay and makes some of the set-pieces and fights just too broken. It removes the player agency and doesn't give you a chance to approach the situation in more than one way - a real crime in a game built around so many different systems.

All in all, I'd summarise the singleplayer as decidedly average with moments that both raise the standard and lower it. It kind of oscillates around mediocre, but for the moments of promise that sit above the rest I am enjoying it.

And talking of parts better than the rest, that brings me on to multiplayer. The summary is that it's great. It's essentially Uncharted's online mode with even faster and open traversal and a much expanded melee system. Any online shooter that lets you block or evade the melee instant kill (depending on the weapon) with good reactions and a well timed button press is worthy of praise. The mulitplayer is Devil's Third at its finest. The maps are large, varied and make great use of verticality, and the large number of players (I believe its 16 per map?) feeds into the fun. Also, from the first night's play at least, I appear to be pretty good at it, and that always helps. I haven't had much chance to delve into any of the other online features (you can build up a base and raid other people's bases, and there is a larger map in play that is persistent across the online) but from a cursory glance it looks both deep and interesting.

Of course, if it's the online that interests you, that part of the game is coming to Steam as free-to-play. Being a primarily console player I'm happy to have it on WiiU, but for those who like their PC gaming then the fact you will be able to try out the online without throwing down any money is great. Hopefully by separating it out from the singleplayer the online will find the audience it deserves on Steam.

OrangeRakoon wrote:(lots of interesting points)

I enjoyed reading your thoughts, OR. The game appears to be a mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly; some gameplay elements sound decent whilst others seem very rough. For me, I couldn't justify paying full-price for it but I may keep an eye out for a cheaper copy in the months ahead.

I got this through the post a few days ago... For the Wii U collection - and because it's an Itagaki game. It's still shrink-wrapped as I haven't had the time and am waiting for MGS5 as the real time-sinker.

I only bought it early as I've heard of the game receiving a limited print-run, and if the rumours are true, Devils Third could become a bit of a collectors item in years to come... Although to be honest, pretty much every Wii U game is going to become scarce over time - if only because of the Wii U's tiny userbase.

Moral of the story: buy your Wii U games now folks... Whilst there's still time.

Urge to buy rising.

I'll give the multiplayer a go on pc, but mainly out of morbid fascination/rubbernecking than any real interest. I expect the controls to be shockingly optimised for m+kb, if at all.

jawafour wrote:The game appears to be a mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly

Hah, that sounds about perfect as a summary

One thing I forgot to mention was the bats. At seemingly random points in the game (and it starts early on in the first level), you are faced with an otherwise empty corridor that for some reason a whole host of bats suddenly fly at you from. You can just run straight through as they damage you (none of my attacks seemed to do anything), and invariably you make it out the other side of the bats just before you die.

I have no idea what the point in this is.

OrangeRakoon is really taking one for the team.

Just the thought of playing something like this fills me with remorse around the amount of time I must've wasted in my youth playing gooseberry fool games at full retail price. This game sounds like it would've fit snugly into that category.

So, I spent basically the entire day today playing the online. It will probably help if I summarise how the online works.

When you first launch the online, you create yourself a character and go through a basic tutorial. This explains how you can buy new weapons and change your equipment/loadouts. You are then given some money to start and guided towards the 'Drill' section of the online. This is what I played yesterday and included in my write up.

In the Drill area there are 5 types of game - Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Crates, Chickens and Melee only. Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch are what you would expect in any game. Melee only is a super fun mode which also currently benefits from giving 5x XP until Tuesday 1st September. To summarise, I won a melee match by hefting a fire axe across a bridge into a man, slicing him in half. So it's fun. Another stand out moment was leaping from the top of a wall with my katana, slicing one man in half, then rolling/dodging his surviving partner's swing before throwing the katana square between his eyes. IT'S FUN. Unfortunately, I have yet to try Crates (you capture crates that fall around the map for points, and they contain stronger weapons) or Chickens (which sounds excellent - you find chickens around the map then kill other people to take their chickens) due to them both being empty of players whenever I have selected them.

This isn't, however, the "main" online. Once you hit level 5, you are stripped of beginner status and gain the ability to found your home base in one of 6 regions across the US. I chose the Rockies, being the nature lover I am. This unlocks a stronghold which you can customise and expand by placing down buildings, walls, turrets and other defences. Why, you ask? Well, each of the 6 regions can be fought over by clans inside the game. You can choose to join a clan, or you can work as a mercenary, fighting for whoever needs help (and getting paid in the process). I have remained the latter, and the pay is good. As a mercenary your stronghold is in no danger, but should you join a clan it becomes open to attack. If you're online during an attack you get the chance to defend it in a Siege battle, and these are the "main" battles in the online. A successful attack will gain the attacking clan influence in that region, and take money from the losers. Once you are post level 19 (I'm currently 24), your stronghold can be attacked even when you are offline, so you are given reason to join a clan with lots of other members.

The siege battles are really fun, and due to them taking place in people's strongholds, all of them are different. The maps are all the same as a base, but the player added structures completely change them (in my stronghold I have managed to wall off an entire route of attack, and placed auto-turrets and mines along another, for example). The only current problem is that so few are happening, so as a mercenary you have to get lucky to try and join one when one is actually happening. Having played all day though I managed to play a fair few.

In fact, I am now the second highest ranked mercenary by level, the first ranked mercenary by number of successful attacks I have been involved in, and the second ranked by number of successful defences. I leave it to you to decide whether that's down to me being good at the game or just that nobody actually bought this game.

Some of the sieges have been particularly memorable. In one I was drafted into the defence of one of the bases owned by the largest clan in the game, being attacked by the second largest. I was the only mercenary involved, with everyone else being clan members, and I came third on the leaderboard, helping to secure the defence. The entire map had been carefully re-crafted by whoever owned it, so that the main base we were defending was walled up significantly, and we had turrets either side that, while they did get destroyed, held up the enemy significantly. Another memorable siege was where I was drafted into a smaller clan attacking the second largest in a different area. It was just me and the leader of this smaller clan on the attacking side (and in fact I had played on his side a few times before), and we rushed in straight away as he called in an attack helicopter. We quickly fought our way up to their base, killing 3 of them on the way (and unfortunately, the guy on my side died), but I managed to get right into their base and set the bomb. At this point more of them were now joining the battle (they had started with 3, but ended with 7, whilst we only ever had the two of us), but we both heroically defended the bomb until it detonated, winning us the siege.

Now my stronghold is getting bigger and more well defended, I think I might have to join one of the clans so that I can actually have it involved in a battle. Being a mercenary is great fun though (especially when I'm apparently one of the most high profile at the moment!)

OrangeRakoon wrote:So, I spent basically the entire day today playing the online...

That was a terrific insight, OrangeR! The reviews that I've seen have not gone into that kind of depth - they have barely mentioned the online aspects.

I would like to pick up the game but, for me, it's arrived at the wrong time and the wrong price. I will keep my eyes open for a cheaper way in although I suspect that disc copies will be thin on the ground.

Congrats on being one of the top players . Perhaps if I pickup the game I'll make the top twenty. Out of the community of twenty.

Devil's Third is being reduced in price worldwide from tomorrow! It'll be £24.99 on the eShop (UK) and $29.99 on the eShop (USA), which will no doubt bring millions of new gamers into Ivan's world .

Except... hang on, what's this? At the same time, there has been an announcement that the online game servers are being switched off in December.

.

Woop, the only thing that was even slightly interesting about the game if it was available for £5.

It's a shame this hasn't done better, I played through a friends copy and overall I really enjoyed it. GAME were selling the physical version for £15 new a while ago so I bought it even though I'd already played through it once.