Have You Played... DmC: Devil May Cry?

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.

It's a mark of how much I enjoyed ridiculously named reboot DmC: Devil May Cry that I'm absolutely gutted because there's no sign of a sequel. It was the daftest game I played in 2013 and one of the deftest as well. Having alienated many fans of the series before release, by featuring a different brand of posturing pretty man than they were used to, Ninja Theory's gloriously over the top romp seemed doomed to fail, but it's a beautifully barmy concoction.

Here's wot I said about Nu Dante and the game at the time:

You will destroy a soft drink company and an alternate world Fox News. You will see bankers bashing their heads against walls and crawling on ceilings, having literally lost their souls to the almighty dollar.

Occasionally something throws a building at [Dante] in a cutscene and he sidesteps, barks out a ‘fuck you’ and looks pleased with himself, not a hair out of place, but when he’s punching The Media in the face while running through data streams and television broadcasts, the player is largely in control. And, yes, all of that happens.

There’s even a bit where Dante beats up dubstep. Sort of. It’s tenuous, I’ll grant, but he’s basically at war with a nightclub and the music isn’t on his side.

The cocksure swagger works because DmC earns it. Combat isn't as complex as those trained on Bayonetta might desire but there's a pleasing fluidity to the action, and the environmental design is top notch. There are scenes of staggering beauty alongside nightmarishly inventive hellscapes, but almost everything is delivered with a grin. Dante makes saving the world seem effortless and the game has enough grace and charm to make the monumental task of constructing it seem as if it must have been a breeze as well.