Devil May Cry: Dante's Awakening 3D

It has to be said, we were scared silly by Devil May Cry: Dante's Awakening. It was nothing to do with the ghoulish monsters that populate the game, but more to do with its size: a whopping 1.3 MB. Can you imagine the ridiculous phone bill after using WAP to download something like that? Even worse, what about having to delete all those precious photos and MP3s from the memory just to make room for it? Seriously, it still causes us to break out in a sweat.

Then again, if you're one of those tech-savvy hipsters who've got unlimited web surfing and a several gigabit memory card in your phone, then you'll have nothing to worry about. You can load up this third-person beat-'em up with impunity, and focus instead on the serious business of slaying demons and other evil creatures. And perhaps even do a little bit of whimpering while you're at it.

You play a swashbuckling anti-hero who goes by the name of Dante. He's got flowing locks, he's dressed in leather, and as well as being a half-demon, he's got a big-ass sword. Plus, when he gets bored of cutting things to ribbons, he can pump them full of holes using a pair of guns. And it's just as well he's got them too, since he's going to need all the firepower (and blade-power?) he can get whilst navigating through a labyrinthine dungeon chock full of Dante-hating nasties.

It's certainly a fun game to play, especially if you're in the mood for some intelligent button-mashing, because Dante has quite a broad repertoire of moves - the guns, the swords, the jumping - it's possible to put together a series of combo moves for bigger scores and more effective attacks. Learning these combos proves rather satisfying too, and it works well within the confines of the keypad.

Another clever feature is how the stages are laid out; players are presented with a triangular grid of rooms (the starting point being at one corner) and must forge a path by choosing left or right after clearing each room. Occasionally your choice is limited further if you fail to obtain a certain grade of performance, and you're forced to enter a room where certain conditions must be met before you can progress; clear the room with low health, for example, or fight in the dark.

This is a good way of keeping things lively and interesting, especially when all the rooms start to look alike. More significantly however, it means that the game's replay value is phenomenally high. Obsessive compulsives who want to explore every last room and every possible path will have to complete the game several times over before they can move on to something else.

Each stage is rendered in glorious 3D, but given the processing power of the average mobile phone the level of detail is pretty small. The colour scheme is equally muted, with everything but the central character presented in shades of gray, black and white. Finally, in a further effort to reduce the technological strain, the playing field has been shrunk down to the size of a postage stamp. The remaining space is given over to recording your score and other information.

But enough of this quibbling. Let us say for the record that we liked Devil May Cry: Dante's Awakening. We liked it a lot. Capcom has produced a massive game that, despite the small form factor of a mobile phone, doesn't compromise itself too much and remains eminently playable. You're probably going to need a high-end phone to really get the most out of it, but even budget mobiles get a fair stab at the demon-slaying action.

Devil May Cry: Dante's Awakening 3D

Devil May Cry: Dante's Awakening is a supernatural brawler which, technical niggles aside, does a fair job of being both entertaining and pretty to look at. One to sink your teeth into
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Bulent Yusuf
Bulent Yusuf
Bulent Yusuf is a ladies man, man's man, and a man about town. His endless barrage of witty anecdotes and propensity for drink makes him a big favourite on the dinner party circuit. He likes writing, he likes gaming, and with Pocket Gamer he gets to do a bit of both.