If you have ever been playing a Call of Duty game and thought "I wish I could just whip out a katana and slash through these fools up close!" then boy do I have a game for you! Devil's Third is an obscure title only available on the ill-fated Wii U, but fans of schlocky action games should take note.




The game makes a great first impression when you are introduced to the player character. Ivan is one of the least attractive character models I have ever seen, and he is first shown to us doing a drum solo in Guantanamo Bay prison. So, right away it's clear that this isn't a serious game. Ivan is covered from head to waist in Sanskrit characters tattooed on his body and never removes his aviator shades from his bald head through most of the game. He probably was designed to come off as imposing but he looks moronic.

The plot of the game is basically the same as the Kill Bill films. Ivan is tasked by the US government with hunting down his former companions who tried to kill him in the past. This rogues gallery of Ivan's former buddies makes up the boss battles for the game.

Each boss has a unique design and they are all better than Ivan. Some of the boss battles were frustrating, but each one seemed to have a "trick" to it, or to put it another way each boss seemed to be weak to one of Ivan's particular skills, not in a Mega-Man type of way, but more in a sense that certain types of attacks worked better on some of them.

To get back to the gameplay, the game is an over the shoulder 3rd person action game where you can also do some first person shooting. I have seen this done in some games before, but I'm really surprised it is not done more often because it is incredibly fun in this game in particular. The game is basically DMC meets Call of Duty, and while not as good as either, the sum of its parts makes for an amazing combination.

As much fun as I had with Devil's Third, I do have a few minor complaints. Later levels in the game are filled with zombie style enemies and the level design can get quite cramped, making the hacking and slashing a bit awkward and frustrating. There are also, strangely, swarms of bats that attack throughout the game, and if you're taken by surprise by them, you can actually die. They need to be avoided or machine-gunned. I appreciated the oddity of this obstacle but they mostly became an annoyance after the first few encounters. They reminded me of the snake-in-a-box from Resident Evil 4.

Overall I really enjoyed my experience with Devil's Third. The price of this game tends to put it in line with that of a new retail game at the time of this writing. For the awesomeness contained in the game, I think it's worth it.

Permalink | Comments [3] | Digg This Article | Tweet