So why should Strategy Informer miss out on all the action? Why can’t we get shouted at, called biased, have our journalistic integrity brought into question by fourteen year olds? Surely as one of the most popular gaming sites out there we deserve our piece of the pie?
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When the Devil May Cry 4 demo was announced as a simultaneous release on both the aforementioned 360 and PS3 (Japanese PSN) I simply had to get them both and try them out. My hack’n’slash, button mashing fingers and thumbs cracked with excitement and I hadn’t even interlocked my fingers. I cleared it with the wife that the sitting room was mine until both demos were suitably scrutinised so I could announce a clear winner and sat back and relaxed as the barrage of abuse waded its way in my direction.
To my bitter disappointment however, no scratch that, to my dumfounded astonishment, after I’d played the demos I couldn’t tell them apart! I looked long and hard at the same points in the game, pressing pause on both consoles at the same juncture and flicking backwards and forwards between them with my TV remote control. I even timed how long it took Dante to run around the snowy cliff at the start of the second half of the demo where you end up fighting Berial (Beryl as he’s known in my house) to see if one game ran any smoother or slightly quicker than the other, but no, exactly the same.
Tearing, I thought. One of these babies is going to tear and that’s it, winner declared. Although the Playstation 3 ports of multiplatform titles have shown tearing and longer loading times (I knew I’d get it in somewhere), with Devil May Cry 4, there was none to be seen. There was no load-in, no glitches, loading times were identical, the same volume output for the abysmal soundtrack – in short nothing. Or was there?
Finally I cracked it. The controls! Rumble! The Playstation 3 doesn’t have any rumble! It doesn’t vibrate when you get hit like the 360 controller does. It doesn’t shake in tune with Beryl’s footsteps, it doesn’t…you know…rumble.
All of a sudden it dawned on me. It had taken me the best part of two hours continuous play on both machines to work that out. Two whole hours! That must mean as I hadn’t actually noticed it whilst playing, then it couldn’t have made a blind bit of difference either!
I became panic stricken. What I do tell the boss? He’s just asked me to do a comparison article in order to get the hit-rate up and cause a mini internet explosion and I’ve got nothing to tell him apart from the 360 has rumble! That’s tantamount to losing my job. I was torn. Luckily for you however, my dear, eager reader, I thought &!%$ them. I’ll tell it like it is. I’ll scream it from the rooftops! Someone’s got to put an end to this war and that might as well be me, right?
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So I did, and erm, this is it. There’s no difference. They even downloaded at the same rate for Dante’s sake! I can categorically state that I had the same fun, mashed buttons at the same rate, got finger cramp because of the stupid RB/R1 lock on coupled with the triangle/Y attack combination and it took me just as long on both demos to beat Beryl who was so difficult it was like making fresh orange with your fist. Compared to the incredibly easy minions both in the town square and on the blustery mountainside the leap in difficulty was crazy.
Where does this leave you, the dual format owner not knowing where to place your pre-order? Well I can’t help you I’m afraid. All I can say is that it really doesn’t matter. And for the first time ever in the internet war/next-generation console comparison article history, there was no winner. Thank heaven for that.
