I finally procured a copy of DmC: Devil May Cry this past week, and I finally found time to play it over the weekend. In the interest of full disclosure, I admit that I have never before played a Devil May Cry game. I played the demo to DMC 4 repeatedly when that released, but if memory serves, I never bought the game because a friend gave me Lost Odyssey as a gift and that consumed the next several weeks of my life. So all I knew of DMC was that it was a hack-n-slash game, I remember the graphics being super pretty, and I remember having a lot of fun playing. Yeah, I’m not having that same experience with DmC.

Even though I am well aware that Bayonetta was called a chick version of DMC, since I played Bayonetta first, all I can see are the incredible similarities. That said, it doesn’t copy Bayonetta enough, because Bayonetta had enough unusual and over-the-top flair as well as a completely insane, WTF-is-going-on story to keep me interested and going. With DmC, the story is laid out almost instantly. I’m sure there’s a twist coming, but as it is presented now, I’m not that interested in pursuing what the twist may or may not be.

As someone who used to really love hack-n-slash games, I don’t understand why I feel so bored with this one. The combos aren’t as fun, but maybe they will get more fun later as I unlock more moves for Dante. The platforming also makes me sigh quite often, especially when it reminds me so much of the platforming in Darksiders and Darksiders II. I’m most likely not being fair with my feelings since DMC games came before any of these others, but it’s a reality for me at this time.

I also could care less about the points system. I didn’t care about it in Bayonetta, and I still don’t care about it. Yeah, yeah, I didn’t have enough unique style points for you so my rank has dropped, but did you ever think I ever thought I could be in a section of the leaderboards that matters for any game in existence?

Most likely, this type of game just isn’t for me. Maybe I’ve grown away (not grown up, just away) from hack-n-slash games. I guess I prefer to shoot things into oblivion instead of stylishly slicing them to bits.

However, I really think that I could overlook all of this if the story grabbed me at all. That’s one thing that has never changed; I’ll always be a story-driven gamer.

Whenever I know I’m going to review a strategy guide, I typically preorder the game. However, since I rarely get my review copies the day of game release, for DmC: Devil May Cry, I decided to forgo preordering and just pick up the game whenever the guide arrived. I never have problems picking up games in store the week they release, as no one seems to be hardcore in my neighborhood. I stopped preordering games–save Collector’s Editions–before, and I never had an issue then. Seems silly to preorder a regular game and have it sit around for a few days doing nothing.

My strategy guide review copy arrived on Friday, so I headed out to GameStop that evening. No games in stock. That was a first. I’ve never visited my GameStop and seen any games out of stock, including Mass Effect 3. No problem, I’ll go to BestBuy tomorrow. Out of stock. Went to a different Best Buy with same results. I was told that the closest Best Buy that had maybe one copy in stock was an hour away.

So my weekend did include prodding a devil into possibly crying, as disappointing as that was. I’ve had to put in a request at BestBuy for one to ship to store, which will take 3-5 days. It took a lot for me not to roll my eyes at the news.

Maybe this is good news in the long run, as I’m still not feeling completely up to par. I feel like I should start something from my stack of shame in the meantime, but then again, why get involved in something else now when another game will be here within days? Eh, I may just use this as an excuse to continue to be lazy.

Oh and by the way, the strategy guide for DmC is not nearly as fat as the picture on Amazon makes it out to be. I was half disappointed and half relieved.