Death by Degrees

I can’t take any more, this game is awful.

Simply a mediocre action adventure composed of recycled concepts and poor attempts at innovation that not even Tekken fans will enjoy.

The depth of unlockable modes and challenges is a welcome surprise and allows for plenty of action without the mess of searching for keys without a decent map. Did I mention that the map is worthless? It is.

A game that will appeal to easily-impressed foetuses, but alienate the rest of us by being incredibly simple and simply unfulfilling. [PSM2]

A mindless brawler with shoddy control... An interesting experiment with the Tekken franchise. Too bad it plays like a train wreck.

The control system is nothing but a pain, with the analog stick used mostly for combat, and no camera control of movement. Even making Nina run is a button-mashing effort.

A tired, sluggish, and uninspired action adventure that would have barely cut the mustard six years ago on PS1.

If the mindless action of mashing your analog stick to death won't bore you into using Death by Degrees as a coaster, the horrible soundtrack will at least guarantee you will make use of the mute feature on your TV.

We're used to crappy stories. What we're not used to is disorienting camera angles and lousy controls that have the lithe, lean, fighting machine Nina plodding around like the bastard love child of Kirstie Alley and a three-legged Clydesdale.

Poor controls, poor camera, poor combat... Poor us for having to suffer through this dreck.

From generic level designs to Nina Williams’ busted right analog control, and from amateurish voice acting to an unbearable amount of never-ending loading pauses, this game is inexcusably poor and no fun to play whatsoever.

Add some quite wonky camera controls, only slightly above-average graphics, voice acting that is little better than House of the Dead’s, and load times that are so slow and frequent that they would test the patience of the Dali Llama himself, and what you have is a game that is a chore to play.

Pause menus that take at least five-ten seconds to load up are downright pathetic, a lack of intriguing gameplay definitely drew me away quicker and quicker, and mostly, the inappropriate use of a beloved-by-many-except-this-reviewer fighting franchise’s moniker is foul play indeed.

It is games like Death by Degrees that make the public shun games and dismiss them as the trifles of a child. Overt sexual overtones, but no actual nudity, and gameplay that consists of an insipid story combined with shallow, random acts of nigh-impossible, pseudo-heroic violence. Sounds like something aiming straight for the 12-15 year old demographic to me.

Note to the videogame industry: Mapping attacks to the right analog stick isn't a good idea. Put all the crossover dribbles and jukes you want on the analog stick, but for brawling games like Death by Degrees, this method of control simply doesn't work.

It's one of those games that reminds you how far we've come over the years, because it's just full of the old bad design habits that we all used to take for granted.