Reviewed: March 30, 2005
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Namco

Developer
Namco

Released: February 8, 2005
Genre: Action
Players: 1
ESRB: Mature

5
7
6
4
5.7

Supported Features

Lara Croft has long since claimed and dominated the role of videogame vixen for nearly a decade now, but Ninja puts up a valiant effort, at least from a visual standpoint. She has always been one of the sexiest favorites of the Tekken franchise and her sorted backstory with estranged sister, Anna, has always been one of the more intriguing story elements in the fighting game. It was only a matter of time before somebody at Namco figured they could exploit the story and the booty and give Nina her solo debut.

But much like when big rock groups break up to do their solo albums, Death by Degrees falls dismally short of anything we might expect from Tekken, Nina, or even Namco. All the ingredients are here, but something just doesn’t click and that something is the gameplay.

And we cannot overlook the multi-level plaza that looks like a metropolitan shopping mall, secret labs, frozen meat lockers, and even a few things that actually belong on a ship like a radio tower, bridge, and engine room. This massive cruise ship makes the freighter in Metal Gear Solid 2 look like a rowboat.

Death by Degrees begins to fall apart the moment you realize how the controls are setup. I’ve never played Rise to Honor but several people are quick to make the comparison and for that reason I will make sure to avoid the Jet Li title at all costs. Basically, the controls are setup to use the twin sticks so you can move in one direction with the left stick and fight in any direction at any time with the right. Sure, it sounds cool and even doable, and it should work, but for some reason it just doesn’t.

Perhaps it’s the twitchy nature of the analog stick or the quirky combos of directions and taps required to do anything remotely fun. The distinction between tapping a stick in any direction and moving it are too fine to be regulated as the sole means of interaction with a video game. The worst thing is that this game could have just as easily been designed to work with the face buttons (no, you cannot re-config the controls) and would have been immensely more fun, perhaps adding as much as two whole points to the score.

The main problem is that you are hardly ever fighting any one opponent. Instead, you are besieged by numerous combatants, often in numerous waves, and always from all directions because the designers want you to exploit their "move anywhere, fight any direction" control scheme. The issue is that attacks are these lengthy scripted animations that leave you vulnerable to whichever direction you aren’t attacking at the moment. This translates into a lot of unnecessary damage, early termination, and frequently loading of save games.

Speaking of save games, instead of a save anywhere or even a visible checkpoint system Death by Degrees tries to be “cute” by implementing a “signal strength” system whereby you start to see bars on the screen as you get near the save point. The closer you get the more bars you see until you stumble upon a totally arbitrary and invisible place where you are allowed to save your progress. It’s basically the same concept as the “can you hear me now” guy on TV. And don’t forget to save because this game doesn’t offer any checkpoint system. If you die your starting point is your last save point. I learned that lesson the hard way.

But back to the combat. When attacking isn’t an option, you might want to try blocking or even dodging, but these too are quirky thanks to their implementation with, yep, you guessed it, the quick flick of the analog stick. Again, the variance between a tap and push is negligible meaning you will often walk or run instead of dodging. Since several boss battles require pattern recognition and timed dodges, you can see the potential for failure here.

You can also arm Nina with an assortment of weapons in which case the analog stick will now fire the weapon in the direction tapped. Two elements that try to add some originality to the mix are the sniping segments that really come off as nothing more than a game of Silent Scope and Nina’s Critical Hit where you can invoke an x-ray image of your opponent and try to critically strike organs, limbs, and bones. Unfortunately, this was the main feature hyped at E3, one of the main features hyped on the box, and it is used so infrequently that you will ultimately forget to use it after the initial thrill has worn off.

Death by Degrees is hampered further by frequent and insufferably long load times. You’ll almost get the feeling the gameplay is inserted to break up continuous loading as each and every action triggers a load screen, menu, or string of text to bring the gameplay to a screeching halt. At times it almost seems to be loading animation scripts from the disc when you perform a non-traditional action like climbing a ladder or pulling yourself up into a vent shaft.

Gameplay graphics are slightly jaggy with abnormal amounts of shimmering. This game screams for progressive scan and so do my bloodshot eyes. There are some truly spectacular environments both in design and their texturing and detail, and even though they are totally out of place on a cruise ship they are fun to explore. There are all sorts of subtle effects like lighting and shadows and loads of particle effects, flame, smoke, shattering glass, etc.

Character design and animation is excellent although most of the work apparently went into making Nina hot as hell leaving only a few models left for the bad guys. You have a few key original characters and the rest of the cruise ship security forces are being cloned from the same cell down in the bio lab. They all look, move, and act alike, making most of the game fairly predictable and boring.

The voice work is exaggerated but not so over-the-top that it ruins the experience. The gameplay does that just fine. There is a decent amount of dialogue including conversations from guards and the frequent call for backup, which just means you get to fight ten more guards. The Dolby Pro Logic II mix does a decent job of putting all these sounds in their proper place so you know where everyone is.

If you really need a Nina fix then go get Tekken 5, a flawless game by all counts. Then again, if for some unfathomable reason you enjoyed the fighting style of Rise to Honor and can tolerate load times that exceed gameplay times then by all means, check out Death by Degrees. Just consider yourself warned. My duty is done.