Death by Degrees (2005)

This game is really repetitive, boring and frustrating. It's just as I remembered it the first time I played it. I don't know where to begin, so I'll just separate my comments in different sections.

Gameplay: As I stated above, this game gets really repetitive real quick. I'm just not into the right-analog stick fighting. It feels awkward, it's uncomfortable and you'll find yourself kicking and firing your weapons the wrong side because the camera angle changes and so does the way you're pointing at. You're supposed to learn combos and special moves for Nina when she's fighting without weapons, but I didn't have the patience to learn all of them. I didn't plan on spending so much energy on this game, so I was just stuck with the 10 moves I knew and that was about it. The loading times for this game are SUPER LONG. Every time you enter your inventory screen, open the map or obtain a new item, there is a noticeable wait time that gets tiresome quickly. Moving from one area to the next also takes forever. Sometimes, you think the loading time is over because the screen goes black, but then there just comes another loading screen again. Most definitely, the thing I hate the most about Death by Degrees is its gameplay. The sniper sequences are incredibly annoying as well, and there are too many of those.

Graphics The FMV sequences for this game are very beautiful. The characters look amazing, especially Nina, who looks gorgeous. Too bad there are so few FMV cutscenes throughout the game. The models in-game move smoothly and are overall well-done. They look a lot like their FMV counterparts, except for Nina. Nina's in-game model is horrible. Her face looks like a monkey tried to get nose surgery. The way her huge ears pop from the sides of her head is just ridiculous. It was painful to watch her. I just tried to imagine how she was supposed to look like (like in the FMV sequences), but she looks so ugly it's hard to take her seriously.

Story Tekken is not famous for its super deep story, so expect nothing great of this game. The story is bland. You won't care about it except for some bits on Nina's childhood, and that's about it. The rest is forgettable, as are the characters. Especially Nina's ally, Alan. He's a walking cliché.

Music The music is all right. Just generic spy music playing throughout the game. It got annoying at times.

On a final note: as I finished the game, I stopped hating it so much. Maybe because it was over and I wouldn't have to play it again. The ending was all right and I unlocked some cool things, like some artwork and an Anna mode. Too bad I won't be playing it anymore.

Let me tell you a story about this game. When I bought my PlayStation 2, this game came with it, and since I love Tekken, I thought: "wow, neat! A game about Nina Williams!". So I started playing... and found the gameplay to be a little odd and uncomfortable... No biggie; kept playing, and naturally, the game got increasingly hard, but I did not become better at it. So I kept dying in the same part, having to watch the same cutscene, having to go through the same loading screens... over and over and over. My patience was wearing very thin, and one day while playing, as I once again died in the same place and a "continue" screen flashed before me, I calmly left my controller next to me, got up from my chair, slowly walked towards my PS2, ejected my Death by Degrees DVD, broke it in two pieces, and threw it out the window.

Never in my life has a game angered me this much. Today, 8 years later, I'll give it another shot. And I am scared.