NeverDead - What I WISH I'd Missed

This is going under “What I Should Have Missed” because… I really just should have missed this game. I bought this game off a former co-worker who sold me a lot of his PS3 games and was kinda excited to try it out one night around homework. It was going to be a nice break from Destiny and something new.

Let’s just say I would have rather done more work.

Dumbed Down DMC?

While some may struggle to see how I’m even remotely making this connection, I kinda feel as if Never Dead is Konami’s attempt at re-creating some of the success from the Devil May Cry franchise. I’m a huge fan of third-person action adventure or “spectacle fighter” games like God of War, Devil May Cry, etc., but this just left me so disappointed.

The gameplay initially feels really exciting, but doesn’t go any deeper, the introduction just flat-out didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and the game just has this huge sense of immaturity - as if the game itself is just a bad joke on the whole. 

Gameplay Disappoint

Your first moment of control in Never Dead features you as the protagonist, Bryce Boltzmann, a righteous demon hunter with his wife (who, in the intro, looks very similar to Kat from DmC: Devil May Cry) Cypher Boltzmann. You’re fight this frog-king demon thing that feels like it was pulled right out of an anime.

Game mechanics seem pretty exciting at this point - and remind me a bit of Too Human on the Xbox 360 - but they don’t seem to get any more complex than the introduction shows you.

You have 2 guns which you can fire together at your enemy. You also have melee attacks with a giant sword on your back. You can jump and dodge, and that’s about it.

Fast forward to the core gameplay, and a zombie mechanic is also introduced. By this I mean - the only way you can die is if your head is swallowed by a specific demon type. Otherwise the damage you take simply removes your limbs. You can either re-attach these limbs by dodge-rolling over them or re-growing them.

There are varying enemy types - which are all easy to kill - and environmental destruction and damage, as well as EXP points you can use to upgrade your weapons and skills.

Again, this sounds really exciting at first, but it gets very repetitive and dull after 30 minutes or less. Honestly, most of the game seems like it could be played almost exclusively with the sword. Just run up to an enemy and swing. Down they go. Since you have no health to worry about, you can even just run up to spawners and cut them down, ignoring the enemies attacking you.

In the couple hours I put in to Never Dead before giving up, I went from “holy crap this is awesome!” in the intro combat to “I’m really sick of this and I never want to play again.”

Confusing, nonsensical introduction

The whole introduction to Never Dead was just a poorly-thought out, or poorly-executed mess.

The game opens with a scene of Agent Maximille (your completely incompetent and perfectly troped “damsel in distress” sidekick) going from Kill Bill badass with a machine gun who took down a demon dog to prissy, useless sidekick who needs to remind you “You need to protect me!” all the time.

Maximille calls in to… whatever “agency” she is a part of (NADA) and is told to go by Bryce’s house before going somewhere… else. (Vague story progression)

The game then jumps to another scene where Bryce and his wife, Cypher, are preparing to fight this absurd-looking frog-king-demon that was pulled right out of some sort of anime. Bryce reminds me of the most generic “super righteous do-good knight” from any video game possible. You fight the demon, as discussed before, and then the game jumps again.

Next scene, Maximille is busting down (or rather shooting in, because that makes sense) what is apparently Bryce’s door. Bryce is now this immortal zombie dude with super strength and the ability to regenerate his entire body in a matter of seconds.

This could make sense in the general story - and might be explained later on - but it was executed so poorly. Not once was a hint given that time was passing back or forth from one scene to the next, so the multiple Bryces just didn’t make sense.

A game can live on top-notch gameplay or a compelling story. Never Dead tried living on neither, and it didn’t work.

Sexualization FAIL

To make matters worse, in the opening sequences, they switched from making Maximille this badass gun agent to trying to sexualize her. With the typical camera panning to show the like 2 inches of skin visible between her thigh high (or rather hip-high) socks and miniskirt (because that makes sense to wear as a combat agent) to her cleavage and bra showing through her button-up shirt, suddenly she was supposed to be sexy.

Between the dated graphics of the game and her switch to being a prissy, useless character, this was just a huge turn off.

You know what is sexy, big game publishers? - a girl who can actually fend for herself without flashing her private parts or underwear.  Since it’s not super revealing, I wouldn’t have cared much about the outfit if they hadn’t have specifically started trying to sexualize her.

Immature concept entirely

Overall, Never Dead just felt like a bad joke.

With shallow character development and super cliche or troped archetypes visible everywhere, only the illusion of dynamic gameplay, and the whole focus on the game being your ability to dismember yourself repeatedly, I wasn’t amused. 

Might be fun for younger peeps, but…

Younger people might find the game somewhat funny and therefore more tolerable, but I simply could not.

Bryce and Maximille continuously make bad jokes or puns around the in-game tips, and they start to repeat very quickly. (If I have to hear “Come on Bryce, get your head in the game!” while I’m rolling around as just my head ONE MORE TIME…)

A “puzzle”-esque game mechanic that becomes a regular installation in most levels involves the player grabbing 2 ends of power cables in a busted fuse box (conveniently busted in exactly the same way on multiple levels while power still flowing normally). The electric current becomes too much and Bryce’s body explodes, leaving the player in control of only his head. The player must then roll Bryce’s head through an air shaft, vent, or other small place to get to the other side.

This could have been a neat mechanic once. But after the third or fourth time I just put down the controller.

If you think continuously dismembering yourself and listening to bad jokes on scripted repeat would be a great experience, you might like Never Dead. Otherwise, I’d look to the next game on your list.

“HERP DERP I EXPLODED MY BODY AGAIN. GET YER HEAD IN THE GAME, BRYCE. SO FUNNY LOL”