I wish I could say that whoever could guess all three franchises mentioned by Shelly in the third panel would win something, but despite being gainfully employed I have somehow found myself nearly destitute once more, rolling quarters to afford meager sustenance and warming myself over the merry, flickering blazes of suboverpass oil drum hobo fires.

Mom, that was hyperbole. Just for the record.

Needless to say, all three franchises are ones that I am immensely fond of...the idea of making Time one's bitch seems to appeal to me in an entertainment context at a very fundamental level, whether it is done by way of an Ocarina of Time, a Dagger of Time, or a Time Machine.

Time, to borrow a phrase from Nora Ephron, is a very big thing with me.

I've recently begun playing Devil May Cry (as it beckoned to me from the used bargain rack for the dirt-cheap sum of six dollars) and so far I'm enjoying it. The difficulty curve is positively brutal...so much so that Easy Mode doesn't even become an option until you have beaten the first mission on normal difficulty. I'm sure this is only news to me, as the game has been out since I was in high school, but I figure that there must be at least one non-gamer out there who doesn't mind hearing about ass-old games, so there we go. Combat is brutal and fast, and I have to say that I can totally dig a game where I can leap into the air, shoot a demon marionette six times with two semiautomatic pistols, then bring a sword sparking with devil's lightning down on its head, all in one fluid motion. Fights are like brutal ballets played out with swords and guns and magic with a liberal helping of anime-style blood. The story thus far seems to be a weak excuse to string together a bunch of visually stunning and fantastically visceral fight sequences, which is perfectly okay with me. Dante (the main character, for those of you wondering) fights with the same swiftness and surety of purpose as the Prince in the Sands of Time Trilogy does. He is not a lumbering, inelegant brute like Kratos from God of War, which was a title that I gave up on after realizing that I just couldn't find the brilliant game in it that everyone else seemed to be talking about.

Agile heroes are also a big thing to me. Powerhouses aren't fun to play. Being able to nimbly keep away from your opponent and then strike when they least expect is far more conducive to my style.

Anyway, the thrust of all this is that it's a pretty good game, which is saying a lot for something that I've been harboring high expectations for since I was a junior/sophomore in high school. If it proves beatable (i.e. if my lack of twitch reflexes don't render it impossible to proceed at some point) I may have to go pick up the other games in the series, just to follow along with the continuing adventures of Dante.

He's a film noir-style half-demon dual pistol-wielding PI. What more could you possibly want?