MY GOODNESS! Square-Enix would be the death of me! When I firsted started Dirge of Cerberus the overall mood was: happy happy, trigger-happy Vincent Valentine, run around shoot the bad guys, collect the items and ammo, save the hostages! YAY! Then it got draggier and draggier, the levels became longer and longer and not to mention this little tricks they keep pulling at you that become increasingly more agitating and annoying and then they leave you confused, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. By the time I had moved out of Kalm (that's where we had little encounters with civilians) and into the phase of defending the WRO headquarters from the pesky Deepground soldiers, okay that wasn't so bad. It's kinda fun running up the different floors, sniping soldiers from afar before they shoot at you. But going on into the phase of attack, where the main objective most of the time was to protect the WRO soldiers, the game throws all sorts of things at you: sentry robots that bash through the wall without warning, flying at you and your men and exploding in your face, funny things dropping out of the sky, bullets flying in from the roof when before that was dead silence, weird little presents in the item boxes that you're supposed to destroy such as more bad guys hiding inside, locked walls that shut behind you leaving you in a tiny space with tonnes of baddies appearing outta nowhere (and I really mean nowhere!!!) charging at you not to mention giving you an ass-whooping at the same time. They really upped their crazy antics a notch by providing this weapon called the Blasting Machine Gun. Vincent Valentine has 3 main guns: Cerberus (handgun), Hydra (rifle - my fave), Griffon (machine gun). The Hydra kicks some serious butt with high accuracy coupled with a long range (though very heavy as a trade off). The Cerberus is really light, fires rapidly and is pretty accurate as well. The damn machine gun has the lowest accuracy and I wonder whether its for that reason they give you so many damn machine gun bullets in relation to the rest just so you gotta use the lousy gun. Anyway, this Blasting Machine Gun is really one heck of a funny gun. Every shot fired from that gun that hits a DG soldier makes him fall flat on his face, which is actually pretty useful when facing a horde of angry charging soldiers on crack. It is also amusing, I must add to see the elaborate falling action, or should I say bouncing action. At one point, I had the Sniper Scope equipped just so I could zoom in (and thus fire more accurately) on some trigger-happy rocket launching soldier that just refused to expire. Of course, I had my trusty BMG equipped as well, and with shot after shot I was treated to the sight of watching him bounce up and down in zoom everytime I fired. So anyway, this Square-Enix, they really are something. In the game, we have the normal DG soldiers that pop after a few shots, the conveniently easy ones that expire after one shot, the bulky huger ones carrying huge-ass swords ready to swipe (or sweep) you into the air on close range, the stupid more agile ninja looking ones in purple spandex that jump all around threatening to take a swing at your neck, the rocket launching buggers, the persistently annoying commanders with ridiculously rapid firing guns that shower you with an endless spray of bullets... hmmm I think that's about all... but NO! Wait! When all this isn't enough, a new breed of soldier, I bet just for their entertainment, pops up. This is the new improved DG soldier. He has an invisible barrier completely nullifying the use of bullets. WHAT?! Then what am I supposed to use? Haha, but that is the question. Melee him to death! What with all the surprise attacks draining out the life in me, the more frequent stampede charges from absolutely all walks of life (we have the robots, all types of soldier, flying mines... whoopee), Vincent runs into a huge room where... yes you guessed it, the door shuts behind. Suddenly the Mission Objective screen pops up, which isn't really good news most of the time. Previous mission objectives included: Save the surviving WRO soldiers! Defeat the Deepground Commander! Avoid the aerial mines! Destroy the robotic assault units! Assist the WRO members! Defeat the sentry robots! Okay yes, I think you've got the idea. Notice how they always end off with exclamation marks, not surprisingly, these little mission always leave me on the verge of a heart attack. But this time round, the game isn't about to be beat with mission ideas. Poor Vincent who starts talking to himself only around mid-game when the game antics surge in intensity and er.. bombasticity, is greeted by yet another onslaught of a painful elaborate mix of baddies. The Mission Objective that appears on the screen simply reads: "Defeat 100 enemies!". Oh my sky, I thought. This is really... the top of Mount Everest. To make things extra annoying to the pulling-out-every-single-strand-of-hair point, the game developers have decided to locate the MP point (you need MP to cast magic, particularly useful against thick-skulled foes) in a cozy little nook, by which you need to have Vincent first crouch down and slowly inch his way into this cozy little nook in order to recharge some of his MP gauge. My lord, the baddies come in bitesize batches which aren't so bad until they start appearing on opposite sides. Then they start sky dropping the sword wielders and bouncing ninjas that come charging at point blank range. This is where again, the trusty little Blasty comes in handy, one shot fall down trick, if you remember. These really large soldiers characteristically take more shots to put down so after a while of blasting with the Blasty becomes a little tiring and tasteless. What better way to expend that huge supply of lousy Griffon bullets then to have these soldiers fall down with one shot, quickly switch to the Griffon, fire a quick flurry of machine gun bullets, then whip out the trusty Blasty when they get too close again. These little victories amidst the more prevalent chaos and slight agitation mixed with adrenaline experienced between different parts of the game gives one a feeling of slight confusion: Am I enjoying myself?... Hmmm, I wonder... .... And it also makes one wonder... what in the world am I doing playing this game... ... ...