Until now, the Devil May Cry series has been renowned for two things. One, it's the epitome of hack n' slash fighting with huge swords, wicked pistols, phenomenal acrobatics and generous hordes of baddies on which to unleash said epitomic hacking n' slashing, gunning and pummeling. And two, Cry games are notorious for their insane difficulty, which rewarded only the die-hard gamers willing to learn super-complicated moves and long strings of combination attacks, leaving gamers of mere mortal skill or little learn-time on their hands simply bewildered or frustrated or dead a lot.

The gory glory is there in spades -- big, fat, high-def and all that -- while the latter, the nutso difficulty, is merely elective now; there's an "easy" setting that allows you to wander and mash and maim with relative ease, the majority of tricky combo moves now totally (and optionally) automated. Sweet.

On the downside, the story -- particularly the dialogue that helps tell the story -- is ultra cheesy with extra cheese on top and a bucket of edam on the side. Also, the few puzzles and several chasm jumping sequences are often stymied by nonsensical camera angles that put cinematography before functionality, befuddling the otherwise-precision control, striking and imprecise balance between technical exactitude and stubbornly artsy camerawork.

Fortunately, such sequences are relatively rare and the hacking, slashing, gunning and aerial pummeling is the thrust of it all, so much fun, such serious satisfaction that you won't notice it becoming repetitive after a while, like a bottomless bucket of eye candy that never gives you a belly ache... though the cheese topping might...

TIP: In Devil May Cry 4, you can invoke the Dark Slayer style for Dante (who appears later in the game) for slower but waay more powerful attacks by pressing the D-pad in any direction twice; he'll say "get set" to confirm you've hit it correctly.