Death by Degrees (PS2) (2004)
Developer: Namco

Review by Faididi and Co.

"Tekken Mythologies: Nina Williams"

Story: Average

Just because Nina Williams is a badass assassin for hire doesn't mean she always has to serve the purposes of evil. Her mission this time is to assist in a covert mission to gather intel on not one, but two secretive criminal groups, whose leaders will be holding a meeting aboard a luxury cruise ship. When things turn sour, it's up to Nina to single-handedly save the world from an experimental doomsday weapon that's apparently been left over from Time Crisis 2. The story has all the elements of a generic spy thriller, but the writing is respectable. The story also takes a little time to explore Nina's childhood, but it fails to reveal exactly why she and her equally deadly sister, Anna, are at odds with each other.

Gameplay: Above Average

Namco's Death by Degrees is an action adventure starring the notorious assassin from the Tekken series. Aside from its heroine and a very few other familiar faces, it has nothing to do with the tournament fighters. Its pleasantly multi-faceted gameplay will have Nina searching minutely detailed areas for supplies, squeezing through ventilation ducts, sniping at distant targets while ducking for cover, breaking puzzle-like locks, flying remote spy drones, and doing all sorts of other neat stuff when she isn't beating up large groups of enemies.

Of course, plenty of combat options are available to our heroine. Besides her standard bare-handed fighting, Nina can pick up swords, tonfa, handguns, and assault rifles. The experience points she earns by killing foes can be spent to gain new moves, and by finding weapon holsters, she can carry more and more weapons at a time, too. Rounding out Nina's impressive set of abilities are her high-damage critical strikes and her instantly fatal stealth kills.

Another eye-catching feature is the interesting level design. The posh cruise ship where the mission begins never feels artificially maze-like, although the island prison in the middle act of the game falls back on more mundane, labyrinthine layouts. Nina's progress can be freely recorded at save points scattered throughout the place, but finding them constitutes a sort of minigame in itself. Because the save points are invisible at first, Nina has to rely on a proximity gauge to see how close she is to uncovering them, further adding to the fun of exploring the game's environments.

The enemy design isn't bad, either. The regular bad guys usually fight bare-handed, but they also wield a large assortment of weapons, from guns to swords to ninja claws. Depending on the specific area and on the game's events, bad guys may reappear when Nina backtracks to old locations, allowing her to earn more experience points or to pick up spare items dropped by defeated enemies. The bosses are encountered in distinctive arenas. One of the more memorable villains is the one who attacks with mental illusions, forcing Nina to safeguard another character from phantom zombies while fighting the boss at the same time.

Controls: Below Average

Unfortunately, Death by Degrees is half-ruined by the nasty controls, which resemble those in Sony's Rise to Honor. Using the left stick to walk and the right stick to attack makes fighting in 360 degrees easier in some ways, but the advanced moves require complicated inputs among the sticks and three different modifier buttons. This scheme renders those moves useless in frantic situations where the enemies start pounding Nina before the input can be carefully worked out. We don't even want to get into the firearms controls, where the shifting camera can cause Nina to suddenly jerk away her aim and waste ammunition on empty air.

The controls, which are designed primarily for hand-to-hand fighting, are also less adequate for the quieter, exploration-oriented portions of the game. The camera controls are inconsistent, often preventing you from switching to the more useful behind-the-shoulder view. Nina's quick-stepping moves can be easily triggered by accident in trap-filled areas, too.

Graphics: Average

The loading periods are too lengthy. Every time Nina opens a door to another area and every time a cutscene kicks in, you can expect to watch the seconds drag by. Even the subscreen suffers from long pauses of loading, and that is never a good sign, especially for those who have been unfortunate enough to sit through the hell that is Pulse's Undercover AD 2025.

At least the visuals are pretty. The beautifully rendered characters are fluidly animated, the bone-breaking effects of the critical strikes look awesome, and the environments are packed with tons of little details. Each of the rooms on the cruise ship is meticulously decorated, and the island prison facility avoids making the mistake of using repetitive-looking corridors. Curiously, for a game with such a sexually-charged heroine whose outfits become partially torn at certain points, Death by Degrees actually covers up Nina more and more in the end. One might wish that the game hadn't been so indecisive in that respect.

Audio: Above Average

Whether they're of furniture being smashed apart or they're of blades slicing through people, the noises sound loud and messy. The spy action-style music isn't too cheesy, the tunes for the bosses rock, and the voice acting is decent. The way the enemies request permission over their radios to fire before actually using their guns is a weird if handy touch.

Overall: Above Average

Death by Degrees strives to rise far above its tournament fighter roots. Its problems can't be ignored, but they're not deep enough to ruin all the fun promised by its wealth of great ideas. Those who can stand the imperfect controls and the long loading times will discover a full-fledged action adventure with an ambitious variety of challenges, many cool weapons and gadgets, and colorful level and enemy designs.

OST: Average

Published by King Records, the Death by Degrees soundtrack spans two discs. That's odd, considering there are no bonus tracks of any sort. The tunes are fine, but they would probably enjoy a tighter presentation had they been fitted onto a single disc, even when accounting for the multiple variations of the same themes that form much of the game's music.