Death by Degrees

Every now and then a game comes along that despite all good intentions, has no idea what sort of game it is suppose to be.

Every now and then a game comes along that despite all its good intentions, has no idea what sort of game it is suppose to be. Death by Degrees is one of those games -- a genre-skipping conglomerate of so many sub-modes that no game pad in existence can accommodate the required controls.

Death by Degrees however is a noble attempt at taking today's most popular games and cramming them onto a single PS2 DVD. The player controls one Nina Williams, a government assassin who has made numerous appearances in Namco's Tekken series of Streetfighter clones. The plot itself is not really explained at the outset -- sufficed to say you need to kill a lot of people in the skimpiest of outfits possible.

And that's the focus of the game -- Nina's various costume changes. Attached to this deep and involving mechanic -- much like Nina's two-piece is to her somewhat assertive cleavage -- are elements of survival horror, Tekken-style combat, problem solving and even a little nod to Romeo Must Die.

Adopting the now customary tank-like maneuvering found in Resident Evil, it's your job to navigate a chunkily animated Nina about her surrounds. You can interact with certain elements of your environment including objects destined to consume inventory space, fingerprint readers and assorted moronic bad guys. Combat however is handled in a very non-survival horror way, and each encounter temporarily transforms the game into a beat 'em up where you string combos together, put your opposition into sleeper holds and pummel them with special moves.

The most special of these moves involves your 'focus bar'. This bar builds up over time as you fight, and once it maxes out, Nina can perform a killing move. When executed, the game goes into an 'X-Ray' mode, allowing you target various body parts, and is very similar to the X-ray scenes in Romeo Must Die. What follows is a fairly inoffensively X-ray rendered explosion of gore -- a hit to the head for example shatters your enemy's skull like a cricket bat to a bowl of sugar glass.

For all its coolness, the game elements just don't gel. The sheer number of button combinations and flicks of the analog stick the player is required to remember is overwhelming at best. The in-game menu system, which gives you access to your inventory and map is slow to navigate, and to top it all off, our attractive heroine is voiced by a woman in her mid-30s, whose gravelly tones will forever haunt the title's audience of 16-year old sex-starved gamers.

Regardless, the game isn't total crap -- it just tries to do too many things at once. It's graphically rich for a PS2 title, even if the controls are tricky and the animation a little forced. Tekken fans, who for some unfathomable reason also appreciate the subtle wrestling match that is the default survival horror control system… ah, who are we kidding. Get Resident Evil 4.