Dirge of Cerberus Final Fantasy VII

* The title screen features three options - SINGLE PLAYER / PLAY ONLINE / TUTORIAL MENU.

SINGLE PLAYER MODE
* After selecting SINGLE PLAYER, three difficulty levels appear - for those who require auto-targeting, we recommend EASY mode while HARD mode leaves all of the targeting to the player.

* DUAL SHOCK 2 CONTROLS
L-analog / MOVE
R-analog / CAMERA
TRIANGLE / MENU
CIRCLE / JUMP
SQUARE / CROUCH
X / KICK
L1 / GUN SIGHT
R1 / GUN SIGHT + SHOOT
L2 / SWITCH GUNS (Three in arsenal)
R2 / RELOAD GUN

* After starting the game, winds howl and a ship drifts into view as soldiers below gather and carry out a wounded person. Yuffie Kisaragi in hot pants appears near the soldiers and talks to someone on the phone - Vincent. He's above and she tells him that her equipment is registering a life form near him. He goes to investigate and rushes up a flight of stairs. Thunder claps sound in the background as he reaches the top and spies someone collapsed in front of a terminal. He raises his gun but an explosion rips through the installation. Vincent looks up and the collapsed person is gone. As explosions continue to ripple, Yuffie appears on a whizzing airship and sweeps Vince away from danger. The camera shifts to the computer terminal and the words, "fragment program" may be seen. Three years later, Vince is in a subterranean location where he checks out a special guest encased in a crystal coffin of sorts. The scene shifts and he's in room by himself while festivities take place below. He's watching television and the news reports on a television crew and 38 members of an investigative team that are missing - the footage is from 3 weeks ago. Vince is seated on a bed and is watching with disinterest. He looks outside the window at the full moon while fireworks blow up. The camera pans down on a crowd of revelers as they walk through a festival where there's dancing girls and balloons that waft upwards through the air. Vince turns his head quickly to watch an projectile hit a building and explode. In the distance, helicopter-planes approach and soldiers drop to the ground and begin firing into the crowd. Additional soldiers appear and press the attack on the crowd. Vince 's interest is caught and he saunters to the window and a missile zooms in. The building explodes but he's already jetting into the sky where he spins back and fires at the attacking ship. After a few more shots, he destroys it and turns his attention to the carnage in general.

* As he watches the events unfold below, a team of DG soldiers walk behind him and prepare to attack. Vince turns around and control is handed over to the player. The gun sight is already on the three soldiers so all one has to do is tap the R1 trigger to shoot the middle soldier and then train the sight on the other two and blast away.

* After the three fatalities, Vince may walk along the platform and eventually reach the side of a building. Additional DG soldiers attack and it's possible to attack them with fisticuffs or train your gun sight on them to blast away. We found it was easier to rush up to the DGs and throw down some combo attacks. There's a point where Vince can run down some stairs but if he rushes too quickly, the camera can't quite catch up to his descent. As such, DG soldiers are attacking before they can be seen. One solution is to roll the camera as your descending but the camera may be swiveled too much to compensate for Vince's approach. Once VV reaches street level, he'll run right into the thick of a bunch of citizens being chased by DG soldiers who are shooting to kill. After blasting a couple of civilians in the back, VV may jump in and intercede to stop the carnage. Throughout the street level, scenes of innocents being slaughtered may be witnessed as the oppressive force motors along. There's a cut scene in the game where mother and child (carrying a MOG plush) are attacked by two DG dogs. As one towers over the mother, the other dog snatches the child away and runs into a storage bin located in the street. After saving the child from the storage bin, the young'un runs out of the bin crying, "MAMAAAA" while Vince turns away unpassionately. In a funny sequence, after saving a cowering child from a DG soldier, Vince walks up to the child and receives its gratitude. He then spins away with a flourish of the cape. We love this guy.

* Although melee attacks are quick 'n dirty, NCS recommends shooting your way through the street level since the enemies do eventually chop Vince up with gun fire and sniping attacks.

TUTORIAL MODE
* In the TUTORIAL MENU, VV appears in a blue suit for his training run. He hefts a gun and is advised by the announcer to begin his training mission. L-analog moves him around but none of the other action buttons are functional yet. To learn about the game, run forward to the green terminal box and check out the instructions for what controls what on the D-pad. Every button is used in the game and instructions for using a keyboard and a mouse are also offered in the tutorial. Information on reading the meters and stats on screen are also thrown up.

* To start an action tutorial, follow these instructions since none of the menu options are in English. While in the green terminal, go to the fifth option and press O. In the next screen, move the d-pad left to highlight "OK" and press O again. Four selections will appear and either of them will allow you to practice your skills.

* The first selection throws VV into a hallway with a jukebox to the right and another terminal dead ahead. When VV runs up the stairs, a suitcase may be picked up and the game lists the different types of items that may be found. The first lesson shows how to crouch (SQUARE), barrel roll (FORWARD+SQUARE), and dodge an enemy attacker. Vincent can't blast away yet... After going through a door and watching four armored warriors enter the room, Vincent is taught how to kick with the X button. With every kick and jump, Vince makes grunting noises as if exerting himself too much.

* The second mission has VV blasting away at crates or kicking them into submission. There are five levels to play and in the second and third levels, VV gets to try an auto-targeting gun with a scope that locks onto an object instead of leaving it up to guesswork. The fourth level pits VV against armed human targets and the fifth shows VV the ways of sniper skills where he's armed with a lengthy sniper rifle with scope mount.

* When targeting an object, a green cursor appears. Move the cursor with the R-analog. When the cursor goes over something that's destructible such as a crate, a pink circle appears. While targeting an object or enemy, VV can still move around which is useful for run 'n gun situations.

* Shooting at walls with a high powered gun will leave pock marks where the bullets gouged out bits of the wall. There's also a lesson where VV sits behind an elevated Gatling gun and mows down teams of DG henchmen below. Just press down on the R1 trigger and move the Gatling gun around with the R-analog to watch bullets rip through enemies.

General Notes
* When Vincent is killed, he'll vocalize a gruff sounding death rattle as he slumps over... dead.

* Dirge of Cerberus is a visually accomplished title with a control mechanism that requires a little bit of time to learn and get used to. How much time? Going through the all of the missions in the Tutorial should do it, which takes about 60 minutes. Vince's movement in the game is for the most part, simple to learn. Moving and shooting at the same time is also fairly intuitive since the L-analog moves, the R-analog swivels the camera and R1 shoots at anything that moves. After going through the tutorial, it's fairly routine to run, target, and shoot at DG soldiers as they appear out of nowhere. Shifting from targeting mode to melee attacks can be a bit disconcerting since the camera perspective changes quickly but this too can be learned and overcome with practice.

* To save your progress anywhere in the game, press START and select the second option. The game will dump your progress to memory card and kick you back to the title screen.