Devil May Cry 4 - updated hands-on

New weapons aside, our most recent session with the game was also our introduction to Gloria, a dark-skinned, white-haired sex bomb that apparently kills enemies with the sheer sexiness of her overtly erotic acrobatic displays. She appears to be a member of the same order that Nero belongs to, and her madly impractical outfit - which we got an excellent look at as she flipped under a demon's downward-swinging sword in slow motion and caught it between her legs - should make her a sweaty-fanboy favorite.

Finally, we also got a look at a new level, running on the Xbox 360 version of the game, which had Nero picking his way through a jungle. The level culminated with the appearance of Echidna, an astoundingly weird boss that looks like what you'd get if you crossed an orchid and a gigantic flying snake that keeps a cackling woman's torso in its petaled mouth. You'll fight her both as Nero and as Dante; as Nero, much of the fight centered around grabbing her stunted, bat-looking "children" with the Devil Bringer as she spat them out, throwing them into her conspicuously glowing weak spot and then staying the hell out of the way when she closed her snake-mouth and started undulating through the air.

Fighting Echidna was also the extent of our brief hands-on with the 360 version, which looked and played identically to the PS3 edition. Playing as Dante, the fight was almost disappointingly straightforward, relying on old-fashioned gunplay and leaping sword combos instead of newfangled bat-hurling. It was still a lot of fun, though, at least up until the point where we were told our masterful victory was only possible because the game's difficulty had been set to Easy. Feh.

Even so, playing as Dante again has us more excited about the game than ever, and with just a few months to go before release, it's looking fantastic. With the end in sight and a demo just over the horizon, expect more information soon.