Devil May Cry 2

This game is even better than the first one. It is such a highly polished third person beat em up that it makes me mad at all the crappy ones I have played since 2003 when this came out. WTF didn't they just copy what had been done here. Clearly they had perfected the design.
This improves on the original by adding some variety to the combos and movement, putting in a new dodge move, and adding in a energy bar that you can fill up to change into super mode where you have wings and shoot lightning. There is a remarkably slick lock on system that doesn't allow you to pick who you are locked onto, but it hardly needs to, it quite logically locks you onto whoever is the greatest threat, and usually switches when they have been knocked down. The only change that has been made to this game that wasn't for the better is that they changed the helicopter noise an item makes when it flies toward the screen to inform you what it is. Now when I pick up a green orb for the first time it makes a far less satisfying almost wet sounding noise is it spins toward the screen to inform me it is "condensed demon fluid" which apparently refills my health.

Game play video

In a five star ranking system
I give this game 5