Abandon all hope for original gameplay, ye who enter here.

Rating: M (for violence and male and female nudity)
Players: 1
Genre: Action/Hack-n-Slash
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Visceral Games, Artificial Mind and Movement
Release Date: February 9, 2010 (NA)

RENT

You know that dream you have where it seems so awesome, that it ought to be a movie? And it’s not until it’s done and a day passes that you realize that – whoa, it already is one? Maybe that only happens to me, but the simile is still apt.

Dante’s Inferno is like that. It’s a fantastic idea that starts out beautifully executed until you finally get to a point where you wonder if you’ve seen it before. And the thing is, if you’ve played any games in this genre before (specifically a series starring a certain Kratos character), you have seen it before.

The game is inspired by the first book of Dante Alighieri’s classic epic poem, titled “Inferno,” if you didn’t know that much already. The similarities are as follows: Each features a guy called Dante, who goes to Hell and hangs out with Virgil. There are still nine circles of Hell, and they stay in the same order.

Mmm! Giant worms!

However, since this is a video game, well, Dante needed some sort of motive. This comes after changing the premise a bit. In the original, Dante’s traipse around Hell was intended as a giant metaphor representing Dante’s difficulty in finding the right way to salvation – that is, Heaven. In the reworked plot, however, Dante is a soldier who doesn’t quite understand how a tattoo works (he’s actually sewn a crimson cross into his skin) with some sins in his past. He finds his beloved Beatrice murdered, and decides to go after her through Hell or high water. (Okay, there’s actually no high water involved. Just Hell.) He opens the Gates of Hell, and he goes off on his way to rescue Beatrice from Lucifer. (As far as the real-life Dante goes, he never actually married Beatrice, just admired her from afar until her death.)

As far as gameplay goes, it’s fairly standard. One button for heavy attacks, one for light. You get Beatrice’s Magictastic Glowy Cross for a completely unlimited basic magic attack that holds its own throughout the entire game, and other magic types are funded through your Mana bar.

Oh, hey there, you sweet little...oh dear.

Of course, it’s not limited to just that. Some combos are unlocked via a two-branch upgrading system. On the left, your “unholy” attacks, on the right, your “holy” ones – you purchase attacks on each side with the souls you get from defeating enemies. You unlock different levels of each branch by choosing to punish or absolve your enemies. You can also choose to punish or absolve the Shades of the Inferno, which amount to famous figures (like Pontius Pilate or Attila the Hun) scattered through the nine levels that you also choose to punish or absolve.

Punishing is, nine times out of ten, very simple. Absolving involves either a lot of button-mashing (for common enemies) or, in the case of the Shades…a rhythm game. A rhythm game that eats 30 seconds of your time and is only really good for getting extra soul currency.

After all that absolving, are the holy powers much more awesome than the unholy ones? That answer is a resounding no. You’d think that with the holy powers, Dante could skip through Hell like a schoolgirl on a hopscotch board, going all “the power of Christ compels you!” on the evil spirits and tortured souls. Nuh uh. Doesn’t happen. Holy powers aren’t any cooler at all. So, really, there’s no reason to choose one path over the other. If there had been some kind of reward or punishment for choosing one path over the other, this mechanic might make more sense, but as it stands, it’s completely pointless. You have to both absolve and punish to get anywhere. (I personally chose to absolve most of the shades, because with the little bit of backstory they give you, I was usually able to rationalize my decision. “Oh, sure, you cheated on your husband, but he sounds like a big meanie, so I don’t blame you.”)

In addition, you also occasionally get to ride giant beasts. They, like Dante, have two main physical attacks and an unlimited magic type. Swing your arms or stomp the tiny things in front of you, or blow fire at them. Occasionally, a monster tries to take your ride away from you, but all it takes to ward them off is some more button-mashing. You get to the top of them via a series of quick-time events, and QTEs show up at least once per boss fight, so get used to them. (The pink square button is pretty difficult to see due to not enough contrast between the pink and grey, so also be prepared for that.)

The environments start out strong. Climbing on walls of the Damned is freakishly creepy, and Lust is beautifully designed, with fornicating figures all over the place and holes in the wall that greatly resemble female anatomy. Greed is practically made of gold.  By the time you finish Wrath, everything just starts to seem…dark. Each area from then on has about one distinguishing feature, and the rest is just dark stone. (A river of blood is one standout.)

One of the best design features, aside from the early levels, comes in the form of 2D animated cutscenes. These start out happening fairly frequently, but unfortunately don’t show up nearly as often by the end of the game.

I can't imagine why people like this screenshot so much.

The traditional computer-animated cutscenes are freakishly beautiful and detailed. In one early scene, I found myself staring at the tiny hairs on Beatrice’s chin and nose, rather than fixating on her naked breast (which is probably where they were wanting me to look). Speaking of nudity, there is quite a bit in the game, in both the traditional (Beatrice and Dante) and nontraditional (Cleopatra has unbaptized babies coming out of her nipples) sense. If that offends you at all, it’s probably best that you steer away. Also, the amount of violence in this title goes without saying. There’s a Circle of Hell called Violence, for Paradiso’s sake.

One thing I noticed is that the level design gets incredibly predictable very quickly. Entering a somewhat larger room with two narrow exits? You’re about to get locked in and face a swarm of enemies. Is that fountain difficult to get to, or slightly out of the way? You’re going to find a special item. After a couple of hours, I found myself predicting my predicament out loud and getting it right about 95% of the time. There are a couple of surprises, but nothing that made me reevaluate the way I was classifying rooms. The puzzles you run into are never difficult, just fairly frustrating. You’ll likely come to dread the sequences that take you from one Circle to the next – the rope-swinging and spine-descending just gets old after a while.

At the end of the day, I can see why they needed to release this game in February. There’s something very similar coming out in March, so why challenge it in a head-to-head? However, for being the first action title based on classic literature (unless we’re counting BioShock’s obvious Ayn Rand inspirations), this is possibly the best way to do it. The way that Hell is structured provides the perfect setup for a game, and if they’d executed it in a more original way, this would definitely get a Buy rating from me. If you’re just looking for a hack-n-slash action title, though…well, you’re better off waiting for God of War III, even though Dante is pretty good. It’s just not excellent.

I hope this ushers in a slew of book-games. And not just games-based-on-movies-based-on-books, either. I want Jane Eyre and Don Quixote. How exactly those will work, I’m not sure, but based on what Visceral’s got going here, I think it can be done.

Developer: Visceral Games
Genre: Action, Horror
ESRB: M (17+)
Number of players: 1
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Release Date: February 9th, 2010

BUY

Killing time while waiting for God of War 3 to release? Itching to feed your hack and slash needs? Maybe tired of the FPS right now? Might I suggest picking up Dante’s Inferno, ASAP!

Dante’s Inferno is loosely based on 14th century Dante Alighieri’s poem Divine Comedy. You take control of Dante as he returns home to discover that his father and fiance are brutally murdered. There he  sees the soul of his fiance, Beatrice, be taken down into the depths of Hell by Lucifer. In an attempt to free Beatrice’s soul he chases her to Hell where you guide him through the Nine Circles of Hell – limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud and treachery.

While on a quest to save Beatrice you, Dante, realize that this quest is more than saving her from the grasps of Lucifer but to also face his own sins and redeem himself.

Watch as I include some in game footage, talk about the mechanics, the great elements, and some added bonus cut scenes in end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geXc4f4kwSM

First and foremost, I’m sure Hell is a sucky place to be. This is why I would’ve liked to see aforementioned game company take a different route; I would’ve preferred something a tad more immersive than a simple “Hack N’ Slash.” I mean, the dude is travelling to the nine circles of Hell and I should probably feel the need to crap myself. Instead, I just feel out-of-time! “NO TIME, THERE’S NEVER ANY TIME!” My key point here is, unfortunately, I’ve never taken ‘Hack N’ Slash” games seriously. A fable dealing with Christian Purgatory is srs biznezz and because of this, I would’ve liked something with an ounce of intelligence and originality just as said story. Some of us may never escape Hell, no matter how big our Scythes are (…that’s what she said), so Dante should just be grateful he knows how to utilize artillery bigger than his guilty arse. Oh, and let us not forget the veiny, fully exposed boobies. The only thing that would make me purchase this game is if I knew certain scenes were to be directly adapted from the work and this is purely for shock value. Just how far can they take an “M” rating?

The gameplay is moderately entertaining due to “action sequences” and combo upgrading, both of which do a fair job in preventing this game from becoming insanely repetitive. The only thing that kept me on my toesies was the dramatic music. It presented to me an uncanny feeling of overwhelming anxiety which consequently made me button mash ten times faster. So, that’s a good thing. According to developers, it’s up to the player to decide on whether or not they use the politically correct “Dark” and “Light” powers to fight against enemies, but this is an action separated by a mere button and probably has no real consequence in the game. All in all, Dante’s Inferno looks like a good time killer. A religious allegory probably isn’t every gamer’s cup of tea, but it’s safe to say the gaming industry is heavily influenced by this subject matter and at least the story is interesting. My only regret was refusing to keep-up with current information regarding this game, but I was under the impression that I’d be pleasantly surprised. Don’t take my word for it, though. If you’re not able to download Dante’s Inferno at the moment or you refuse to wait over three hours for PSN to download a demo, then you can watch me get familiar with the entire thing here. Enjoy!

Dante’s Inferno Full DEMO PS3 from Amanda on Vimeo.

I had the privilege of playing the demo of EA’s Dante’s Inferno at GameX in Philadelphia this past weekend (October 23rd-25th). The game’s target release date is Februrary 9, 2010. Dante’s Inferno the game is loosely, and I mean very loosely, based on the medieval poem written by Dante Alighieri’s called “The Inferno”. Electronic Arts was demonstrating a portion of the Lust level of the game. Why they chose Lust at an event that families were definitely going to be attending, I will never know. It certainly felt awkward fighting the Lust boss, Cleopatra (yes, that one), while her bare breasts were bouncing all over the screen-spilling demon babies-and hearing young boys behind me exclaiming, “WHOA!” I personally don’t find the content of the Lust level offensive in any manner, if anything it brought out the immaturity in me seeing so many phallic references (subtle and not-so subtle) and straight up sexual scenes on statues and sounds from enemies.

After getting over the penis pillars, vagina walls, and female enemy mobs with…spare parts…I started concentrating on the game itself. It’s really as everyone else claims it to be, a God of War clone. Very similar in flow and movement to God of War, even the quicktime events and how you regain health is almost exactly the same. That is not to mention how visually and graphically they’re both similar, and stunning. A God of War double isn’t a terrible thing to some. I know I enjoyed my time with the game still. When starting the demo level I was immediately bombarded with the demon females with “spare parts”. After defeating the waves of enemies with controls that are really easy to grasp and learn (I didn’t bother with the Tutorial before starting and still figured it out rather fast) I had my first couple puzzles to solve. I’m not going to give anything away, of course, but I feel the puzzles have a nice balance in difficulty. The puzzles aren’t “throw-your-system-out-the-window” hard, but just challenging enough to the point where you may have to think about it for a few minutes; it seems like the puzzles will make you really explore every crevice of your surroundings to check if there are levers, ropes, etc for you to use to your advantage. The game has “RPG elements” too, like God of War. Dante doesn’t level, of course, but you do get ways to obtain new skills and strengthen yourself. It’s a shame you couldn’t play with any of these elements during the demo. There was no way for me to test it since EA set you up at a certain level with the skills you would have if you were actually play, but no way to get anything new.

As far as RPG and stories go, when I say this game is loosely based on the original story I mean it. The only aspects taken from the original story were the names of characters and the usage of the layers of hell. Virgil was also torn from his role as the “tour guide” of hell, always by Dante’s side, to more of a background character. Probably the biggest difference of all is the fact that Dante is featured as a Templar in the game. Apparently, EA didn’t think a poet wasn’t cool enough to play in their game. Well, putting it that way I guess I can’t disagree from a gamer stand point, but from the point of view of a college graduate with a degree in Literature it’s highly disappointing.

Dante’s Inferno has a lot of potential with its kick-ass hero, Dante, and the dark, disturbing imagery that flows throughout the game. My main concern is, since the game a lot like God of War, will this hurt it or help it? Like I said, I still enjoyed the game despite the fact that it’s almost exactly the same as God of War. I still had fun fighting the huge boss and solving the puzzles. Will most people snub their nose at the game because of the similarities or be more willing to pick it up because it’s something familiar? We’ll see in February!

Dante's Inferno screenshot from E3

Japanese anime studio, Production I.G, confirmed at a panel at Anime Expo on Sunday that they are working with Electronic Arts on an anime version of Dante’s Inferno. Everyone missed the first indication of the project when director Yasuomi Umetsu revealed the project on his blog in May.

More information will be given at San Diego Comic Con on July 23. We’ll be there to make sure you get all the information.