GameGuide

Inferno (Italian for “Hell”) is the first part of Dante Alighieri’s fourteenth-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. It is an allegory telling of the journey of Dante through what is largely the medieval concept of Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine circles of suffering located within the Earth. Allegorically, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul towards God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin. [wikipedia]

So what does the greatest literary work ever composed, written by an Italian poet teetering on the edge of sanity have to do with EA’s latest hack and slash game?

To be honest, other than the overall concept, not a lot. Does this matter? Not really. Visceral Games have taken the concept of the circles of hell, but rather that having the main character a boring poet, they’ve given the honours to a veteran of the Third Crusade who has returned to find his partially naked girlfriend dead, and being taken down to hell by the devil. Such is his love for his Beatrice that Dante decides to face his own sins, his family’s past and his war crimes, as he pursues his love though the many circles of hell, dispatching of as many demonic monstrosities as he can on his way.  

Dante’s Inferno has been compared to many games that have come before it, but in reality, most of these games that Dante’s Inferno has apparently stolen from, have them selves stolen something from games that came before them.

So onto the game itself. On the surface it’s just another hack and slash, button mashing third person fighter. Yeah, you can probably tell it’s not my most favourite genre. But when you delve a little deeper, you can see that Visceral Games have done things a little differently. The first thing I noticed was that the right thumb stick is used to perform a quick dash rather that moving the camera. This took a little getting used to, but is quite a good use for the second thumb stick. However, this does mean that you’re left to the whims of the game mechanics as to how easy it is to look around, but for the most part it works well – occasionally you’ll die because of it, but you never have to go back very far when you come back to life.

The basic concept of the game is to descend through the circles of hell, and at the end of each circle you’ll face the end of level boss – a game mechanic that I am less than fond of, but one that is pretty much par for the course for this style of game. Along the way you’ll be killing all manner of things, as well as solving the occasional puzzle, finding special items that help you boost your characters attributes, and generally have a good old time.

Of course, being a religious type, your character has a rather unique dilemma. With every creature that you encounter, you can just kill them, or you can deliberately choose to punish or absolve them – this of course opens you up to being attacked by everything else that seems to want to kill you. Then there are the special characters that you meet, whom cower before you, it’s here that you only have the choice to punish or absolve. For the most part it seems like an easy choice; punish them. After all there must be a reason that they are in hell, right? Forgiveness has its benefits however, as when ever you absolve on of these special characters you enter a mini game where you can collect more souls. More souls equal the ability to upgrade you abilities. Who would have thought that a violent game that has you fighting your way through hell, would reward you by being extremely forgiving?

To spice things up, Visceral have thrown in the occasional quick time event, a nice cut scene where you have to perform the correct button pressing manoeuvres to progress, this along with the two radically different styles of cut scene make for an engaging storyline to the game. These cut scenes no doubt also helped Dante get it’s R16 rating, as in a number of them a naked Beatrice is encouraging you to continue the good fight and t save her soul.

So basically it seems that Dante’s Inferno is another outing for fans of the genre. Nothing really special. Well you could say that, and you may well be right. But Dante is a game that is fun to play, has plenty of challenges, and no doubt enough replay value to make purchasing it worthwhile. There is however, one thing that sets it apart. Gives it the edge over its predecessors, and that is the graphics and art direction.

I haven’t read Dante’s Inferno, and I’m not likely to either. I had been looking forward to Scott Derrickson’ movie rendition of the very long poem, but that project has long since moved on. I had confidence that Derrickson would have done justice to Dante’s vision. Whilst Visceral Games have hacked and slashed the poem, stealing only what they need as the basis for a game, and populating it with their on storyline, their envisioning of hell is, for want of a better word, beautiful.

I’m not someone who is prone to gushing about the art direction of a game, but the visual style, along with the sound effects, the calling out of the dammed, the reaching out on trapped souls, and the fact that you have to kill legions of babies with metal blades for arms, who crawl out of their dead mothers ruptured womb, all make for an experience that would make even the staunchest atheist contemplate the existence of a spiritual dimension.

In short, as a complete package, Dante’s Inferno, whist not being the most original game ever released, is a game that you won’t easily forget.

Reviewed on: XBox 360

Available on: XBox 360, PS3, PSP


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