Everyone has their own picture of what Hell should look like. For most people, Hell is about fire, brimstone, and being tormented for eternity by the Lord Prince of Darkness, Lucifer. Take Dante’s Inferno by Visceral Games, where Hell has nine circles for each major sin. You have to go through those nine circles in order to save your love from the cold, dark, perverted hands of Lucifer and let just say, this ride through Hell is a very bumpy one.
The story of Dante’s Inferno is about a crusader named Dante Alighieri who’s trying to save his love Beatrice from Lucifer while at the same time trying to redeem his own soul from his sins. While the story is serviceable, many of you will hack and slash your way through Hell to even notice. It seems like Dante is more about saving himself than saving his Beatrice.
Dante’s Inferno heavily borrows elements from the God of War series. A lot of people say it is a rip-off of Sony’s beloved franchise and I would agree. Instead of putting a spin of Greek mythology it’s a spin of Dante Alighieri’s “The Divine Comedy.” The combat input are almost exactly the same nearly button for button, and there are some platforming and puzzle stuff that reeks of God of War.
To be honest, it’s not necessary a bad thing in some cases. For those of you who loved the combat system in GoW, will feel right at home with Dante’s Inferno. Like GoW, there’s a light and heavy attack The right analog stick allows Dante to roll out to the direction that you push the stick, and a “rage mode” where Dante becomes invincible where he’s faster and his attacks does more damage as well as various magic attacks. What is different in Dante’s Inferno is his cross attack, which acts like a projectile that can hit enemies from out of reach. The combat system is a lot of fun, especially when you power up your holy or unholy weapons killing waves and waves of enemies while racking up +100 hit combos. This makes it really enjoyable.
The beginning stages in Dante’s Inferno are great but once you go down the lower circles of Hell it falls flat and the developers simply just ran out of ideas. For those lower stages is a challenge room where you have to do a specific task to move forward. This was not needed and it appeared as if the guys at Visceral Games needed to put a quick level in. Also, most of the puzzles are so lame. Basically, it’s try to solve a puzzle in a certain period of time or you die.
The visuals for this game are pretty good, but not great. At times it look like a high res last gen game that been remade for this generation. But the game runs at a very smooth 60fps and the movement of Dante looks awesome when he’s in combat.
Dante’s Inferno is a VERY mature video game. What really bugs me is the game tries to take itself seriously, but how can a game takes itself seriously when you see whores with killer vaginas, breasts with tongues for nipples, evil attacking babies, gluttons that kill you by vomiting or defecating, and Lucifer who is so endowed that his real calling should be pornography and not to torment damned souls.
Overall, Dante’s Inferno is not a bad game, but it’s not a game you would want to include in your collection. For Playstation 3 owners, if you love hack and slash games and have a weekend to spare, you should give Dante’s Inferno a shot. Otherwise, wait a week until the superior God of War 3 arrives. For Xbox 360 owners, if you never played a God of War game and would like to see how it is played, Dante’s Inferno, in many ways, is similar. There’s always Darksiders or Bayonetta if you want something better. I may have dined in Hell, but I skipped out on the check.
