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What's the 1st thing you believe about when deciding on a topic for a video game? Is it a great adventure via a medieval landscape? How about a plumber's quest to save a princess? Oh! I know. What about a 14th century poem written by a man that angrily fired it off (allegedly) as a retort to the Catholic church and the parents of a young girl that he wasn't allowed to marry (they had been placed fairly deep in hell for their oversight)? In the wake of hack and slash games comes the God of War clone Dante's Inferno. While it seems like the God of War series can do no wrong, there were times when we wished there was an 10th ring in the Inferno, reserved particularly for games like this one.
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3, PSP
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre: Action
ESRB Rating: Mature
Release Date: 02/09/2010
Graphics: 7/10
The graphics in Dante's Inferno are, admittedly, not too bad. Electronic Arts did every thing they could to make certain that no one would even feel of giving them a Teen rating and included such spectacles as tortured and ravaged souls, violent and intense combat, extra nudity than the magazine you kept under your mattress as a kid and, our favorite, monsters that literally hurl human genitals at you. The cut scenes are properly done and the visuals are specifically what you would anticipate from a journey through hell. However, it may well be hell but we would have liked to see a far more diverse color palette.
Game Play: 2/10
This is where we begin to see our initial difficulties with the game. The puzzles were laughable. They bordered on becoming just too simple and easy and, worse however, the commonly odd camera angles hid significant portions making them artificially tricky to solve. We're not talking artistic camera angles like in Silent Hill. These were just poorly chosen. In addition, the combat was lack luster. Of course it was enjoyable at very first to slash the "hell" out of its many inhabitants. Still, immediately after 5 minutes or so, the constant cheap deaths and boring combat demanded a little selection.
Story: 5/10
At initial play, you might be a small surprised at the story of the game if you have read the poem from which the game is based. Then again, feel about it. How exciting would it be to have a game literally copying the events of the book. Remember that the protagonist just goes on a stroll with Virgil and tours hell, absolutely nothing more. You obtain tid bits of the story via cut scenes, in game action and intriguing switches into cartoon style graphics. It is a nice twist on the regular genre but we would have liked to see a lot extra depth in a game based on a pretty fascinating topic.
Music: 7/10
The music is fairly solid throughout the game. It is genuinely exactly what you expect from this sort of game - big orchestra numbers and creepy choral interjections. On the other hand, when once again, it could have been much superior. It sounds like a generic soundtrack and there didn't seem to be much thought put into it. In other words, nothing really stood out as it does in a game like God of War.
Replay Value: 6/10
There are some relics to collect, some customization and leveling aspects and some difficulty levels to master. Nonetheless, 1 weekend in hell is alot more than enough to get the gist of this game.
Overall Rating: 3/10
It's a shameless rip off of the God of War series, absolutely nothing a lot more. What was most disappointing about this game is all the issues that it could have been but the designers had been too lazy to come up with some fresh tips. For that reason, we knocked a couple of much more points off the overall rating. The end of the game is insulting. Essentially, you have some parameters that you have to follow to defeat some groups of enemies (only kill them in the air, using no magic) that cemented the game's position in uncreative style and overall mediocrity.
It wasn't just that there had been similarities to the God of War series. This game ripped off virtually just about every single graphical feature and game play technique. Envision if you bought a game referred to as "Mega Adventure" only to discover that you were a toad that had to jump across a street, dodge cars, hop on to logs though avoiding crocodiles and attempt to catch flies before diving into a pit. That's the lack of originality we're talking about here. It's a shameful attempt at creating a quick buck on the tough function of talented designers and it can go straight to, properly, you know… Dante's Inferno.
