Customer Reviews

Dante's Inferno

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I typically don't convince myself to game reviews when not having finished a game. This one is a bit different since there is a chance I might not see its end. Not because it's a hard game but I'm slowly loosing point and reason to continue. Currently clocking at about 6 hours and the end of the game seems near, if I can trust the walkthroughs. Rewind ... not writing about the story here, other reviews do a much better job ... just leaving a brief opinion. The game clearly attempts to be a God Of War clone for non Sony consoles. While it does a good job of mimicking the mechanics, as well as polish the optics with a solid 60 frames per second throughout, it totally fails to deliver an experience. The story is stitched together like the cross on the heroes chest, enemy encounters and battles quickly become repetitive with tendency to boring, platforming mechanics carry serious potential for frustration, especially when challenges are timed, camera angles are fixed and upgrades are mostly useless, single button mashing get's you through this most of the time. Granted, a great job has been done with the visuals, but excitement fades quickly in light of the many shortcomings of the game. Rent it for a weekend if you must, better skip it, there's better entertainment available.

Update 23/01/2011: Game completed in 6:56 min, felt obligated. What remains is the comfort that quality visuals are possible on the new gen consoles, replay value of the game is zero.

INTRODUCTION
Dante's Inferno, a third person action video game by Electronic Arts, is based (very) loosely on the first of the three Canticles of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. The Story is quite straight forward: Dante went through hell to save the soul of his beloved wife Beatrice from Lucifer. In Dante's Inferno, there are nine circles of hell: Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery. Guided by the soul of the Roman poet, Virgil, Dante fights and slays his enemies, consisting of demons, monstrous beasts, unbaptized babies with swords for hands, tormented souls, gluttonous living organs, gigantic gorging worms, etc., until he gets to the boss fight, where he slays the boss itself and descends to the next circle of hell. The final battle is a boss fight against Lucifer himself. In short, the salient features of this game are not the story, but the spectacular battles (at 60 frames per second) and the engrossing graphics--a vision of hell conjured up in the minds of the men and women at Electronic Arts.

THE PLOT
**Spoiler Alert**
In the introductory cut scene, Dante was sewing a cross-shape tapestry onto his flesh, as atonement for his sins committed during the Crusade. During an especially painful stitch, he flashes back to the battle of the city of Acre during the third Crusade on 1191, where the game begins.

At the citadel of the city of Acre, Dante is fending off escaped prisoners wielding swords with a pole axe. This battle serves as a tutorial of the game, where players can learn Dante's "light" & "heavy" attacks, as well as blocking and evasion, together with running and jumping. These skills come in handy in the soon-to-be "boss" fight with Death himself. (PS2 players of "God of War" will find the combat system in Dante's Inferno familiar.) Players should note that they have no control of the camera. After his triumph in the citadel, Dante heads towards a courtyard, where an assassin sneaks up on him and stabs him in the back. As life ebbs from him, he sees that Death rises up from the ground and condemns his soul to hell for his crimes during the war. Refusing to accept his fate, Dante gets on his feet, pulls the dagger off his back, and attacks Death himself. This battle is the first "boss fight" of the game, where Death teleports around the battlefield and attacks Dante with powerful and sweeping blows from his soul harvesting bone scythe. Players who are fast learners will eventually land enough blows on Death, after which Quick-Time-Event prompts appear on the screen. These prompts are controls players are supposed to pull or push. By engaging them at the right moments, cut scenes pop up showing that Dante wrestles the bone scythe from Death, slays him with it and thus avoiding his fate in hell.

Dante returns to Florence, only to find his beloved wife, Beatrice, slain and his home destroyed. As he approaches Beatrice, for a brief moment, he sees her soul oozing from her mouth, before Lucifer whisks it away, for the sinister purpose of another attempt on the Throne of God by wedding a heaven bound soul. Dante gives chase. Lucifer dispenses an army of the damned to stop him, but, because he has the soul harvesting bone scythe, and a holy cross left behind by Beatrice, with which he can cast divine powers, and, later, a magic spell given to him by the soul of the Roman poet, Virgil, who is sent by Beatrice, he is able to destroy his enemies, pries open the Gates of Hell with a monstrous beast he tames, and follows Lucifer to the Inferno itself, where the main body of the game begins.
**End of Possible Spoilers**

THE COMBAT/GAME SYSTEM
The primary weapons Dante wields are the bone scythe and the holy cross, which serves as a range weapon. When enemies are slain, their souls are collected upon Dante. With these souls, players can upgrade Dante's abilities by purchasing special attacks and magic spells. As Dante successfully slays his enemies, a "Redemption Meter" fills and a "redemption bar" is visible at the bottom of the screen. When it is full, players can activate "Redemption" by pressing LB & RB of the Xbox 360 controller simultaneously, which makes Dante faster and stronger, until the meter is drained. When Dante encounter a monstrous beast, he has the option of taming it (by activating a Quick-Time-Event) and commands it to fight for him. Health is replenished at green fountains and mana (for casting spells) purple ones. When Dante grabs an enemy with his scythe (after players purchase "Death's Grasp"), he can either absolve or punish his soul, which then fills the holy or the unholy meters. When a meter is full, Dante levels up the holy or the unholy skill tree accordingly. There are seven holy and unholy levels respectively. Each level has unique abilities, new attacks, as well as a larger health or mana bar, for purchase with collected souls. There are 32 relics hidden throughout the game world. These relics improve Dante's fighting abilities. At the start of the game, players can equip Dante with two relics, with additional relic slots available for purchase later in the game. In addition, there are "collectibles" in the game world, namely, 30 Judas Coins, with which Dante unlocks souls, and 3 Beatrice Stones, which auto-absolve the damned.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, this is what I like most about this video game: (a) spectacular and fast actions at 60 frames per second, and (b) engrossing graphics. This is what I don't like as much: (a) the combat system is dated (it is a close copy of that in God of War), nothing wrong with it, nothing innovative either, and (b) monotonous plot.