Dante’s Inferno (PS3) Review

A BrutalGamer.com review.

Re-imagining of any cult or long standing medium rarely works out well.  Taking an Italian poem, famed for establishing the Italian language itself, from the early 1300′s might be considered a one way trip to development hell (pun intended).  Visceral Games, of Dead Space fame, seem to of embarrassed this opportunity with open arms and bent it to their will – for the most part.

Everyone has read the poem right?  We are all up to speed on the story right…. Ah… OK in a nutshell then here we go.  Dante’s Inferno is based on the worked of Dante Alighieri, a well renowned poet from 14th Century Italy.  The premise is based upon his poetic work the Divine Comedy which sees Dante reference himself in the poem as a lost and confused person in a forest, surrounded by temptations.  Rescued from these temptation by Virgil (another poet from around 70BC) Dante must traverse Inferno (Hell), Purgatory & Paradise with the help of both Virgil and his muse Beatrice to seek his salvation.

OK Beatrice I give up - have you altered your hair or something?

The game deals with the “Inferno” part of the poem and takes you through the 9 levels of hell as defined in the poems structure.  In reality the game, as in the poem, splits these 9 levels in to 3 distinct regions of Sin.  The first 5 levels of hell (refereed to in the poem as the Upper Levels of Hell) deal with self indulgent Sins.  Things like Greed, Lust etc.  The next 2 levels cover violent Sins and the last  2 deal with malicious Sin.

So, everyone is up to speed now on Dante’s imaginations of Hell.  So what do Visceral do with this?  Sure it’s a great piece of literature but what about a game?  Point and Click maybe, or even an RPG at a push?  Nope they take the bare bones of this and fashion it in to a massive God of War clone.   The story still follows main protagonist Dante only this time Dante is a Knight of the Crusades.  Lied to by a twisted bishop Dante, along with his fellow Knights, have been laying waste to the local populous only to end their days having wine fuelled orgies.  When Dante is slain in battle he overcomes death itself (and steals his scythe!) and swears to free his loved ones from the Sin he placed upon them.  When Dante returns home he finds his house destroyed and his wife dead on the ground.  The spirit of his wife, Beatrice, rises from her body and tells Dante that she has made a pact as a result of his betrayal of her.  Lucifer then appears and drags Beatrice down in to the depth s of hell itself.

Dante can lay a serious smackdown at times and no mistaking!

Graphically I have read some fairly unkind remarks about Dante’s Inferno.  Now I must admit that things are a little shiny and shimmer in a whole bunch in places, but on the whole the game looks great.  Sure, anyone who has played Dead Space will immediately tell that they have recycled the engine but it does a good enough job (not as well used as Dead Space).  Where the game excels is in the art design and the scale of the locations.  Small enclosed areas made of screaming walls of the Damned with fire spiting rectums give way to huge open areas where you traverse walls or platforms to reach far away locations.  The creatures that inhabit the 9 levels of hell have been well thought out to work in that location.  For instance slutty looking, half naked speedster chicks appear in the Lust realm that try and fire gentiles and spiky body parts or large blobby creatures ooze towards you in the Gluttony level.  Each area has a very similar feel but a distinctive look to it.  A lot of the environments truly stuck in my mind to the point I felt a little jaded by them – but more on that later.

Progression is via the usual God of War / Onimusha style of gameplay.  Hack everything to death using your melee weapon (Death’s scythe), ranged weapon (Beatrice’s cross which shoots glowing cruciform) and mixture of magical powers (like a dash that leaves ice in your wake or a whirlwind of lust that destroys enemies near enough).  As you fell these foes they release souls, these souls are then collected and used to purchase upgrades to your health, mana and abilities in general.  You also have special relics that you find during the course of the game that can be levelled up and offer a small buff in some way – ie faster soul collection, less damage, longer grab reach etc.

You get to rip the boat's head off in a bit - Awesome sauce!

Sound wise Dante’s Inferno is well produced.  There are huge orchestral scores soaring away in the background like some tragic German Opera and they all capture the tone of the game perfectly – if a little overbearing and melodramatic at times. The voice work is solid and dialogue well weaved through what is a difficult subject to give additional life to that won;t seem totally corny.  The screams of the Damned are present throughout the levels but it’s touches like the orgasmic gasps in the Lust level that help make the environmental effects feel something more than just another part of the package.  Once again Visceral’s sound department excel themselves – hell I purchased a 5.1 system just to play Dead Space on!

The game plays well and the movement is a smooth 60fps.  The combat feels sturdy enough and does just enough to prevent it just being a button masher – but I do mean JUST.  There is no real fleshed out combat system on offer here.  This suites me as I rarely dig past the fundamentals on titles like God of War, Ninja Gaiden or Bayonetta.  So if you are looking for a string of meaty combos to learn then you might be disappointed.  Stretched out over the barely eight hours though the combat does start to wear out it’s welcome and you can do pretty much all the damage you need too by mashing the [] button.  It did all feel a might easy to progress and the deaths come fast and cheap for the most part.

One of the early boss fights - all are pretty simple

The problem most of the time stems from a fixed camera that will choose to suddenly pan at just the moment you are about to traverse some platforms above pools of fire filled with writhing damned.  This causes the nicely lined up jump to go side ways landing you squarely in said pool.  This can send you back a few moments but can also send you back minutes as the sporadic checkpoint system does seem to lack a good pace.  This criticism can also be levelled at the save points that are spread throughout levels.  Some times you will have a couple in about 5 minutes of each other and then not see one for half an hour.  There are various Damned souls to be found around the levels.  These give you the opportunity to either punish or absolve the individual ala Bioshock.  These take the form of notables from history such as do you punish or forgive Pontious Pilot?  Punishment adds to your unholy level & redemption adds to you holy level.  Taking the punishment path means you eviscerate the individual in question where are forgiveness will bring up a mini-game akin to Beats on the PSP where you with a button as a icon floats by.  As you gain more unholy/holy XP you will start to unlock later levels in those disciplines and thus gain access to better combos or magic.

Cleopatra in all her gnarly boobness

Whilst we are are finding fault we might as well deal with the remainder of the down points of the game.  I found some of the enemies and subject matter titillation for the sake of reaction.  The crying and gurgling infants that attack you with knife hands maybe justified as the product of Lust but really have no place being in the game.  The 200 foot Cleopatra that squeezes there knife wielding infants from her lactating breasts is just terrible.  It’s not that I feel uncomfortable with mature content,  it’s just you feel that if anyone walked in on you playing this portion you would die of shame trying to justify it.  Also, what’s with all the breasts guys?  Seriously how long did you spend modelling all the boobs in this game?  The final score demolisher for Dante’s Inferno is the sheer number of quick time events (aka QTE).  It seems like the simplest thing, like opening a door or collecting life from a font elicits a QTE. As noted in my Darksiders review QTE can detract from the game significantly and Darksiders overcame this by doing away with 90% of all QTEs.

Final moan but EA are selling “Soul Packs” via the online console stores.  This effectively lets you jump ahead on upgrades by having the souls to spend sooner rather than later.  You can pick up a a 500 pack for free (thanks EA) but the rest cost from 0.79p for a 1500 soul pack to £3 for a 5000 soul pack.  My take on this is that you get plenty of souls through regular game play.  Sure take the 500 extra for free but charging for these is a little bit naughty and smacks of desperate micro-transaction money grabbing.

Yet another weird creation being impaled!

Final Thoughts:

Dante’s Inferno is a good game.  What it can’t do is compete with Darksiders or Bayonetta.  If you thrown the potential of God of War in to the mix it’s running a bottom rung 4th in this current crop of brawlers.  Don’t let that put you off though as Dante is a great blast to play, simple from start to finish.  8 hours is a reasonable time for this type of game but replay might be mixed.  The St Lucia DLC might be worth a look in April as this allows puzzle rooms akin to Batman: AA, to be created and shared online.  If you like this style of game then grab it.   If you are not finished with Bayonetta or Darksiders then finish those up and grab Dante from the bargain shelves later in the year.  If this had arrived last year it would of been thought of greater but in this current climate I feel it may get largely overlooked.  I enjoyed the game greatly despite the knots if gave me in my stomach at times.

Related posts:

1. Dante’s Inferno gets PS3 Collector’s Edition Demo released today as well! EA seem to be showing...
2. Sci-Fi London: Dante’s Inferno – An Animated Epic I got the chance to not only watch the animated...
3. Video: Dante’s Inferno Dev Diary: Anger Time for the fifth level of hell Dante’s Inferno is...
4. Dante’s Inferno Demo On The Way A possible Christmas cracker for the masses. EA have mentioned...
5. Dante’s Inferno demo hits PS3 next week But only for our US cousins The demo is now...