Dante’s Inferno. The hellish poem that teachers have forced teens to read in high school has now been transformed into a video game that is damned more then Judas himself.
Well, in regards of being innovative and creative at least.
Dante’s Inferno is a single player action/adventure game developed by Visceral Games for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 (excluding the Playstation Portable version).
The game is loosely based on the famous Italian poem of the same name, depicting the Western image of hell also, very loosely.
However, should you expect much creativity from a game based on a poet’s travels through Hell?
Hell no.
Granted, it might have been a mistake for publisher Electronic Arts to promote the novel to get audiences to play because this is in no way an adaptation.
Dante’s Inferno is all inspiration, and that’s what it gets right. It takes the playable ideas from “The Divine Comedy” and morphs them into an awesome video game.
Rock on.
So, the literary question of adaptation is solved. However, another question does arise. Is imitation a bad thing?
Playing this game raises the question because for those who don’t play video games, Dante’s Inferno is literally a copy and pasted in hell version of one of Playstation’s greatest hits, God of War.
Sure people say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but how far does that statement tread true?
Dante’s Inferno is in its entirety a clone of “God of War”, your average hack and slash game, where in the Inferno, you kill a bunch of demons, solve a puzzle, kill some more, and then a boss.
Except multiply that by four...thousand.
The puzzles in Dante’s Inferno, unfortunately, are where the action dies because even though they aren’t hard, they’re very poorly placed.
If it wasn’t for my curiosity of the next circle of hell, I probably wouldn’t even have played the game all the way through.
BC freshman Austin Perez exclaimed by the end of the game he despised the “B” button.
“You press the ‘B’ button in this game so much,” Perez said. “Doors, switches, anytime you get health, finishers for enemies, it officially sucks.”
I wholeheartedly agree.
Dante’s Inferno is one of few games that actually deserves a “Mature” rating.
In today’s society, ratings are overlooked and often given a passing glance.
Dante’s Inferno will make you turn your head.
The art direction that the artists took in this game truly allow the player to be set in a beautifully realistic version of the underworld.
Maybe even too real at some times, but I’ll let you be the judge of that. (There is a female genitalia monster. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)
Although Dante’s Inferno doesn’t make any new changes to the action genre, I can’t help but give it credit for somewhat accomplishing where so many others have failed.
Dante’s Inferno took a lovable formula, translated it in a new setting, added a few acceptable wrinkles and popped out a pretty good game.
Dante’s Inferno is definitely at least a rent, but not a buy.
Dante’s Inferno definitely proves that in gaming, being innovative is hard and copying is even harder.
Sometimes it’s just better to leave it to the pros.
