Dante’s Inferno
- Overall score 60%
- Fun Factor 6
- Visuals 7
- Story 4
- Sound 7
- Originality 3
- Longevity 7
- Publisher: EA
- Developer: Visceral Games
- Platform: Xbox 360, PS3
- Release date: 2010-02-12
- Genre: Action Adventure
Gaming discussionsGaming discussions
Poor Dante really does have a lot on his plate. Not only has his dearly beloved Beatrice been dragged half-naked down into the underworld by Lucifer himself, but he’s just found out that all this raping and pillaging he’s been up to during the Crusades is actually frowned upon by the powers that be. He’s also had a bit of a tiff with the Grim Reaper himself (read: sliced ol’ Death in half with his own scythe), and completely misread ‘The Divine Comedy’ poem on which his journey into the 9 Circles of Hell is based.
Oh dear.
Fortunately our unfortunate hero doesn’t have to rely on any leaps of faith where gameplay mechanics are concerned, as they’re all quite shamelessly nicked from the God of War series. So much so, in fact, that if you squint you’d be forgiven for thinking that Dante’s Inferno is an independent studio’s God of War DLC entitled “Kratos’ Humdrum Holiday in Hades”.
Though, while comparisons to the aforementioned granddaddy of epic pseudo-mythological adventures are inevitable, we’ll give downtrodden Dante a break and review his foray on its own merits. Or lack thereof.
Gameplay revolves around traditional weak and strong attacks from the third-person viewpoint; though the frustratingly immovable camera spends most of its time frolicking between the fourth, fifth, and eighty-seventh-person perspective. Various types of magic accompany Dante’s melee blows, but like the blocks, counters, and single-button-bashing combos, these are standard fare and nothing really spectacular to behold, let alone use against enemies.
Various sinners encountered on Dante’s trip to the underworld can be either punished or absolved, depending on whether the player decides to follow the Holy or Unholy character development path. As per genre norm, Holy/goody-two-shoes focuses more on defensive abilities and protection, while Unholy/pretty-much-still-goody-two-shoes adds a few more offensive combos and some extra angry grunting. Neither path really affects the gameplay to any great degree, and the lack of any remarkably innovative moves or combos (apart from the effective ‘Bash Square Until Fingers Bleed’) makes choosing one or the other a matter best left to a coin toss rather than one’s moral compass.
The different Circles are varied visually and come equipped with slightly differing bad guys, although some are just way too over the top to the point of being laughable: try obese blubber demons who fling excrement, a giant, undead Cleopatra who spawns blade-wielding babies from her nipples, or gaunt she-demons who gob-smackingly spew forth tentacles from between their legs.
Some environments are equally as ridiculous, such as the excessive Greed stage with awful golden rivers, or climbing walls made up of the damned who moan monotonously as Dante traverses them. Some level-specific bosses impressed us though, such as a remarkably vile looking Cerberus, but these are ultimately let down by their kitschy, clichéd teammates.
The excessive amount of nudity in the game is just as feeble. Busty Beatrice really has no qualms about being topless almost all of the time, even during the loading screens, but none of this is ever really necessary and is tantamount to using Pamela Anderson to advertise automatic washing powder. Compared to the more mature use of sex in games like Mass Effect 2, the extra skin in Dante’s Inferno seems like it would be more at home alongside the puerile bum-wobbling in Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball or dispensed in some kinky form from a Japanese vending machine.
Overall, while we’ve tried hard not to draw parallels between the respective quests of Dante and Kratos, the bottom line is that God of War does everything bigger, better, and with far more ingenuity. While Dante’s Inferno features some impressive backdrops, a very smooth framerate, and an epic premise on paper, Kratos’ journey to battle the great mythological gods captures the scale of its story’s intent far better than Dante’s excessive boobage or projectile-vomiting slob-monsters.
Bottom line? If Kratos is Brad Pitt in ‘Troy’, Dante is Dolph Lundgren in its B-grade straight-to-DVD sequel. And, with the release of God of War 3 just around the corner, and the similar though excellent Darksiders available right now, we recommend you wait for a cold day in hell (or at least a copy in the bargain bin) before picking up Dante’s Inferno.
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Comments (18 posted): Comments (18 posted):
Subscribe to comments feedWhy shut down a good game because of another game? Thats like giving every single FPS game 60% because they are Wolfenstein 3D clones.
I smell a GoW fan boy.
"Though, while comparisons to the aforementioned granddaddy of epic pseudo-mythological adventures are inevitable, we’ll give downtrodden Dante a break and review his foray on its own merits. Or lack thereof."
Also, I'm well aware that the game is based on The Divine Comedy. However, you clearly haven't read the poem, because if you had you'd know that there's nothing even remotely as inane as rivers of gold in it. Thus, my point about the environments being kitsch and obvious.
Bear in mind that people read reviews to decide if they should buy a game or not. I recommended giving this a skip and waiting for GoW because it will undoubtedly be a better game. Oh, that, and Dante's Inferno is a bland, seen-it-all-before hack 'n slasher.
MyGaming scored Darksiders a lot higher than Dante's Inferno and I found that the games are very similar, Dante's actually has more of an edge over Darksiders because of the storyline. Darksiders is boring and has no flow where Dante's does. This game is badly scores and deserves something at least in the mid to high 70's.
According to other reviews on the internet, the game recieved an average of 75 out of 100 from 63 different critic reviews. I really can't agree on this review when something like Ghostbusters outscores Dante's Inferno.
Ive been seeing this game getting alot of bad reviews and I honestly cant see why... Its a fun game, I play games for fun. Granted this is the first single player game Ive played for more than an hour since halflife 2. I still dont see how a 60% score can be justified.
Combat is smooth, gameplay is challenging (on hellish) and they havent held back on the 18 restriction.
The story doesnt follow The Divine Comedy exactly but how would you expect it to, its a game.
Unbaptised babies should have only been seen in limbo according to the poem, but what variation of fights would you have if you only fought 1 type of creature at a time?
Was there ever a Devil may cry 4 review on this site? I'd like to see what that got because to me this was a hell of a lot better.
I appreciate the apology: you've been a lot more levelheaded than a lot of other thread commenters.
One of the biggest issues I had with the game overall is the shock factor the developers tried to force fit into the experience, resulting in contrivances like the rivers of gold, nudity, demon babies, excrement, etc. Personally this struck me as juvenile and predictable, and a wasted opportunity where some genuinely clever adaptations of Hell could have been implemented.
Another comment (which I seem to only have articulated in my head rather than the review) is because Dante's Inferno rips off practically every single element from 'that other game', the entire thing just feels too familiar. True, I was expecting a clone, but one that took the existing formula and bettered it, not one that stole it, face-lifted it, and attempted to outdo its predecessor with feeble attempts at being provocative.
Overall, bear in mind that I didn't write this review to see how many fanboys I could piss off (I'm not referring to you here), but to put across my personal opinion on the game. Different strokes for different gamers, really.
Storyline? What storyline would that be, then? Dante's Inferno is so lacking in anything vaguely resembling a narrative that it's practically the gaming equivalent of a gonzo porno. Having Vigil spew forth tenuously appropriate lines from The Divine Comedy does not a story make.
It also seems that you classify 'flow' as linear progression. The days of fixed-path adverturing are long over, mate, as can be seen clearly in games like Darksiders.
And how can a game be 'next-gen' when 95% of it is ripped off from another game?
You also mentioned average reviews: Did you see how many sites rated it similarly to my score, or even below it? And I have to wonder about 90%+ reviews from random sites like Everyeye.it skewing the score.
So, for the last time: this review was my opinion. I didn't enjoy the game, and I conveyed that opinion pretty clearly.
The game is 'loosely' based on the Divine Comedy and therefore can still be classified as some sort of storyline whether a gamer is familiar with the story or not. Pretty similar in the way that Darksides is loosely based on the book of Revalations.
Fixed-path adventuring simply doesn't apply here as every other game these days has a similarity ot it because of the whole 'moral choice' option that even games like Mass Effect present players with. Granted, games like Mass Effect and God of War are way more established so they need not base their storyline on anything, which means that Dante's is able to loosely base a storyline with a moral choice system rather than create a fresh storyline out of nothing.
The only way the storyline can be upsetting is for a true fanboy of something like the Divine Comedy or God of War 3. The game is action packed and provides some form of story which allows gamers the ability to become part of the game.
The term 'next-gen' is next-generation which refers to all aspects of the game, not just storyline, so saying that Dante's is next-gen applies to everything, not only the storyline.
Average reviews... Yes, take the only non-well-known review site and quote it. Let's not mention the scores from Computer and Video Games, Destructoid, GameDaily, Play, Official PlayStation Magazine etc etc.
As I said earlier, I do appreciate that the review is solely your opinion but again, something is wrong when a game like Dante's fails to outscore Ghostbusters.
And what moral choices? Do any of your decisions change the outcome of the game? Are the two upgrade paths different enough to justify two playthroughs? Nope, not so much.
Also, please explain to me what aspects of the game are 'next-gen', as I'm clearly misunderstanding you. Considering every single element of the gameplay has been done before, and I see nothing new from a technical aspect, I'm really not sure what you're referring to.
Oh, and please don't insinuate that I'm a fanboy of either GoW or The Divine Comedy; it makes you look like a Dante's Inferno fanboy.
Finally, regarding taking one well-known review site and quoting it: my point was that there are as many bad reviews as there are good ones. The one I used to show this was merely a reference. (Also bear in mind that sites like the Official Playstation Magazine are among the most biased you'll ever find.)
Part of Speech: adj
Definition: pertaining to the next generation in a family; also, pertaining to the next stage of development or version of a product, service, or technology
Example: Programmers are now developing next-generation software.
So back to the original point I made about "next-gen" when you compared Dante's Inferno to God of War 2 (Since at the time of the argument it couldn't be compared to GoW3 because it hadn't been released yet), Dante's is clearly better than GoW2 in all aspect of the game. The visuals are clearly better thus the whole aspect of "next-gen".
If you had played the game until the end you would actually see that the decisions made throughout the game change the ending in two very distinct ways.
I will actually admit that I'm a fanboy of God of War but I'm also not totally closed-minded about something that is considered a "copy". Sure it might feel like it has a lot of borrowed elements from games, but then again, what games don't borrow aspects from other games these days?
With regard to review scores, I understand the concept of averages. The majority of trusted review sites/magazines have scored Dante's Inferno higher than your review.
Official PlayStation Magazine reviews are quite biased towards PS3 exclusive games which isn't the case in Dante's Inferno. Unless you are referring to a bias towards EA or something?
I'm still waiting for a reply on a game like Ghostbusters scoring higher than Dante's Inferno, but by this point, I'm actually not interested anymore. All of the replies you have made have never really been clear and concise with regard to answering my queries about your review. I'm getting the feeling that this has now become personal and I will not be revisiting this article to get more hits on the review.