Have you ever wondered what hell looks like or even dared imagine going there? If so then look no further as Dante’s Inferno presents you with a VIP ticket to the blazing underworld. Over the past years, similar games such as Heavenly Sword, Devil May Cry and the God of War series have focused solely on hack n’slash gameplay to accompany their well structured storyline. It won’t take you long to realise that nothing much has changed in this new addition to the genre. With a new range of themes and a strong focus on combat, is dicing with the devil worth the ticket price?

The story is not the most thrilling tale you will have experienced and becomes particularly weak in latter stages of the game. Initially its just your typical rescue mission where your love has been taken by the malicious Lucifer. Armed with your anti-demon scythe it is your job to slash your way through the perilous Nine Circles of Hell in order to save her. If you know your history you will realise that Dante’s real life counterpart was a more peaceful but well known Italian poet in the 14th century. Nevertheless, his videogame cousin is quite the character and you will find his venture through Hell to be of quite a hell of a journey as with all kinds of monstrosities lurking around the corner. Dante’s tour of Hell will take him through the 9 circles  which attribute the feeling of sin to the grim atmosphere. These 9 levels include Violence, Heresy and Lust. The only main contrast you will notice is the different types of creatyres you will encounter in each zone. The actual levels don’t look much different to one another and it is mainly just the creatures which identify which level you are in. There is a lot of graphic content in the game, most of it heavily based on brutal suffering and torture and even a moderate proportion of animated nudity. Although the game will take you around 10 hours to complete, the only truly rewarding section is the first 2-3 hours. Afterwards, the game quickly becomes repetetive and predictable and you will probably be thinking “time for a bit of COD” instead. 

As you will probalby already have guessed, combat is the main focus in Dante’s Inferno. The lackluster plot and puzzles act as more of a backdrop in an attemp to balance out the game. For the majority of the time you will be pitted against waves of enemies which spawn from the ground. It places you in a sort of natural arena where you will have to kill all the enemies or solve a puzzle while while fending off their attacks in order to move on. You can execute all sorts of combos and counter moves with your scythe and also use the Holy Cross enchantment as for a ranged attack… all at the expense of good old button mashing. Switiching between the 2 is definitely good way of going on the offesive especially with larger foes and bosses. The boss battles are a bit disappointing as the series of quick-time events leading up to their exectution is poorly put together. Although Dante is a but clunky when swinging his weapon, massacreing swarms of demons and creatures is always fun. The engaging combat system is one of the game’s few  highlights of the game but could still do with a tad more refinement. When you die, the game strips you of all your accomplishments for the given area so you will have to paythrough the entire section again in order to get everything back. This is particularly annoying when you have spent ages upgrading and customising all your combat moves. This is one of the key flaws in the game that quickly makes you loose incentive to carry on playing.

 

On your quest you will be faced with a variety of not so challenging puzzles which serve there only purpose to break up big combat sequences. There is just no sense of reward or satisfaction after completing them and many of them are an unecessary obstacle on your mission. You will also be able to pick up items and relics that you find but, again, this is just an element which has been added on that gives little added dimension to the game. The risk is not worth the reward.

Whilst the overall outlook of Hell is reflected well in the game, the visuals in detail don’t have quite the same asthetically pleasing picture. Character animations look shoddy, movement is a bit robotic and textures don’t stand out well. Eitherway, do not let these issues bug you becasue it will be the frustrating and repetetive gameplay that gets on your nerves.  There are plenty of gruesome and demonic creatures lurking around and the shape and size of some of them are terrific. They help add a sense of scale of some of the ebcounteres you will face in the underworld. Comical, cinemtatic cartoon cut-scenes are also used throughout to narrate the story and offer a slightly more light-hearted approach of re-telling the events that unfold in the pits of Hell. The graphically strong content also retains its presence and is certainly one thing that will catch your attention if nothing ese does. Aside from the few visual hick-ups, its the mediocre story and tedious gameplay that change your mind about this game.

Dante’s Inferno has  had tons of unique and imaginary ideas put into it. The problem is that none of them go hand-in-hand with each other. This game has a lot of sins to confess and and is not on par with other games of the genre such as Heavenly Sword, God of War and Ninga Gaiden with much less reseeming value. There is still fun to be had in this game but it won’t last the full journey through Hell.

+ Combat is fun and engaging on the whole.

+ Great creature and level designs.

- Poor storyline.

- Monotonous/repetative gameplay.

- Visuals need a bit of work.

6.2/10

By Ian Ratledge Posted Thursday, February 18th, 2010 10:30 am