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I've played games adapted from movies, and honestly, they usually suck horribly. So when I heard that Dante's Inferno was going to be a game based on one of the greatest pieces of classical literature of all time, I began to get a bit weary on whether it would rise above the rest, or just crash, die, and go to Hell. I already knew that the game would very loosely have any ties to the actual story, which follows Dante (the author, who is a poet) as he treks through the 9 circles of Hell, talking to random dead guys, and sightseeing. Of course, leave it to Visceral Games to liven the story up a bit.

To sum it all up, Dante's Inferno follows Dante Alighieri, a crusader that has become very war weary, and wants nothing more than to come home to his fiance, settle down, start a family, and whatever nice wholesome crap possible. Of course, this is after he sews a cross into his chest, but i digress. Anyway, he gets home to find his house trashed inside with his father dead inside, and his beloved Beatrice outside on the ground with a sword through her chest. Think his day can't get worse? Oh yes it can! Lucifer then comes, steals her soul, drags her with him to hell. So you, controlling Dante, chase after them through the depths of hell, all while beating the crap out of everything with the Grim Reaper's scythe (after you kick his ass) and face the sins Dante has performed in the past.

Now this is the point in the review where i will warn the readers that I may drop a spoiler or 2 in the review. So if you intend on playing through the game and be surprised by some of the plot-points, don't say you weren't warned.

I just want to take a moment and talk about Dante. He is, without a doubt, one of the most bad-ass main characters I've seen. He has a cross that he sewed into his chest to atone for his sins. He dives headfirst into Hell with the "I'm gonna kick ass and chew bubblegum" mentality. He tells Lucifer to bring it the fuck on. I mean, he wields Death's scythe that he not only took from Death, but killed him with too.

Even in the moments when he's reflecting on his sins, he doesn't turn into a whiny bitch, he just decides to kill more stuff like the vengeful berserker he is. Kinda like Kratos from God of War. Controlling him is pretty easy too. One button makes him do a bunch of light attacks, another button makes him do heavy attacks, another one for grabs, and another to block. Kinda like in God of War. Actually now that i think of it, a lot of the gameplay and controls are like God of War. Unfortunately, it plays more like a watered down version of God of War. You only get 2 weapons to use in the entire game, that you use concurrently with each other: Death's Scythe, and a gold cross that belonged to Beatrice, which is used for ranged attacks.

The combat, is simple enough that anyone could really pick up the game and start hacking things up with no problem. Too bad the combat is so unbalanced, it can get really infuriating sometimes. The Scythe is quite inferior to the power of the cross, so really, you could just stand on the outside of the enemies, and just fire cross blasts at your enemies, with the exception of the Heretics who are the only units to make themselves and units around them immune to the cross. And since the Scythe is as underpowered as it is, those Heretic conflicts can take way too long. Even the final fight against Lucifer (i know, shocker) has to be done with almost only the scythe, since he can what seems to be absorb and send the blast back at you at times.

And don't let me forget about the quick-time-events, which are everywhere in this game. Bosses and larger enemies are killed via quick time events once their health is low enough. Yes, the kill animation during the Q.T.E.s are kinda cool, but they're just plain overused and abused. There's one point in the game when you're running down a bridge, and a QTE comes out of nowhere to hit the right bumper for what seemed like a quarter of a second. Miss it, you die. This is quite the common occurrence within the game, and it's almost more aggravating than the platforming itself.

Having a platforming game where you can move the camera is almost commonplace these days. So whoever had the bright idea to have fixed cameras in a game where there's so much platforming is beyond me. Yes, i know the environments look amazing and were so skillfully designed. But the camera angles should care more about the player and ease of play, rather than giving the player a sightseeing tour as he's trying to jump from place to place. There was one instance in the circle representing Greed where the player has to jump from one moving platform, that's tipping over a lake of molten gold (I 'm serious. A lake of boiling molten gold), to another platform that's just coming back up from tipping over. The camera angle makes it near impossible to not only judge the distance of the platforms, but what direction you're even moving.

I will say however, that the environment design team did a marvelous job with the overall look of the game. Each circle of Hell has it's own distinct feel to it that reminds you where you are. Souls are being tortured and tormented in different ways depending on their location in one of Hell's 9 circles and in some truly gruesome ways that are in fact, accurate with Dante's description in the poem. And not only does the game simply look stunning, it performs stunningly as well. From the second the disk goes into the system, the game runs at about 60 frames-per-second with just about no noticeable lag anywhere. Quite the impressive feat. Even the larger enemies, and some of the more extravagant boss fights don't seem to slow the game down much at all. I think i counted at one point about 8-9 fast moving enemies on screen at once using all attacks possible and still no slowing down.

However, it really is too bad that the enemies didn't get the memo that they need to stay in their respective circles. You will constantly find yourself running into enemies waaaaay outside of their respective circle. Explain to me why I had to fight dozens of Lustful Minions in the circle of Greed? Why were there un-baptized infants from Limbo in Lust? I want an answer Visceral! For a game that hypes such a vivid display of the depths of Hell, it's surprising how few enemy types there are. Yes, there are 9 circles of Hell and thats a lot of character design, but still, details like that matter sometime.

But wait! There's a moral and immoral choice system in the game isn't there? Well no, not really. With many of the enemies, you can choose, in another QTE, whether to absolve them of their sins, or punish them to eternal damnation. All this gets you is experience points to either power up your cross and magic spells (Holy EXP) or your scythe in the form of new combos (Unholy EXP). To add to the unbalanced nature of the combat, about 60-70% of the enemies can be killed by simply hitting one button to grab them, and one button to judge them, making all the amazing combos u spent the souls you collected on completely useless. Even the stronger foes can be taken out with basic attacks before the QTE to finish them off kicks in.

Ok, I'll admit i was nitpicking just a bit. Overall the game is generally solid with very few bugs I ran into. The combat leaves room for much improvement and variety, as well as the use of those stupid QTEs and fixed camera angles. The environment is beautiful and engrossing, setting the mood and tone superbly, and the story is told in a unique, and enticing fashion that compels you to keep playing and it can really be fun if you look past the minor flaws. Does Dante's Inferno burn for all it's sins? Well, I'd say it more simmers at the bottom of Purgatory.

I give this game a Go Games Go 7.5/10 Rating. It's an OK game that can be fun, but still rather flawed.

Written by Mike Gago,

Lead Reviewer

Go Games Go

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