Dante's Inferno as a Video Game

Times like these can make you wonder if a new take on an old legacy would make the originator proud, or turn over in their grave? Dante's Inferno could very well do both. While there are good pieces to this puzzle, there are a lot of broken elements as well. And even if Dante himself had a current-generation game system and an HDTV, he would probably leave this title alone.

The story stands alone upon a plateau of perfection. Created by a master poet with legions of experts from all generations ready to back him up. The Divine Comedy is known throughout the world as one of the greatest works ever written by the hand of man. And while the original is broken down into three major parts: The Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise, the game deals with only the first. We're talking about Hell here. Bloody, gory torture for eternity. The epic poem is quite different from the game, in that Dante is a poet in his own poem. He awakes outside of Hell, and traverses inward in search of a way to Heaven. This leads him through the nine rings of Hell, and past the most unsavory characters as well as Hellish situations. The game is a bit different, featuring him as a warrior. The type that would rather pick up an ax and cleave you from your mortal existence before sitting down to write a poem.

This is where the game goes wrong. I can't fault it for being a hack-and-slash type, or God of War clone. Realistically this is probably the best way to interpret the source material for mass consumption in the game world. But many fans of the original work are probably going to end up disliking the development team for being so short sighted. They seem to have no idea of long term ramifications when it comes to Dante's quest, and any normal person would ask themselves "How can he do this?". I'm referring to that fact that Dante can kill any foe he comes up against. This includes the likes of Death himself, Minos, Cerberus and of course, Satan himself. If anyone were to kill Death, who would reap the souls? If Minos were to die, who would judge those who come into Hell? And so on. Asking this type of question will pull you from the experience the game offers only leaving you with more questions. The development team could have probably thought of better ways around the problems of Hell, but it isn't that they didn't bother that bugs me. Its the fact that they didn't care enough to give it any more thought, and figured gamers either wouldn't care, or wouldn't have enough common sense to ask such a thing. Also mysteriously vacant form almost all of the experience is Virgil. While he may show up here and there to toss lines from the poem at you regarding the area you are about to enter, he is of no real help, and ends up being a mere talking signpost.

Other than this, the story is pretty limp and has a hard time standing on its own. Without ruining the ending, I can say that Dante comes home from his romp through the crusades only to find the love of his life Beatrice, dead. Of course he goes on a rampage that brings him to the gates of Hell and beyond. He works his way down into the nightmarish world in search of his lady friend, battling all of the major protagonists from the original work. This is the game in a nutshell, and when you are finished, its all you will remember, as nothing really stands out apart from the basic idea.

Visually the game is very solid, save for a few cut scenes rendered apparently on an N64. The in-game engine makes fine use of the polygons and shaders, yet somehow the development team managed to scare up some sad looking graphics for a few scenes. Other movies were pre-rendered fantastically, and you will at times blurt out how real they look. Hell itself, while not up to par with what my mind has built over the years of reading the original work, looks pretty good. Climbable surfaces writhe with souls trying to escape, or at least drag someone in with them, and the enemies look top notch for a game of this type. Dante himself looks pretty amazing running, jumping and slashing all about. The nine circles as environments do a decent job of telling the player where he is in the afterlife.

But the visuals are also a place that may scare off some gamers or parents of gamers. Many enemies featured are either partially or completely nude, and as such, it isn't a kids game. While the source material may allow for these types of liberties on paper, the transition to a visual media that is as interactive as this will most likely have parents everywhere in an uproar. At times its blatantly gratuitous, and others its warranted. You may want to rethink getting this title if you are offended by nudity of any kind.

Gameplay is nothing special right out of the gate. If you have played any God of War game, you have already played this. Comparing Dante's Inferno to such a series might be unfair, but it is a situation that the development team has put me. Upgrading Dante's abilities is a mirror image, as is the combat. Pop-up attacks work identically, as you can stay in the air beating on foes for a disgustingly long time. Heavy and light attacks as well as magic are all done using strikingly similar mashes of the buttons.

And for beating baddies into crimson masses of quivering goo, our hero has really only three types of attacks. The first being his ill-gotten scythe. He swings it, stabs with it, and uses it as a mode of transportation. Taking another page out of the God of War book, Dante can use a series of quick-time events (a button will pop onto screen, and pushing the corresponding one will trigger an action) to destroy normal or boss enemies. You can also decide to punish enemies by entering a quick-time event, which will trigger a particularly gruesome kill scene. The second is his cross. Dante carries with him a rather large cross, which fires magical light. He can fire it upwards, downwards, and thats about it. He can also use this to "absolve" normal enemies or special characters throughout the game world. Doing this leads to a mini-game where the player is given a map of the four face buttons of whatever controller you are holding with four pathways leading inward, each to a single button. As sins fly inward, the player must push the corresponding button in time to absolve the sin before...well, who cares. The more sins you forgive, the more bonus souls you get at the end of the mini-game, and you are rewarded by seeing the soul float off in a brilliant beam of light. This mini-game along with many of the puzzles will get rather old, and you may find yourself punishing these people just because its faster than trying to save them.

Punishing or absolving enemies is a choice the player makes depending on which abilities the player like to unlock. Punishing foes allows Dante a broader selection of evil or dark powers, while absolving does just the opposite. In reality, you will unlock both sets by running through them and figuring out what would be best for your style of play, as both sides have worthwhile upgrades. Some of them are combos while others are upgrades to the amount of health or man Dante can carry.

As you progress through the world, you will collect souls from either vanquishing enemies, or by simply walking up to a fountain and destroying it. The same goes for health or mana. These souls are spent upgrading Dante and his abilities, giving him new attacks and so on. Health is self explanatory, and mana is used to fuel magic.

This brings me to another terrible piece of game design. If you are using a PS3 to play this game, kiss your O button goodbye, and the B button for the 360 will probably kick the bucket too. Nearly every quick-time event uses the blazes out of that single button. For any fountains containing souls, you must press either the R1 or RB button to make Dante interact with the object in question. After this, its on to pounding that O or B button until your thumb is bruised and beaten. You do this when absolving a normal enemy, getting souls from fountains and opening doors. Not to mention using levers or turn tables for puzzles. The player is required to press the button at a certain speed, or they will fail at whatever they are attempting to do. By the end, you may never want to touch that button again.

The enemies themselves while passionately designed lack any kind of intelligence. Their idea of combat is usually to pull the most cheap move they have, and keep on going. You will find yourself swamped with three or four different types of enemies in which you are constantly being knocked down, and unable to get back up through multiple hits, which causes needless deaths. Also, the development team seems to think that no one will notice the same enemies populating the entirety of Hell, even though they obviously belong in one particular ring. You will see the disgustingly obese monsters running around in many other places other than gluttony, and so on. Yet again, they seem to believe that the public won't ask questions.

The field of play is at times difficult to survive and I'm not speaking of just the enemies. Many times you will find yourself dying for the most obnoxious level flaws. You will control Dante one way, but because of the camera angle (which you cannot change), you don't reach the other ledge, you instead fall to your doom. The camera will often cause you to jump further one way that you normally would as it is often not in a direct line of sight with your target. Checking the ground for your shadow in relation to the other objects will help alleviate this problem, but won't cure it.

Another issue is with them foes themselves. The difficulty seems to ramp up and down quite frequently throughout the game, and many times you will find yourself just too swamped with enemies that take too much damage. Beating on the same enemy for whole minutes trying to block their attacks, while asking yourself why they haven't died yet is all too tiresome. After dying multiples of times, the game will give you back health, seemingly trying to find the right amount to give you before you succeed. If that fails, the game will then insult you by remind you that you can back off the difficulty in the options menu. Normal in the game seems to be at the hard, or advanced stage, while easy is much more "normal" feeling. Unless you were a God of War addict who really used every combo they unlocked, and knew how to deal with the cheesiest and cheapest foes, stick with easy, you will thank me.

The sound for the title is pretty top notch. The tortured scream in pain, the music crescendos beautifully with where Dante is in the world, and the weapons all have a weight in sound that makes them feel real-ish. The score for the title is very well done, and though many players probably won't notice it, it does give the game an ambiance that is fitting for the subject matter.

And finally we come to presentation. The PS3 version will decimate the Xbox 360 copy any day of the week with its extra features. The Bluray disk contains extra movies, art galleries and other goodies not afforded to Microsoft's baby. If you are debating which copy to get, this is a no-brainer. The extra material will have you knee deep in Hellish glory for a few extra hours. Either edition you get will send you to Hell, just maybe not in the way you wanted.

So with all this negativity, what is left? I'm left with the nagging question of why I still like the game. Its probably due to the fact that anyone had the guts to actually attempt a modern recreation of such a beautiful masterwork. Not to mention that I was a rather large fan of Dante's work to begin with. Where they have taken the story and characters won't appeal to everyone, and thats a major dilemma for some gamers. What you may have built up in your mind from years of reading the original is probably going to differ greatly from whats portrayed here. If you can take it for what it is, you will probably have fun for most of the title. Gamers who have never heard of or read the works of Dante Alighieri will obviously have nothing to compare it to. Hopefully this will create more interest in the life, and work of probably the most skilled man with the spoken and written word.