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Do you remember a few months back I wrote a ranting blog about how books have so much to answer for, well my point has now been proved without any doubt whatsoever.
Visceral Games released upon the world last week their interpretation of Dante’s Inferno in the guise of a hack and slash ultraviolent game of quite epic proportions. Sure, it’s a very violent interpretation of an age old classic and one that’s very imaginatively realised, but it’s still a testament to the classic work, The Divine Comedy.
The game takes you through the nine circles of hell, visiting all of your favourite sins from those seven we’re not supposed to do and it does it in a way I didn’t think it would. First up, there is some very adult content, not just in the violence but in the nudity which is rampant throughout the game and is sure to start many an underage gamer off venturing off into a world of digital pornography.
Aside from the inclusion of many breasts in the game, there is a lot…and I mean A LOT of potentially stomach churning violence and creepiness that has come from quite frankly scary minds at Visceral. Even the opening cut scene made me, a hardened horror movie viewer a little queasy with Dante stitching himself up, but maybe that was due to my insane phobia of needles rather than the imagery itself. But more about that later.
The game itself is set to the tune of the great epic work The Divine Comedy, written by Dante Alighieri. It was a damning indictment of the times, set around the Crusades of the 12th century and is probably still in some ways very relevant today, and was focused around one man’s journey into hell after being betrayed by his people, and after betraying his wife. Actually, that even seems relevant to a lot of modern soap operas. But anyway this is a game review not a lesson in literary history, so back to the task in hand.
Dante’s Inferno takes you through the death of Dante, which includes a boss fight with the Grim Reaper and a descent into hell which allows you to ride beasts that can stomp, breathe fire and bite their heads off as if they were jelly babies or gummy bears, while under the watchful and sometimes helpful eye of Virgil. Then from that death through the epic adventure of rescuing his betrayed wife, Beatrice from the clutches of hell after losing her to a moment of infidelity and naughtiness while he was away on the Crusades.
Throughout the game the denizens of hell become more and more graphic and imaginative, in what at first glance seems to be another hack and slash adventure to go with the recently released Bayonetta and Darksiders, but this imagination and general unpleasantness is one of the things that keeps this game rolling along, a little like a controversial DJ who gets listeners who want to know what he’ll say next, this game does something similar and I can see many gamers playing just to see what they’ll see next. The combat is very much hack and slash, relying on combos and sometimes quick time events in fights and is surprisingly fluid and generally forgiving for the most part of the game.
The game handles the seven deadly sins well, with all of our favourites in there, gluttony, lust, heresy are all in there with their own distinct themes, monsters and ultimately bosses. The most impressive boss so far for me was lust, not because she had large, naked and very visible breasts, but in how they were used in an unexpected and non puerile way. And there are enough slight changes in gameplay to never confuse but keep the experience of the game fresh at pretty much all times.
There are rewards and achievements to be had in the game from levelling up powers by deciding whether or not to absolve or punish denizens of hell and even certain characters you meet along the way. It pleased me greatly to be able to act as judge, jury and executioner to already damned souls just for my own amusement. Some of these punishment/absolution moves are very entertaining indeed, especially the punishment ones, but the game changes slightly with a small rhythm button section when it comes to certain characters, which allows you to build up souls in order to further your powers in a way not entirely unlike the talent point system in World of Warcraft.
Now, all this makes the game sound like sheer perfection, but Dante’s Inferno is not without its flaws. Sometimes the camera angles are a little bit odd and can make objectives a little bit awkward to see and sometimes movement can be restricted a little due to this, particularly when swinging on ropes, but this is forgivable when you get to the meat of the game and have fun with the combat. Also some of the boss fights probably aren’t as clear as they should be for some gamers and can occasionally be unforgiving, but the saving grace here is that you can alter the difficulty of the game at any time, which is probably a godsend for some.
All in all, Dante’s Inferno is a surprisingly solid package, a lot of fun to play and certainly full of imagination. Although it’s not exactly faithful to the source material, it is an interesting way of telling a centuries old tale, albeit in a very violent manner. It’s certainly worth checking out if you like hack and slash games but with the amount of AAA titles due out over the next month could quite possibly be overlooked whilst Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2, Final Fantasy XIII and Heavy Rain are either out now or just around the corner, so for this one as good a game as it is, is probably worth waiting a couple of weeksb for second hand or cheap copies in your local store.
Dante’s Inferno is a game to be recommended, and although does carry an adult certificate could well inspire a few underage gamers to actually pick up a book and start off my whole “books have a lot to answer for” argument. Which brings me to one final point, Visceral games have already expressed an interest in making a game adaptation of Macbeth. Maybe, just maybe Dante’s Inferno could start a new trend to make games seem healthier in the minds of certain pressure groups.
