Friday, December 11, 2009

Stepping to the Gates Below... Quick Hands-On with the Dante's Inferno Demo



Warning - This is indeed a mature rated game and it contains some nudity (even in this demo) in the videos.

Yesterday on the Playstation Store, a demo for Dante's Inferno came out and I decided to give it a try. In case you don't know about this game and wandering why this game is a big of a deal, Dante's Inferno is billed as a God of War ripoff among the gaming crowd and it is true from what I played so far. Being a ripoff can be both a good thing or a bad thing pending on how you spin it. The good thing is that it is another God of War style action game with blood, gore, and nudity. On the other hand, the developers clearly ripped off some things from the God of War games and actually God of War still does it better. The controls are similar, the combat is a little mashy, but still satisfying beating things up, the story is about Dante getting revenge for those that killed his wife after making a deal with the Grim Reaper, and so on. Graphically, Dante's Inferno looks okay at its demo state, but you can tell there is unoriginality with the look as if you seen this before. Some of the cutscenes are in CG and cartoony form, which are not bad but still an interesting decision by Visceral Games how to take these scenes in a certain direction. I also felt like they tried to go toe and toe with the God of War III Demo of what to put in it to show off before the game comes out from having mini-boss battles to riding a big creature around destroying the opposition. The magic and upgrade systems are also similar to God of War as well gaining souls as you progress through the game. All in all, Dante's Inferno is a solid ripoff of a better game and it is nice for 360 owners (this demo for them is out on the 24th) to have something like this, but for PS3 owners, there is God of War III to blow it away. Still though, if you enjoy these type of action games, then give Dante's Inferno a shot.