Dante's Inferno Review

GO TO HELL! No seriously, that’s the game’s tagline. 

Dante’s Inferno
Developer: Visceral Games
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Platform: PS3
Rating: 7/10


Dante’s Inferno is based off of the 14th century epic poem, Inferno, written by a man named Dante Alighieri. Known for its vivid and brutal imagery, its influence on popular culture (whenever people think of hell, they’re really thinking of Inferno) and the fact that the poem was chock-a-block full of Dante’s enemies (who will be insulted, for ever and ever), Inferno inspired many popular works, not the least, this game.

Dante’s Inferno, as you may have guessed, takes many liberties with the original story. Firstly, Dante’s a crusader, either because the folks at Visceral/EA thought being a cavalryman in the Italian Wars was neither badass nor well known enough. Secondly, Dante’s not just a man travelling through hell (with his ghost buddy Virgil), but an incredibly rip-snorting badass made in the mould of Kratos, except he’s more sensitive, because we Italians are lovers, not fighters (or so my dad says).


Anyway, the story is serviceable enough; being the typical damsel in distress story, with the hero being some sort of unspecified chosen one. But it’s riddled with some pretty large plot holes so it’s definitely not a selling point of the game. What was nice, was how the story was presented: the game alternated between three types of cut-scenes pre-rendered, in game graphic, and some of them being presented in a more traditional animation style, reminiscent of the InFamous series.

Just with less ink-splotches and more blood. 

The level design is just another extension of this presentation; all of the levels (aside from the last two) are incredible re-imaginings of the circles of hell in Inferno, with the level’s of violence and anger being particularly bloody, and the level of lust being very sexual in its design… uncomfortably so…

This is exactly what it looks like! 

Even so, the game is extremely fun to play; it has puzzles, collectibles, and upgrades like you’d expect from a third person, hack and slash type of game. It’s pretty gory! While it does play like a poor man’s God of War, this is not such a bad thing; the way Dante attacks is not as fluid as Kratos, to be sure, but it’s easy enough to get used to and quite effective at dispatching enemies. The enemies themselves can pose a threat although at higher levels they’ll usually just try cheap-shotting you so players will need to dodge more often than not.


There are also some set pieces in the game where Dante gets to control larger enemies and wreak havoc upon the damned, in spectacular, infernal, and gory ways. There’s not much better than grabbing some fallen angel and setting his friends on fire, then having the choice of whether to paste or chew on the poor bastard. It’s like something from an Ozzy Ozbourne concert, if Ozzy was some five meters tall, the animals he crunched were the lost and damned denizens of hell, and he could breathe fire.

Boy, does he look mad! 

 In short, Dante’s Inferno is not the most original of games, nor the best of games. God of War and Devil May Cry have better action. There are many games with better stories. But Dante’s Inferno offers not only a uniquely ‘Christian’ take on the Hack & Slash genre, it has it’s own (sometimes disgusting) style which works really well, and offers an experience which remains, on the whole, quite satisfying (and not in a circle of lust kind of way).


Originally written for and posted on Comikkazee.
Posted on the 30th of May, 2012