I won’t lie; I did just that when I picked up Dante’s Inferno. The reviews I’ve read were mixed on it; some people complained that it was a God of War clone, which it is, but that’s not a bad thing. I don’t think I’ve heard a single person complain about GoW. I never got to play it, so Dante is a good stand in. People who’ve read the book bitched because it altered the storyline, changing it into a “damsel in distress” kinda thing. Look, I’ve read the Divine Comedy; I enjoyed the hell out of it. In fact, before buying the game, I re-read the Inferno to see how much of the original poem is in the game. And I’m pleased to say, there was a fair amount; mainly from Virgil, your guide through Hell, but there are a few snippets and lines from Dante and other characters.
The problem a lot of people had with the game was the nudity. Naked men and women abound throughout the game and yes, at times it is gratuitous, especially Beatrice. At first, I thought that she should have been clothed, but honestly, the more I think about it, this is the afterlife. Is there any real need for modesty in the afterlife, let alone in Hell? Anyway, that’s not the point. Most of the nudity is justified, as the majority of it is in the circle of Lust. Let’s face it: the naked human form is what drives lust, so this makes sense. Besides, why are you bitching about nudity and not the hours long, buckets of blood violence? I don’t get that. I was just as mystified when people complained about the Hot Coffee mod in GTA: San Andreas. Look, it’s an M rated game; your kids shouldn’t be in the room while it’s being played, let alone playing it. Quit blaming video games for poor parenting. M rated games require you to be 17 or older to purchase. If you don’t want you kids to play violent/sexual games, don’t buy them! How hard is that? Once again, I digress; I’m not here for ethical debate.
The environments were very well done, and each represented visually the sin that the Damned were being punished for. The only circle that I thought didn’t really exemplify its corresponding sin was Fraud, but how do you represent that visually? My biggest complaint about the game, other than the ending, which I’ll get to in a minute, was the lack of camera controls. They chose to use the right stick (I’m playing on the Xbox 360 by the way) as the dodge controls instead of camera controls. Personally, I’d rather mash a button and use the movement controls to dodge and have decent control over the camera and the ability to gawk at the damn environment that the developers worked so hard on. I dunno, maybe that’s just me.
Now on to my other major complaint: the end. It’s a really short game; I think I clocked in around 5 hours or so, but I wasn’t playing on hard, and I didn’t take the time to find everything; I go back and do that on my second or third playthrough. It ends pretty much the same way as the poem does: Dante ascends to Purgatory. And then the dreaded words that haunt my dreams: To Be Continued. Ok. Like I said earlier, I’ve read the Divine Comedy. To me, the Inferno didn’t scream video game; it’s a dude following a spirit through Hell. Not a lot of action there; thus they changed the storyline and added in hordes of dead enemies. Ok. Now, Purgatory is even less video game fodder, and I think the developers realize that. I did a little checking around the interwebz and found out that they have no intention of making Purgatory. I can understand that, and applaud their intelligence at realizing this. But I wish they had figured it out earlier instead of torturing me with those three cursed words.
All in all, I enjoyed Dante’s Inferno. I can deal with the changes to the great poem and I can deal with Dante being a weapons-grade douche instead of a great poet. I can even forgive the “to be continued” crap at the end. For a hack and slash game, which I don’t usually like, it was excellent. I won’t be trading this one in to GameStop anytime soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment