It’s only been ten minuets and I have nicked the grim reapers scythe and then proceeded to slice him in half with it, saw my naked dead wife get dragged into some supernatural realm and watched the dead rise from their graves. Welcome to the world of Dante’s Inferno, a trip down the proverbial yellow brick road of hell. Filled with the 9 circles of the unholy damned, Dante must hack through waves of demons to rescue his beloved Beatrice.
Fear not though you are given a mystical guide in the form of roman poet Virgil, he will explain each unbelievable circle you visit, giving you some background into the sins of its inhabitants. The game is definitely not for those who suffer from a fragile mind and features an 18 rating for a reason. It has bucket loads of gore throughout and heading through the circle of lust sees you surrounded by visages of lady and boy bits (that’s penis and vagina for those scientific types among us).
As you trudge through hell you’re given a choice to either absolve or punish your enemies that succumb to your button bashing onslaught. The karma system is spit into holy and unholy and each side offers new combo’s or magic upgrades. Players are not bound to the path they started on and can freely hop between the two sides unless they are keen to stay on one side for the higher level power ups.
Camera angles are well thought out which makes up for the non existent control over the camera as you play. A great example of this is when you first enter hell and scale down a walled made of bodies, the camera moves just enough for a haunting image of a fiery stone statue spewing limp bodies out its mouth can be seen.
The sound is lush and gives the player a real foreboding sense that all hope is lost. The damned wail and scream with terrifying reality and shout as you go near them, tempting you with the very sins they are suffering for. Every blow you land sounds like it should, with that loud thud and a moist afterwards we would expect as you carve into someone’s flesh.
Accompanying your trusty scythe is your ability to use magical abilities. These include throwing gold crucifix’s at your enemies, making yourself into a tornado and stabbing yourself to cause massive damage to enemies. Some bigger enemies, quick time events and boss battles require the player to use timed button sequences to kill them. This is great fun for the first half of the game, but when you discover that the same sequences are used throughout the whole game, it really begins to grate.
For the kleptomaniacs among you there are 30 Judas coins to collect from alters that looks like every other alter ensuring the player cracks every one open. Similarly there are demon dogs and boss battles that leave relics behind, these give special power ups or bonus’s to the players and can be levelled up through punishing or absolving the minions of hell (much like the karma system). Finally you can collect 3 Beatrice stones which means you skip the absolve mini game you can play when you meet certain souls in hell.
The combat system reflects most hack and slash games with the standard block, heavy attack and light attack buttons. Obviously it’s up to the player to discover which combos work best and they will have to plan their route through the karma system carefully. With each path unlocking different magic or attack upgrades.
One of the more disappointing aspects of the game was the hit and miss quality in environmental textures. Some areas look breathtaking (considering you’re in hell) in particular the fire effects and boss fights. But some of the basic things like walls and rock just look rushed and grainy, something you do not expect nor want to see in a 3rd generation console game.
Overall Dante’s Inferno is a fantastic game which offers a refreshing change to the FPS and sports games that dominate the modern games market. Replay value comes in the unlockable gates of hell trials and the DLC ‘Trials of St Lucia’. Unfortunately it’s not a perfectly finished game, but the small niggles should not dissuade you from buying it
8/10
Ashley Tulett is a new addition to TNC family and during term time is based at Bournemouth University. As well as game review’s Ashley will also be doing music reviews.
