I was looking forward to Dante's Inferno. Having been a big fan of Visceral's previous game, Dead Space, I was anxious to see what they threw at us next. I had followed all the video previews and trailers closely. There's something enthralling about a good b-game, and that is what Dante's Inferno is to me. I have never played the supposedly superior God of War series, although I think I will play the third entry when it is released. After picking up Dante's Inferno at midnight, I came home and jumped right into hell.
My experience with the game was a pleasurable one. I found the combat to be satisfying and fun. The setting is interesting. It is worth nothing that the game is essentially one long level once you start the quest proper. There is no loading time, just constant traversal through the dismal doom and gloom that the classical medieval vision of hell provides. The game is never boring or repetitive, although it does lose a bit of steam as you play through it.
The game comes to a crescendo about three-fourths of the way through, where you ride on the back of the largest demon you encounter and stomp and breath fire through a demonic city. It is after this point that the game falters. It is almost as if Visceral had backed themselves into a corner by trying to adapt somewhat accurately the poem upon which the game is based. The last two circles of hell are, sadly, quite uninspired.
As has been mentioned by Ryan Davis in his review, the game is surprisingly hard, even on the default difficulty setting. I got the impression that Visceral was not quite clear on how punishing the game should be or which mode an average gamer would want to play on. This is evidenced by the fact that there are no Achievements tied to the difficulty setting, where otherwise you would think there would be in an action/adventure game of this nature. I will say, having recently completed Bayonetta, I found this game to be comparable in difficulty. I will also say that as much as I enjoyed Dante's Inferno, I found Bayonetta to be the better of the two similar games overall.
Nevertheless, Dante's Inferno is worth playing. It's a solid rental for a weekend. Closer to summer, a DLC pack is coming that will introduce a co-op survival mode, which might be worth another rental down the road.
PROS
- Satisfying combat.
- Interesting setting.
CONS
- Uninspired in some areas.
- Punishing difficulty.
Final Score: 3 out of 5 Stars.
BUY -or- RENT
- RENT : Low re-playability, although the inclusion of the co-op mode down the road might be interesting to some.
