(Read the original review on my blog)
Yet another game that I am glad I rented from GameFly, because I ended up not playing it nearly as much as I wanted to. But it's not that I ran out of time, rather that I just got to a certain point and just stopped because it wasn't fun anymore. I made it about half-way through the game, to the circle of Greed, before I quit due to lack of interest and enthusiasm. That's not good news.
The first problem came when they started to reveal Dante's back-story. Having already seen the animated film before playing the game, I knew that Visceral's version of Dante Alighieri was a crusader under the catholic church and that he ventures into hell to rescue his only love, Beatrice, which is all well and good in my book. However, once they started explaining how Beatrice was killed and why the devil dragged her soul to hell in the first place, the story began to fall apart.
Dante is not a good guy no matter how many times he uses God as a justification or claiming to fight for justice and Beatrice's freedom. "She's done nothing to deserve this," he says. No, she hasn't, but he has. He spilled innocent blood in the name of God, broke his promise to remain faithful to Beatrice while he was away, and let Beatrice's brother, Francesco, take the blame for his actions. The devil has seen this and intends to use Dante's "beloved" as bait to lure him to his fate in the depths of Hell. It becomes a quest for redemption, but in my opinion Dante deserves no such thing.
The second problem is that the level design, while genuinely inspired in some places, is also terribly uninspired in others. The puzzles are simplistic as well, and slow down the action and excitement of venturing through Hell. I found it to be an uneven mix between engaging platforming segments and "seriously, this again?" scenarios. I was able to put up with it for a while, but by the time I reached Greed I had had enough. The platforming in that level is utter crap. It was obvious that this is where the designers lost some steam and began to spread themselves thin with lame ideas. The platforming wasn't challenging, it was frustrating because the mechanics felt sloppy. The fighting wasn't fun it was just a grind to collect souls and level up your skills which made little to no difference in the combat. I began to wonder how much worse it was going to get. It was at that point that I ejected the game and mailed it back.
For a full-price game, Dante's Inferno is a letdown. What I played of it felt shoddy and unfinished, especially with knowledge that add-on co-op and level editor were coming in April. Although I honestly didn't expect much from this game, I was still disappointed with all of the missed opportunities for improvement. They could have waited until after God of War 3 came out and tried their hands then. EA would still have made just as much money, maybe more, and Visceral Games could have put more content and polish on the game before shipping. As it stands, Inferno feels like a rushed job and fails because of it. At the most, the game is worth a rent. I can only hope that the folks at Visceral are handling Dead Space 2 better than this useless game.
