Dante's Inferno: This is Why Cloning Should Be Banned

Available: PS3/Xbox 360
Game Type: 1 Player Action
From: Electronic Arts/Visceral Games

I thought it only fitting after giving God of War III an A+ that it would only be fitting to speak of its near cousin, Dante's Inferno, however mutilated that cousin may be. Now before I speak too ill of this game let me be clear. Had this game released before the original God of War, it probably would have been a fun experience. As it stands, however, DI is nothing more than a clone of the God of Games.

The source material involves Dante, a mere mortal, chasing after his love, Beattrix, through the nine circles of Hell. In Visceral's game, Dante, a tough as nails, show no mercy warrior sleeps with a peasant whilst on a mission and thus curses his love, who gave Dante her purity out of wedlock, and thus damns her for all eternity. So Dante embarks n a journey through the nine bland and repetitive circles of Hell. Had I not been clearly told what circle of Hell I was in, the environments and demons would not have clarified.

Aside from this poor attempt at a cohesive story, everything from the combat, the minigames, right down to the special abilities like magic has GOW written all over it. Light attack/heavy attack combos? Check. Grab moves? Check. Using a ranged weapon for mobility. Well, you get the point. Even the camera operates on the GOW tried and true unmoveable-for-the-sake-of-cinematics method. As I said, for an original, it's gaming heaven. As a rip-off, it's really quite sad. It seems Visceral Games played a lot of a great game, and phoned in their own, all the while forgetting to add foot notes which results in a plagiarized game from start to finish. Even the health/magic boxes and minigames are direct copies!

Of the very few positive ideas this game brings to the table is Redemption. Upon grabbing one of the repeated enemy types you will encounter, upon grabbing them Dante has the choice to condemn or absolve this soul. Unfortunately, this one added mechanic really devolves into garnering small amounts of extra EXP for the branching good and evil trees used to level up Dante's arsenal. And guess what? Even these are repeated. You only have to level up your holy cross a couple times before you realize its just shooting out another beam. Not very inventive, Visceral, and certainly not engaging.

If you were looking for something to hold you over while you anxiously await that moment when you get your hands on a copy of GOW III, don't be fooled. You will get a better experience from you umpteenth playthrough of the other three Sony Santa Monica titles than even a rental could warrant out of this game. It seems all this game has accomplished is taking an epic poem and turning it into an even greater epic mess.

Graphics: Bland environments that revolve around shock value rather than good game design (yeah, we've all seen bare breasts in games before, how shocking) and even more bland character models, which becomes even more obvious when these baddies
show up a dozen times per circle.
Controls: They certainly work, but there's nothing new going on here.
Story: As a translation of a historical literary work, it's awful. I'm all for creative freedom, but remind me, was Dante a poet or a crusader!?
Multiple Play: Aside from the branching good and evil powers, I'd be surprised if you made it through one time let alone multiples.

Final Score: 47/100