Evening everyone, Tazzlefrass here with my in-depth review of the demo of Dante?s Inferno on the PS3. TL;DR at bottom.
Beyond this sentence, I?m not going to compare the game to actual historical events because ?a giant topless Cleopatra with unbaptized children pouring out of [her] nipples" never happened during the Crusades (to my knowledge) and I haven?t read the entire Divine Comedy so you never know. Maybe that was the earliest form of erotica. I will however, compare it to God of War as such things are inevitable.
The demo opens with a touch of exposition, and then we see Russel Crowe stitching a cross into his chest to show how badass he is. Kratos did that by throwing himself off a cliff. The player is then given a sympathetic view of the plight of the people being killed during the Crusades. Various people in prison cells accuse Dante (the protagonist) of being a child slayer as he walks past. I assume the stitching of the cross into his own chest comes later, otherwise I?m sure he?d be showing that bad boy off.
Now we get to show them just how wrong they are by slaying them in droves. Our first bit of control of the game (unless you skipped over the cutscene) is displayed with the player slaughtering prisoners Dynasty Warriors style who do next to no damage to your armored self. Maybe if Kratos wore more than a mini-skirt he would take less damage. Score one for Dante?s Inferno!
The animations during this fight scene are quite fluid and we?re treated to a gorgeous backdrop of a blood flecked sunset during our maiming.
Now for a part that literally had me laughing when this happened. A man who is presumably an assassin walks up behind Dante and jams a knife into his back. All those prisoners with their shivs, clubs, and pilfered swords could barely graze you, so I?m guessing Dante forgot to put on the armor that fits between his shoulderblades. Let?s be frank, that thing chafes.
Then Death appears and goes through the motions of his usual job. Likely, he?s not used to fighting people wearing armor everywhere but just below the neck, as he goes down begging for mercy and Dante gets his modified scythe with chain attachment; the sickle for the reaper who likes some sport in his reaping! I feel the urge to point out that Death?s scythe barely damages Dante. I played on normal difficulty which is the hardest the demo allows so forget about the scythe I want Plot Device Dagger for my reward.
Following his defeating of Death, Dante decides its time to return home to his topless and devoted Beatrice, while baring his brutal chest-cross and Death?s scythe, to find everyone dead with crosses in them. As we?re dealing with the powers of the beyond here, we?re not going to lump in people dying without Death in with Plot Device Dagger. Speaking of denizens of Hell, Beatrice?s soul hops up and apologizes before being whisked away and leaving Dante to fight zombies.
This is where we?re able to pause the game and mourn a character we don?t know while perusing the skill trees. You?re able to upgrade through Unholy abilities initially, and Holy later on in the game. As you get experience in droves you?ll likely have enough xp to buy everything anyway; except that the whole ?tree? part implies skills branching. Each tier has its own xp level to reach and you have to either reap or redeem soles to reach those individual xp levels. Whether unholy or holy, souls is souls when it comes to spending; Dante?s just ganster like that so no need to worry about grinding just to get spending souls.
After dispatching the zombies in a minor tutorial to teach us how to use our chain bla-?scythe, we move on to a church where it appears Beatrice (now sporting a black road map of her veins) is being?enthralled, shall we say, by wisps of shadow. She claims that Dante was not faithful to her during the crusades or something and then the church is torn away and we see a molten pit of fire and some kind of bat things which we dispatch by firing white hot crosses at them! During this fight, the church continually collapses until you?re dropped into a mausoleum and have to fight your way to open a gate and avoid being crushed. Then we?re entered into an arena pit and get out first magic ability which is controlled in a similar fashion to God of War. Following a few waves of baddies, a minotaur-esque creature appears that you proceed to beat the snot out of, then crack his skull open with your scythe and control the rampaging, fire-breathing thing in a truly HELL YES!! style moment.
After you?ve completed the demo and cracked open a large, ominous gate, the demo tells you in bold, amber colored letters, GO TO HELL, sadly no tourist map is provided.
TL;DR
Graphics look very pretty and during cutscenes the camera angles to areas such as a dirty puddle your horse steps in a single time to show off its prowess. Considering the scope of the game, what with Dante going through the 9 rings of Hell, the graphics and particle effects will probably be strained to the breaking point due to all the creative monsters involved. I am annoyed that the text is maybe a quarter of an inch large and it?s frustrating when trying to read it. I?d also wish that the standard enemies would be more varied. Once we get to skeletons and zombies, they seem to have the same texture patterns.
Gameplay is a functional hack?n?slash that flows smoothly. From my initial impression, there?s no massive combos that take up half a screen in the instructions. Instead, the player has numerous small moves of maybe two buttons that flow seamlessly into each other. The animation isn?t as smooth as Batman: Arkham Asylum but Dante doesn?t bog himself down with needless combos when he can switch effortlessly between the scythe and cross. Oh! And Quick Time Events! Woooo?hooo.
The game has a great orchestral score and I look forward to the soundtrack. This is the kind of game that will make you proud to own a surround sound system.
Bottom line: It looks promising. I?m going to assume there?s some sort of twist in the story, otherwise Dante chasing through 9 rings of hell just for Beatrice will be horribly lame; there?s more fish in the river Styx. Whether the Divine Comedy will stack up to Greek Mythology is unknown.
Gameplay is solid and the combo system is a step above God of War. I can?t help but feel though that the game will tout itself on shock value more than substance. God of War 3 will be having sequences where Kratos slices his enemies and they retain that bit of gore until their death according to the latest Game Informer (issue 201) and from the sounds of it, it will have some incredible artistic detail and is honestly going to push the current rendering tech. Dante?s Inferno will have tits that shoot out babies from the nipples, and demons with tongues sprouting from their nethers presumably to be used as weapons. Like I said, shock value.
Beyond this sentence, I?m not going to compare the game to actual historical events because ?a giant topless Cleopatra with unbaptized children pouring out of [her] nipples" never happened during the Crusades (to my knowledge) and I haven?t read the entire Divine Comedy so you never know. Maybe that was the earliest form of erotica. I will however, compare it to God of War as such things are inevitable.
The demo opens with a touch of exposition, and then we see Russel Crowe stitching a cross into his chest to show how badass he is. Kratos did that by throwing himself off a cliff. The player is then given a sympathetic view of the plight of the people being killed during the Crusades. Various people in prison cells accuse Dante (the protagonist) of being a child slayer as he walks past. I assume the stitching of the cross into his own chest comes later, otherwise I?m sure he?d be showing that bad boy off.
Now we get to show them just how wrong they are by slaying them in droves. Our first bit of control of the game (unless you skipped over the cutscene) is displayed with the player slaughtering prisoners Dynasty Warriors style who do next to no damage to your armored self. Maybe if Kratos wore more than a mini-skirt he would take less damage. Score one for Dante?s Inferno!
The animations during this fight scene are quite fluid and we?re treated to a gorgeous backdrop of a blood flecked sunset during our maiming.
Now for a part that literally had me laughing when this happened. A man who is presumably an assassin walks up behind Dante and jams a knife into his back. All those prisoners with their shivs, clubs, and pilfered swords could barely graze you, so I?m guessing Dante forgot to put on the armor that fits between his shoulderblades. Let?s be frank, that thing chafes.
Then Death appears and goes through the motions of his usual job. Likely, he?s not used to fighting people wearing armor everywhere but just below the neck, as he goes down begging for mercy and Dante gets his modified scythe with chain attachment; the sickle for the reaper who likes some sport in his reaping! I feel the urge to point out that Death?s scythe barely damages Dante. I played on normal difficulty which is the hardest the demo allows so forget about the scythe I want Plot Device Dagger for my reward.
Following his defeating of Death, Dante decides its time to return home to his topless and devoted Beatrice, while baring his brutal chest-cross and Death?s scythe, to find everyone dead with crosses in them. As we?re dealing with the powers of the beyond here, we?re not going to lump in people dying without Death in with Plot Device Dagger. Speaking of denizens of Hell, Beatrice?s soul hops up and apologizes before being whisked away and leaving Dante to fight zombies.
This is where we?re able to pause the game and mourn a character we don?t know while perusing the skill trees. You?re able to upgrade through Unholy abilities initially, and Holy later on in the game. As you get experience in droves you?ll likely have enough xp to buy everything anyway; except that the whole ?tree? part implies skills branching. Each tier has its own xp level to reach and you have to either reap or redeem soles to reach those individual xp levels. Whether unholy or holy, souls is souls when it comes to spending; Dante?s just ganster like that so no need to worry about grinding just to get spending souls.
After dispatching the zombies in a minor tutorial to teach us how to use our chain bla-?scythe, we move on to a church where it appears Beatrice (now sporting a black road map of her veins) is being?enthralled, shall we say, by wisps of shadow. She claims that Dante was not faithful to her during the crusades or something and then the church is torn away and we see a molten pit of fire and some kind of bat things which we dispatch by firing white hot crosses at them! During this fight, the church continually collapses until you?re dropped into a mausoleum and have to fight your way to open a gate and avoid being crushed. Then we?re entered into an arena pit and get out first magic ability which is controlled in a similar fashion to God of War. Following a few waves of baddies, a minotaur-esque creature appears that you proceed to beat the snot out of, then crack his skull open with your scythe and control the rampaging, fire-breathing thing in a truly HELL YES!! style moment.
After you?ve completed the demo and cracked open a large, ominous gate, the demo tells you in bold, amber colored letters, GO TO HELL, sadly no tourist map is provided.
TL;DR
Graphics look very pretty and during cutscenes the camera angles to areas such as a dirty puddle your horse steps in a single time to show off its prowess. Considering the scope of the game, what with Dante going through the 9 rings of Hell, the graphics and particle effects will probably be strained to the breaking point due to all the creative monsters involved. I am annoyed that the text is maybe a quarter of an inch large and it?s frustrating when trying to read it. I?d also wish that the standard enemies would be more varied. Once we get to skeletons and zombies, they seem to have the same texture patterns.
Gameplay is a functional hack?n?slash that flows smoothly. From my initial impression, there?s no massive combos that take up half a screen in the instructions. Instead, the player has numerous small moves of maybe two buttons that flow seamlessly into each other. The animation isn?t as smooth as Batman: Arkham Asylum but Dante doesn?t bog himself down with needless combos when he can switch effortlessly between the scythe and cross. Oh! And Quick Time Events! Woooo?hooo.
The game has a great orchestral score and I look forward to the soundtrack. This is the kind of game that will make you proud to own a surround sound system.
Bottom line: It looks promising. I?m going to assume there?s some sort of twist in the story, otherwise Dante chasing through 9 rings of hell just for Beatrice will be horribly lame; there?s more fish in the river Styx. Whether the Divine Comedy will stack up to Greek Mythology is unknown.
Gameplay is solid and the combo system is a step above God of War. I can?t help but feel though that the game will tout itself on shock value more than substance. God of War 3 will be having sequences where Kratos slices his enemies and they retain that bit of gore until their death according to the latest Game Informer (issue 201) and from the sounds of it, it will have some incredible artistic detail and is honestly going to push the current rendering tech. Dante?s Inferno will have tits that shoot out babies from the nipples, and demons with tongues sprouting from their nethers presumably to be used as weapons. Like I said, shock value.
Don't worry, I plan on doing full game reviews soon. Could call the demos a warm-up so I can refine my style. If you have a suggestion on what game to review, I'd love to hear it. My systems are PS3, PS2, I have a laptop with a horrid graphics card, and I think an old XBox around here somewhere...