Dante's Inferno Goes For The Tried and True

[TsunamiWombat]

At least they're honest. Everyone else makes the same shit and claims to be innovative.

 

[Time Travelling Toaster]

This seems quite an intresting game, and the fact they're actually been honest not saying "this game will change the action genre forever"
The source material seems intresting in terms of background and story as well.

 

[GodsOneMistake]

I hope this turns out well, i haven't heard to much about it

 

[MarsProbe]

Just rename it Hell Justice Awesome II: Return of the Venginator and it'd be more fitting to the game.

That game has to be made, in some form. A highly profitable venture, as it even leaves scope for a prequel, as well the inevitable sequel(s)!

But yes, in this case, perhaps dodging the whole innovation issue is a good thing. Though if they did want to be innovative, they could have just added in some quicktime events. Hold on, have they actually mentioned quicktime events yet?

 

[Macgyvercas]

That game looks freakin' awesome!

 

[Time Travelling Toaster]

Yeah, it would be even cooler if they actually included any of the source material, at all.

But unfortunately, Dante was kind of not a badass Crusader.
He was a poet.
A poet.

That would actually seem more intresting because then it would seem more like a real man's decent through the circles of hell rather than a Crusader who looks like he's been pumping the steroids. And he beat the Grim Reaper for his scythe for a weapon in game ? Not very true to the material there.

 

[yeah_so_no]

Good. Dante's Inferno didn't need a game made out of it.
Maybe next time they'll base it on something workable.

Or, god forbid, make up their own universe and story.

Not even make up their own universe--they could have taken the setting from The Inferno just fine and used it, and it would have been cool and made them look innovative and smart, like they really were looking at the Christian mythos (even though one of the elements, the ability to redeem the souls in hell, goes against the mythos Dante was spelling out).

No, where they shot themselves in the foot was making Dante into Generic Badass #3, Beatrice just another Girl in a Refrigerator/MacGuffin, and Virgil nonexistent. It was in taking the names and trying to make it seem like this IS The Inferno that's why everyone I know who games and is big on classical literature (which is most of my RL gaming friends, actually) is holding up a big ol' "NO" sign at this.

Dante was a wuss-boy poet who fainted his way through scene changes, Virgil was the guide, and Beatrice took over for Virgil as a guide after Hell. I would have bought Dante getting kidnapped and carried off and Virgil going, "$@%#!" and having to rescue him as more believable the Dante "Oh, my stars! *swoon*" Alighieri being a just-back-from-the-war badass going into Hell to save his girlfriend.

 

[Alleged_Alec]

Really, when I first read they were making a game on Dante's inferno, I hoped that it would either be a horror game a la Silent Hill 2 in the sense that rather then murdering tons of dudes, you'd have to sneak around them, hoping they wouldn't notice you, or a game like the old point 'n click adventures.

Seeing how it's just a bland action game with no extraordinary features apart from brutalizing the source material (and even that isn't that innovative), I'm not even going to touch it with a thirty foot pole.

 

[yeah_so_no]

That would actually seem more intresting because then it would seem more like a real man's decent through the circles of hell rather than a Crusader who looks like he's been pumping the steroids. And he beat the Grim Reaper for his scythe for a weapon in game ? Not very true to the material there.

Yeah, but if I am not mistaken, it was basically just a field trip through Hell and such while Dante made snarky political commentary.

Heh, it was. Dante had people in Hell who hadn't even died yet, and wrote his way around them not being dead by basically saying, "Well, if you do something bad enough, God judges you right there and your soul goes hell and your soulless body keeps on truckin'."

Not even make up their own universe--they could have taken the setting from The Inferno just fine and used it, and it would have been cool and made them look innovative and smart, like they really were looking at the Christian mythos (even though one of the elements, the ability to redeem the souls in hell, goes against the mythos Dante was spelling out).

No, where they shot themselves in the foot was making Dante into Generic Badass #3, Beatrice just another Girl in a Refrigerator/MacGuffin, and Virgil nonexistent. It was in taking the names and trying to make it seem like this IS The Inferno that's why everyone I know who games and is big on classical literature (which is most of my RL gaming friends, actually) is holding up a big ol' "NO" sign at this.

Dante was a wuss-boy poet who fainted his way through scene changes, Virgil was the guide, and Beatrice took over for Virgil as a guide after Hell. I would have bought Dante getting kidnapped and carried off and Virgil going, "$@%#!" and having to rescue him as more believable the Dante "Oh, my stars! *swoon*" Alighieri being a just-back-from-the-war badass going into Hell to save his girlfriend.

This is also acceptable!
The setting is truly pretty awesome, from what I have read (on the robo-webs.)

So I agree with you - if they were to just use the setting and make up entirely new characters, that would've been fine.
Cool, even. I do not mind kicking ass with holy symbols as long as I do not actually have to touch them.
But now I refuse to touch this abomination.
More than I refuse to touch crosses.
Ow..

I would have been all over this game had they made up entirely new characters. Heck, I probably would have been impressed with EA. But using the characters in such a way as to make it so they aren't the characters at all (for goodness's sake, for Dante to have fought in the Crusades, he would have either been the most badass five-year-old on the planet or a zombie, and he claims to have only met Beatrice twice in his life), turned me completely off the game. Just call it God of War: Onward Christian Soldier and leave Dante, Beatrice, and Virgil out of it.

And y'know, randomly, if they're going for a Japanese feel, why couldn't they make Dante attractive? I've seen the character, he's fug. Blech.

 

[megalomania]

There are a lot more Dante fanboys than I would have anticipated.

Well, there goes any audience this game might have had.

I wonder how many of the fanboys here have actually read the book though, and how many are simply aware and like to seem 'well-read' and 'intelligent'.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Well, I've not read the Divine Comedy and am pretty sure that their are people at EA who are more intelligent than me but, to me, this looks like a misguided attempt to add some "high cultcha" respectability to the latest generic action game. God of War clones and "shooters with cover systems" are the sort of projects that get approved by games companies that think they are up to date with the market but are really just too lost to approve anything other than a copy what sold well recently. If they did try to innovate they would probably just approve ideas like God of War clone with a cover system or Shooter with quick time events so it's probably best if they don't.

 

[yeah_so_no]

There are a lot more Dante fanboys than I would have anticipated.

Well, there goes any audience this game might have had.

I wonder how many of the fanboys here have actually read the book though, and how many are simply aware and like to seem 'well-read' and 'intelligent'.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm a fangirl who took a class on The Divine Comedy in college taught by a pretty famous Dante scholar and can still quote my favorite bits in Italian. Which is why I admittedly go into a rant whenever I see anything about this game--I honestly really love The Divine Comedy and this game seems to be knifing it in the back in an alleyway then rifling through the pockets for settings and character names.

 

[Hyper-space]

dante's inferno is just a poem about poetic justice in the depths of hell.

but seriously, why?........

they just though that dante's inferno sounded cool.

 

[timmytom1]

Where Dante's Inferno does innovate, Knight said, is in its mythos and setting. "The game has a lot of unique stuff about it that hasn't been seen before, in terms of the story, the fiction, the medieval Christian mythos," he explained.

Sort of defeats the point of basing it on something, doesn't it?
Honestly, if you can come up with your own "unique" mythos, you don't need to rape a masterpiece.

Seriously. I'm more disgusted by this game than I am by Bayonetta.

Just rename it Hell Justice Awesome II: Return of the Venginator and it'd be more fitting to the game.

That has to be one of the most awesome names i have ever heard i don`t care what you use it for just USE IT!!!!

 

[Andy_Panthro]

Really, when I first read they were making a game on Dante's inferno, I hoped that it would either be a horror game a la Silent Hill 2 in the sense that rather then murdering tons of dudes, you'd have to sneak around them, hoping they wouldn't notice you, or a game like the old point 'n click adventures.

Seeing how it's just a bland action game with no extraordinary features apart from brutalizing the source material (and even that isn't that innovative), I'm not even going to touch it with a thirty foot pole.

I feel exactly like you on this.

 

[mooncalf]

There are a lot more Dante fanboys than I would have anticipated.

Well, there goes any audience this game might have had.

I wonder how many of the fanboys here have actually read the book though, and how many are simply aware and like to seem 'well-read' and 'intelligent'.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm a fangirl who took a class on The Divine Comedy in college taught by a pretty famous Dante scholar and can still quote my favorite bits in Italian. Which is why I admittedly go into a rant whenever I see anything about this game--I honestly really love The Divine Comedy and this game seems to be knifing it in the back in an alleyway then rifling through the pockets for settings and character names.

It's not that they're making a game based on something else which bugs me, it's them squatting on the namespace by calling it DANTE'S Inferno like Alighieri was their lead programmer. The game is not going to pretend to be anything like a faithful reproduction, so why presume to attach the original author's name to it? It's a bit of a dickmove.