I went into playing Dante’s Inferno not really knowing what to expect. All the buzz I heard was from the past E3, where a bunch of crazy religious nuts decided to protest the game. Honestly not the best public relations decision on EA's part that I've seen, but there have been worse, but I digress. I got a chance to sit down and run through the demo and I must say it is quite a fun title.

The game's primary protagonist, Dante is depicted as a knight of the third Crusade, who has a red tapestry detailing the events of his life sewn into his chest. Dante is shown stitching the bloody tapestry into his chest while stuck in a "dark forest" and screams in pain as the final stitch is finished. The fabric suddenly begins to show flashbacks of his life prior to the game's story. In the first flashback, Dante and his fellow knights are ordered by King Richard to capture the city of Acre and secure an artifact by Saladin. During the raid on the Citadel of Acre, Dante is attacked by an assassin and left for dead. As soon as he is about to die, Death appears to inform Dante that he is to suffer "eternal damnation for his sins." and that those around Dante's life will also be punished. Horrified by the realization of the bishop's deception in calling their crusade being "holy," Dante decides to redeem himself.

The ensuing fight is between you and Death. After a long battle Dante is victor and his spoils are Death’s scythe. This becomes your main weapon in the game next to your cross that surprisingly shoots…crosses. I don’t want to ruin the demo for you, but lets just say Dante evolves in ways that you may not have imagined.

Dante’s Inferno's control system is strangely similar to the God of War and Devil May Cry series. If Kratos, Dante, and Nero had a freak-like child, that game would be Dante’s Inferno, but who’s saying that's a bad thing? Dante’s Inferno takes what’s good about both of those games and adds a religiously driven story (if not factually irrelevant) . Of course with that comes the upgrade system in the start menu, earn souls; spend them on improving weapons, health and mana bars etc.

From what I could tell with the half hour or so I spent with the demo, the voice acting is top-notch. The graphics also impressed me quite a bit. Of course coming from the same team that developed Dead Space what could you expect. During cutscenes, the game relies on an anime-esque movies to move alone the story. These were a fresh addition to the traditional in-game engine cutscenes that many games today use.

From what I can tell, Dante’s Inferno is shaping up to be a pretty nice title. It seems to have a strong story behind it with excellent voice acting. The gam,e for me, really transcends what a game can be story-wise. Look for this game to compete with Bioshock 2 this February. Dante’s Inferno descends 2-9-10 for the Xbox 360, PSP, and the Playstation 3 Entertainment system

Andrew Jones
Founder and President

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