EA brought to GameX the latest build of Dante’s Inferno. Dante’s Inferno has an interesting history as far as how the game has come about. People have touted it the “God of War Killer” and I keep reading about how one of the level designers worked on both God of War and Metroid Prime, so at least there is credibility to the claims that this might be the ‘killer’.

The viral marketing for the game has included giving out sins to various companies and even a fake campaign against the game. So with a lot of hype coming from the guys themselves and various chatter online, I was finally able to make an informed decision on if I would like game or not myself.

Dennis Yu of EA helped me grasp the controls and started explaining some of the story to the game. The characters remain close to the counterparts in the original poem on which the game is based, however some changes are made to ensure that the game’s feel were made to be as “dark” as possible, and it shows with the graphic nature of every single creature I ran into.

I wish I was more familiar with the story to say whether or not there was a giant female demon beast that produced baby demons out of her nipples. I must say it was shocking to me at first, but in the end artistic and very much fits the look of the game (see below video).

Dante’s Inferno makes good use of a ‘combo’ system for those who wish to make this a button masher on the level of a Devil May Cry game, despite this is more of a slower paced, God of War type game. So it is cool you have that option on what pace you want to play. What Dante’s doesn’t share with the aforementioned games, is that the main character is slightly uninteresting.

Enemies and puzzles are all handled well, and I don’t think a lack of connection to the main character will be a huge turn off as long as people enjoy the gameplay enough. In my opinion, the gameplay coupled with the great creative enemy and level designs, more than makes up for a forgettable lead character. The puzzles I encountered in the demo were not too hard, however I expect the final product to display a larger range and depth to the puzzles.

The controls are very smooth. You can figure out various combos and figure the best ways to use spells to make sure the hacking and slashing doesn’t get boring. No lag or slow down I noticed when playing the demo with many enemies on screen. Also no screen tearing that I noticed.

A big part of this game is of course the story, which I felt was handled very well. Rather than thousands of cutscenes, various NPCs will be along your path, you can choose to follow along or you can just go right ahead and kick ass and solve puzzles for no reason. Kudos to whoever thought of handling the story that way, so you play through the game with no slow down.

Seeing past the e-hype the game is getting, wait until you actually try the game to form an opinion, as Dante’s Inferno is looking to be a classic for those who enjoy this genre.

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