Demo Impressions: Dante’s Inferno
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre: Action Adventure
Acquired: PSN DEMO Download
Verdict: It is worth your time to download to see if this should be on your list of games to pick up in 2010
Pros: Good demo length, game looks great, memorable moments
Cons: Repetitive fighting sequences, parts of the demo feel like a God of War 3 ripoff, dumb places for quick time events
The story line is one of dark consequences and actions. The game quickly sets up the battle of good and evil and the line that Dante must tread to get to his goal. The story itself is delivered through a mixture of CG cutscenes and a dark cartoony like story delivery. It works well and was enjoyable. The CG scenes are very well done with believable character interactions, great details, and high production values evident.
This game as a whole looks awesome. Dante looks like a barney badass with his Scythe and red cloth cross stitched into his chest. The enemies all look unique with some even looking morbidly grotesque. Fighting some of the bigger enemies is very memorable. Overall, the visuals and sound played a big part in pulling me into this demo and making me play it through a few times.
The controls are solid. The camera doesn’t really get in the way of the fun. There are a lot of combos to be had in this game. There is no shortage of ways to kill the foes ahead of you. There even comes a point where Dante can grab enemies and either redeem them or punish them. One will send them to the light of good, the other is a gruesome death. The choice is yours every time.
Killing enemies nets some souls. These souls can be spent on new fighting techniques. There are good and bad items to upgrade here. Want to pummel and enemy in mid air? Invest some souls into the darker side of the fighting arts to unlock some ways to kick that demon’s ass in mid air. Like blasting the holy cross at enemies, then spending points in the light fighting techniques are a must. The demo lets you see all the upgrades available, and boy are there a lot of upgrades!
The biggest downside to this demo is the repetitiveness of the fighting. The first flurry of enemies is crazy long — at one point, I almost thought the game had screwed up and wasn’t loading the next area. This carries through the rest of the demo. I would go so far as to say it is just senselessly repetitive. Fighting a few waves of enemies is one thing, fighting the same set of enemies for five minutes gets a bit mundane.
I hope you like quick time events as they are all over in this game. Want to refill your health? Walk up to a statue and rapidly press O to refill your health. The same is true for refilling your magic. Killing bigger monsters is all done via quick time events as well. These cinematic moments have their place: usually a small confined one. Dante’s Inferno overuses them to the point of annoyance. Refilling your health should not be an exercise in how quickly you can press a button.
There are points in the demo that feel too much like a God of War rip off. Dante can beat up bigger enemies to a point and them jump up on them and use them to his advantage. While the visual glory of Dante controlling a big demon with his Scythe embedded into the demons skull is satisfying, I caught myself thinking how God of War 3 did just this as well. It is fun, but feels like a bit of cheap thievery.
Working through to the gates of hell was fun, though very repetitive. This is a long demo, clocking in at almost 30 minutes (it is the whole first level of the game). The game does have memorable moments, like splitting Death in half and taking his Scythe. This might not be on my must own on release day games list, but it is definitely on my must play through list. The demo is available now and well worth a look to fans of bloody violent action games. Plus, you know, it’s free.
Popularity: unranked [?]
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