Friday, April 23, 2010

Dante's Inferno (2010) Final Thoughts

Title: Dante's Inferno
Publisher: EA/Visceral Games (2010)

When I posted about Dante's Inferno before the game was at about the half. Now that it's complete, here are some final thoughts. Lucky for me I agree with pretty much everything in this review so there's no need to hash it out here. But there are a couple things I'd add... 

The game is too short. These Xbox games cost 60 bucks (60 bucks!!!) and the game was about 10 hours. That is a major party foul. As in, unfuckingacceptable! 10 hours? Are you kidding me? I would be more pissed at EA but I sort of have to respect the way they suckered 60 bucks out of me for these piddling 10 hours.

And the story, talk about starting high and ending low. You've got 9 levels of hell to go through before Dante's fight with the Baddest Baddie of them all (to review: Satan) so you've got 9 levels over which the story needs to be spread. Talk about blowing your wad. I think it was at about level 5 that they started mailing it in story wise. And it's a real shame too because the story started out so well. So in this far-from-reflective-of-the-poem story, Dante has returned from a Crusade to find his love, Beatrice, murdered. Not only is she murdered but her soul is taken to hell. This is somewhat confusing for Dante because she has done nothing to deserve to go to hell. Dante goes after her, cue awesome gaming fun.

As Dante goes searching for answers and trying to rescue Beatrice the gamer learns about why Dante has so much guilt and why Beatrice's soul was taken. (The back story is all done in a different artistic style and is super awesome.) You start learning all kinds of stuff about Dante's Crusade, how he behaved, what was going on with his family, what he did to Beatrice, etc - and it's done really well. It's really engaging. You're immediately drawn into the story and the mystery of what really happened. But then it just peters out.

There's this great set-up and then it stops almost completely. The cut scenes become really short, the character back stories become unconvincing, and I wouldn't say more than two of the resolutions for the story were all that satisfying. It was really a bummer after such a great set-up.

So in the end I'd say the game is only average. It started out great but ended with a let down. Mr. Knight was all coy with us but the end said To Be Continued so I assume we'll get to go to Purgatory next. I hope they decide to stick with a story that actually spans the entire game for the next one.

rating: 3 of 5 stars

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