Gaming Dante's Inferno Hands-on Preview

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/ps3/2009/04/29/dantes-inferno-hands-on-preview/1

EA's Dante's Inferno is a gory third person action game based on one of the most well-known religious poems ever written. How exactly can the developer reconcile those two ideas? We found out when we went hands on with the game and got a little more acquainted with Dante.

 

I have a sneaky feeling this will actually do very well, not least because I think everyone likes the idea of going toe-to-toe with Lucifer armed with nothing but a big stick with a knife on the end.

 

It'll probably do well, but that doesn't mean anything really.

As for fighting demons in hell; that'll never get better for me than the last level of Painkiller. Now that was a truly original and memorable vision of what hell might be - an amalgamation of all the wars of mankind, with the humans removed but audible, frozen in time. The trenches, those floating rifles and swords and the looming spectre of that eerily still mushroom cloud...brr.

 

I'll probably get this. However, when I get it will depend on how fast the price drops after release. Let's hope it's not just a Devil May Cry clone.

I spotted Mirrors Edge for a tenner a couple of days ago... but I really don't need more games to play right now...

 

My store of useless trivia compels me to mention that Doom also has taken some inspiration from the Divine Comedy. The third episode is named Inferno. The last level is called Dis, the City of the Dead from the Inferno; other level names taken from the poem include House of Pain and Gate to Limbo.

 

Good thing they didn't call it Dante's Doom though.

 

Kinda reminds me of Prince of Persia.

 

What other classic pieces of literature could be turned into games? You could turn Oliver Twist into a Thief like stealth game. Adapt Hamlet into a hack and slash. Replace Ichabod Crane with a beefy, Duke Nukem type character.

This is just ridiculous. Have they even read the book to see how much it ISN'T at all action-y?? I could respect a myst-like puzzle game or a more classic adventure game like Grim Fandango where you can talk to people and get through areas. Either of those two would work, be entertaining, and (best of all) be able to keep with the spirit of the original work. If they must make this game, why can't they just make it about a character who fights demons and stuff, not claim it is based on the book.

 

Be careful, if you read some of the classics like Inferno, Dracula or Frankenstein you will suddenly realize how poor literature is today.

 

There's a blog post in that

<ka-ching>

 

The idea of Dante's Inferno as an adventure game reminds me an awful lot of the game adaptation of one of my favourite stories; I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison.

 

doom 3 had probably the best rendition of hell ive seen.

 

And Episode 1 was called Knee-Deep in the Dead. Advanced literature at work here! But, sorry to call Doom Fanboy Extroidinaire on you, but there's no level called Gate to Limbo, I think you're thinking of E3M7, which was just called Limbo.