QnD Review: Dante's Inferno (Xbox 360)

This review is purely based on around hour and a half of gaming, from the start of the game to the Gluttony level of hell (ie. 2nd real game level).
Edit: some updates and the game has been thoroughly played through, and the score of 7.5 is appropriate.


First things first; is DI a God of War clone? Does the bear shit in the woods? Hell yeah - and it doesn't even try to hide it.

You have exp, mana and health fountains (GoW: chests), you have the same kind of ground and aerial combos, you buy skills (good or bad, here) with experience points as you proceed, etc.

Even the combat is pretty much the same; dozens of enemies coming at you at once, small bosses, big bosses, you have quicktime events that you kill small (optional) and big bosses (mandatory) with. Only difference is, usually, that you can either punish or save their souls while you do it (being good, ie. "Holy" will get you more experience, which is kinda silly).

You have your standard variety of lost souls, small, medium and big demons; noting you haven't seen before in a video game about hell (or a dozen other subjects). You also have a 7-layer depiction of hell that ranges from "ho-hum another wall made of souls and guts" to "Wow, those little demons bursting from the big demon's nipples were a nice touch!" -kinda moments.

It all reeks of unoriginality. (But that's fine, it's not like it is an original story either...)


It's not bad, though. The good parts are still good, but the whole lands short of it's clone-father; GoW just does everything slightly better, has a bit more style - and face it: if Dante and Kratos were put in the same room, Kratos would come out the winner, with Dante following him on a leash and wagging his... err... tail. ;)

If you're a 360 owner, this is pretty much as close as you can get to GoW - without the Greek parts, and with a lot more tits and darkness.

Addentum on 8.2.2010:

Now that I've played the game to completion I have to hand it one thing: the pre-rendered cut-scenes between different acts (and especially the one in the end) are nothing short of gorgeous. Of course these are made by a 3rd party studio (Blur) that has shown excellent results in recent games like Dragon Age: Origins, and have little to do with the game itself. In fact, in the last video it's eerie to see a really different looking Satan in the cut-scene from what you just fought on the "pentagram". Nevertheless, they build up the immersion pretty well.

The game itself held together pretty well to the end - being pretty much the same fare than in the earlier levels. No real "ooh, aah" -moments (aside from the cut-scenes), but no real feeling of boredom or insurmountable opposition.


Score 7.5/10