“Dante’s Inferno” rings hell’s bell

After several months of delays, “Dante’s Inferno” is finally here. There’s been a lot of back and forth in the media about this game in the last few months, but the impressive attention to detail, use of a winning game mechanic and the opportunity to take an epic journey though hell all make this game thoroughly worth the wait.

The game begins with Dante’s return home from the Crusades, only to find his father and beloved Beatrice murdered. Beatrice is promptly dragged into the underworld, and Dante must fight Death himself to gain entrance into hell.

Anyone familiar with the “God of War” mechanics should have an easy time jumping into this game. Attack combos, reaction command sequences and skill building all happen in a familiar fashion. Prepare for lots of button mashing and spamming, whether it be to open a door or smash a health fountain. And like its predecessor, your survival depends upon the ability to manipulate moves and execute kill sequences.

Like any good platformer, “Dante’s Inferno” is filled with diverse distractions in between combat sections. There’s the usual box puzzles, boss fights and sections where you have to defeat a given number of enemies in the allotted time.

But where “Dante’s Inferno” really shines is the incredible attention paid to level design. Each of the nine circles of hell has different enemies, bosses, historical figures to absolve or punish depending on your whim and even background noise. Limbo is filled with the moans and cries of pagans, while hordes of unbaptized babies with blades for arms attempt to tear you to pieces.

I’ve heard a ton of griping about its similarity to “God of War,” but honestly, I can’t understand why more games haven’t stolen the format.  While originality in a game is important, it seems like a no-brainer to borrow format from arguably the best game to ever grace the Playstation 2 platform.  If anything, “Dante’s Inferno” shows us that an amazing gameplay experience can be transferred to an entirely different story and time period without losing the original feel that made “God of War” so fun.

I can’t account for its accuracy to the “Divine Comedy,” as it’s one of few epic poems I’ve never made time to read. But it does give me hope for more new and interesting games to come. I can’t think of a story more suited to game development due to the already intrinsic level structure of the story.  Now if they’d only find a way to virtualize Shakespeare.  I swear I’d never leave my living room again.