Dante's Inferno - First Look Preview

There's very little wrong with Sony Santa Monica's God of War II, which is why we gave it a 9/10 that was bordering on a perfect score. However, there's something quite wrong with blatantly ripping off this formula in a different game, from a different publisher, and coming up with something that's more generic than ASDA baked beans. Our fear is that this is what might be happening with Dante's Inferno from EA. While we've only played through a section from one of the game's early levels and it isn't due for release until 2010, meaning that much could change between now and then, the possibility of Dante's Inferno turning into a God of War knock-off is nonetheless a very real concern.

Why? Because we're struggling to think of one gameplay feature that we saw in Dante's Inferno that hasn't been lifted directly from God of War II and pasted in a wholly unoriginal way onto EA's fledgling title. Perhaps that's a little unfair... there may have been one feature: at the beginning of the demo we were able to tame a large creature and ride along on its back, crushing enemies and breathing fire to our heart's content. As far as we can recollect, tameable creatures weren't in God of War II, although we do know that Sony's Santa Monica studio is working on a very similar feature for God of War III, so presumably the first to launch of these two games will be the trailblazer on the feature.

Other than that though, the lack of originality on show during our first look bordered on shameless. The boss at the end of the Limbo level we played through, for example, is basically an unconvincing forgery of the Colossus of Rhodes at the start of God of War II. Called King Minos in Dante's Inferno, this huge boss inflicts the same fist slamming attack routines that were present with the Colossus of Rhodes from a very similar looming vantage point, only without coming anywhere near the inspired cinematic direction that the God of War series is known and loved for. Interestingly, King Minos of Crete is actually a character from Greek mythology who judges the dead in Hades (the Greek underworld), so perhaps the God of War gameplay allusions are partly intentional even if they are a little cheap.

And then there are the controls: if you weren't convinced by the knock-offery of Dante's Inferno already, then you will be now... On the PS3 build we played, the square button inflicted standard melee attacks; the triangle button performed ground thumping attacks that launched enemies into the air for ensuing aerial combos (while the levitating style of these combos was quite Kratos-esque, ironically enough it was Dante in Devil May Cry that was first animated in this way); magic based attacks were on the circle button and utilised Dante's crucifix weapon, while X was jump. The right analogue stick was then reserved for evasive rolls, which had to be used a lot against King Minos, while we used the R1 button to whip out Dante's chain at various prompts where it was used as a grappling hook to swing between gaps in the landscape.

Is any of this sounding familiar yet? If not, then try this on for size: magic and health can be found around the game world in vessels that are wrestled open like crates and release ethereal matter that Dante then absorbs. This then fills up his magic and health meters on the HUD, which are coloured blue and green respectively. Of course, the power-ups come in handy when Dante is fighting some of the demonic mini-bosses in Limbo, which have to be hit a number of times before a button prompt appears above their head to instigate a short quick-time event based kill. This style of QTE was also used plentifully during the King Minos battle and yes, by this point we were think that we'd gone to the wrong press event and had in fact ended up at a three year-old Sony presentation.

Other gameplay dynamics, such as scaling walls with an upwards and sideways jumping mechanic, were also imprinted with all of Kratos' gameplay trademarks, but we think we've made our point by now: a bit like the Toro Rosso team in Formula 1 (which uses a Ferrari engine), Dante's Inferno may be powered by God of War gameplay but it just doesn't perform like the real deal. At least, that analogy would work if this season's Formula 1 wasn't so FUBAR (to borrow a military term - stay with me here, I'm going somewhere with this) but to extend the analogy nonetheless, while the gameplay may be very similar, the bodywork and decals that cover the chassis of Dante's Inferno are markedly different.

We enjoyed some of the depictions of Hell that EA Redwood Shores conjured up in our first look. Images such as a wall of tortured souls that groan as you pass by, or a huge skull that you spank into the distance across a fog covered lake (it's probably a lake of lost souls or something) only to come across that same skull lodged in a wall later in the level, were promising visual touches at this stage in development. Some work will have to be done on the cinematic direction of the game to bring it up to the standards of Cory Barlog's previous work at Sony Santa Monica, but the potential is there. However, Dante's Inferno doesn't appear to have anywhere near the same level of next-gen graphical punch that God of War III has demonstrated so far.

We did find the inclusion of unbaptised babies a little harrowing though. Let's be clear, these aren't your normal type of baby that broody women say "wiggy-woggy-waggy-woo" at. Instead, they come wielding a scythe for an arm, although the symbolism is a touch troubling despite its otherworldly placement. The babies appear above an alter that depicts an open, bloody womb, which is a bit on the controversial side even for us. We do understand that it's an allusion to the part of Dante's Inferno that says unbaptised babies go to the Limbo circle of Hell (or words to that effect), but it still seems a touch insensitive for a number of reasons that we're not going to go into here because it's not really our place. We'll let the media watchdogs decide this one, although they're so puritanical that they probably don't like unbaptised babies anyway.

As an endnote, it's worth mentioning that we didn't play through any puzzles during our first look at Dante's Inferno, which makes us wonder whether this is the one area of gameplay where EA Redwood Shores actually wants to differ from God of War. It wouldn't be particularly advisable, as we suspect that the endless combat might get tedious enough to be ironically hellish, although it's probably just that puzzles will be in the final game but EA isn't showing them off quite yet.

What we've seen of Dante's Inferno is like God of War II in Hell, and not in the good 'Jaws in Space' way but in the less preferable 'it's literally the same as God of War II' sense. There's plenty of development time left for EA Redwood Shores to change course on Dante's Inferno and we really hope that they do, otherwise Kratos will eat Dante alive on the PS3.