The question at hand is; does the epic poem make an epic game? Short answer...no. Long answer...
This being said, this game still seemed familiar. I compared it to Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden. But a story well told is the main focus here right?
Well it seems that as far as pacing goes, this game was simplified and dumbed down perhaps to appeal more to the twitchy trigger fingered ADD sufferers that make up the core gaming demographic. Dante is turned into a fighting man with a dark past…which is a departure from the original concept. I, being a writer, was hoping for an epic retelling of the Divine Comedy. I was disappointed when I instead got the cliff notes of a Die Hard knockoff. I understand that some liberties had to be taken…but making him into this near immortal unstoppable badass just reeks of a Hollywood testosterone-injected balls-to-the-wall action movie. This also leaves character flaws. Why is Death enough of a **** to BEG for his life? Why does Lucifer need Beatrice? Why does your friend give his life for you and then resent you for it?
Which is funny considering they picked a very boring way to do it. Hack and slash gets very annoying, especially considering that while all the games Dante's Inferno is compared to have combos, this game has about four. Mash X. Mash Y. Mash B. Rinse. Repeat. ???. Win game. See hairy ass. And the game just has some plain out design flaws that frustrate me to the point of stomping toddlers. Again, I don't know (because my room is an Xbox only wasteland), but does GoW have a few incredibly annoying areas and a fixed camera?
Platforming. Okay. Platforming with a fixed camera. Ehh...manageable. Platforming with a fixed camera and a floor that kills you and enemies respawn when you die. **** Platforming with a fixed camera and a floor that kills you and enemies respawn when you die AND secrets that are way out of the way relock so you have to pick them back up again? Controller throwing annoyance.
I am of course talking about a level's spinning spiked fan blade that either knocks you into boiling gold or if you're lucky, knocks you into a room with the second most annoying enemy in the game whose only attack is spinning around damn near invulnerably for thirty seconds. I have two questions related to this. One, why would you make the secret items respawn when you die? So you needlessly have to backtrack or jump out of your way to find the three secrets, just to die before the end and have to take it from the top! And another, less urgent question, who thought it would be good to have a respawn point one second before a short cutscene? So I start, take two steps, and watch the enemy close the door on me.
The spinning **** fan puzzle, the 'run as stalactites fall and the wall crumble' puzzle, and moving platforms in a narrow shaft with fire burning you puzzle are just three examples of the crap puzzles in this game. And really, how many times are you going to make you do the moving box puzzle? It got old mighty quick.
Speaking of getting old. Quick-time events. YEEEEEAH…you want Holy or Unholy experience? QTE. You want to kill a boss? QTE. You want to platform? Q.T.E. Between the quick time events and spamming the cross projectile attacks I thought I was going to break my B button.
And after passing all the QTEs, defeating Satan, and seeing Dante's naked hairy ass about seven hours in I realized how disappointed I had become. Not that I was expecting this to slide to number one on my best games ever list but christ man…
What circle do you go to for making a game with less than ten hours of gameplay and then making all the replay value add-ons you have to pay for. That's right folks, you have to pay more that sixty dollars to get your sixty dollar investment back. I am of course referring to all that lovely DLC that was curiously marketed to you the second you opened the box. "Soul Packs" - So you expect me to pay for in game money? What is this, WoW? "Poet Costume" and "Animated Feature Film Costume"- paying for an in-game costume? Nice…
Then in March, "Prequel Dark Forest Level" - considering this will probably cost five dollars and be about thirty minutes long, why wasn't this an unlockable level ON THE DISC?
Finally in April, "Trials Of Saint Lucia" - this might have kept people from selling this game off when they finished…HAD IT BEEN INCLUDED ON DISC! I'm tired of nickel-and-diming by EA and Activision. I can understand making the above paid DLC, but don't add on a new game mode that would have made the game better, more interesting, and add a multiplayer element that would have made the game FUN…
Oh, and "New In Game Abilities" - interesting concept, undermined a bit by the fact that two months after the game came out everyone would have already beaten the game and no one will give enough of a **** to want to play through again just for the sake of a new magic spell or two.
So there you have it-another half-decent game with ambitions and dreams; killed at the spawn by greed and treachery. Rent before you buy kids!