Dante's Inferno Thread - Reviews are in! OXM 8, IGN 7.5, 1up C+, so-so

Gamespot review went up, and it pretty much solidifies what all DI critics have been saying all along. "Dante's Inferno is a wholesale imitation of the superb God of War series. Or, at the very least, it's desperately trying to be."ViewtifulScott

Also, Gamespot is saying that the game goes downhill after a pretty epic first third of the game.

I cant help but think this game was rushed. I mean Dead Space came out in October of 2008. Which means DI was in development for around a year and four months. It just seems way too short of a development cycle for a new IP. It took AC2 and U2 a full two years, and they were sequels so the devs had the assets and the engine already up and ready.

No wonder DI is only eight hours long with a repitive second and third act. It was done in a little over a year.

No, I'm trying to point out that the highly esteemed God of War had pretty much the same faults as Dante's Inferno and nobody seemed to care. I cared about those faults five years ago and I care about them today. That's why I gave God of War a 7.5 when I played it five years ago and why I said that the 7-8 score range sounds about right for Dante's Inferno.

UpInFlames

So you feel that a game that plays like the original GOW from five years ago deserves the same score today? Wouldn't your expectations go up, not down?

I think the issue remains that you didn't personally like GOW and you keep projecting that disappointment onto everyone else, acting as if the flaws you perceive in that game are universally accepted when in reality most people do not agree with most if any of your criticisms. Again, I loved the boss battles in the original, I love the combat and found it to be deep and rewarding, and I thought every other facet of the game oozed polish and quality. You obviously didn't like the game and that's fine but I really don't understand how you can state that Dante' Inferno deserves the same score as you would have given GOW five years ago when the former is basically cutting and pasting most of its gameplay from the latter.

Also, while I agree that Ninja Gaiden remains one of the best action games ever made, comparing it to GOW is a mistake because they are entirely different types of games in most regards. NG is really a pure action game where the exploration and adventure elements are merely ancillary where by contrast adventure and exploring are a significant part of what makes up the GOW experience. They really are two very disparate titles and I think comparing them is largely useless.

So you feel that a game that plays like the original GOW from five years ago deserves the same score today? Wouldn't your expectations go up, not down?

I think the issue remains that you didn't personally like GOW and you keep projecting that disappointment onto everyone else, acting as if the flaws you perceive in that game are universally accepted when in reality most people do not agree with most if any of your criticisms. Again, I loved the boss battles in the original, I love the combat and found it to be deep and rewarding, and I thought every other facet of the game oozed polish and quality. You obviously didn't like the game and that's fine but I really don't understand how you can state that Dante' Inferno deserves the same score as you would have given GOW five years ago when the former is basically cutting and pasting most of its gameplay from the latter.

Also, while I agree that Ninja Gaiden remains one of the best action games ever made, comparing it to GOW is a mistake because they are entirely different types of games in most regards. NG is really a pure action game where the exploration and adventure elements are merely ancillary where by contrast adventure and exploring are a significant part of what makes up the GOW experience. They really are two very disparate titles and I think comparing them is largely useless.Grammaton-Cleric

Actually, I think Dante's Inferno is better. The combat seems deeper, more engaging and varied and the leveling options seem rather robust. Also, if the reviews are to be believed, it has more, better bosses than God of War did. As I already said, I didn't find the demo as derivative as I expected it to be (I pretty much dismissed Dante's Inferno a long time ago). The God of War influence is quite obvious, but I also think Visceral managed to infuse the game with its own identity.

I wouldn't have given God of War a 7.5 if I didn't like it, I just didn't think it was the bomb.

Comparing God of War and Ninja Gaiden makes far more sense to me than comparing God of War and Okami. Ninja Gaiden features adventure elements such as exploration (the Vigoor capital) and puzzles (the stone platforms after the first Doku fight, for example), but both games emphasize action over everything else.

Actually, I think Dante's Inferno is better.

UpInFlames

Well, you are certainly entitled to that opinion even if I can't personally wrap my head around it, especially having played the tepid DI demo. (Perhaps the full game is a bit better.)

As to the Ninja Gaiden vs. GOW issue, I still think the exploration in NG came off as perfunctory; everything in that game centers on combat. In GOW, you spend an equal amount of time exploring, traversing the environments, and solving puzzles. There is a purpose to these tasks while in NG the only real objective is to arrive at the next wave of enemies. I think games like NG, DMC, and Bayonetta distinguish themselves because the combat is the crux of the game and everything else is secondary.

While I think the combat in GOW is very good, it's not the core of the experience.

Incidentally, if you like DI you might consider giving DarkSiders a spin. It's also derivative in places but as a whole the game is very well done.