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  • Many games borrow disparate elements from other popular entries in a genre, mixing familiar

  • pieces together into something new and exciting. Very few games attempt to emulate the source

  • material as blatantly as Dante's Inferno does, though. In this case, the muse is God of War,

  • and Dante's quest to save his forsaken bride from Lucifer's grabby hands feels an awful

  • lot like Kratos' latest adventure in the netherworld. This isn't an inherently bad thing, but Dante's

  • adventure fails to live up to its lofty inspiration.

  • In the early going, you'll be hard pressed to separate Dante's Inferno from its superb

  • inspiration. The decent into hell from your earthly home is overloaded with rising landmarks

  • beckoning you from a distance, gargantuan monsters begging to be eviscerated in blood-splattering

  • ways, and epic environments that hint at the impressive scale of your adventure into the

  • heart of darkness. For the first few hours, you will stare in awe at your impressive surroundings,

  • and the feeling of déjà vu is more than welcomed.

  • The first few circles of hell are bursting with disgusting imagery that paints an eerily

  • accurate representation of the reprehensible land of damned spirits. Lust and greed are

  • two of the deadly sin you will traverse through early in the game, and they are utterly repulsive

  • in their portrayal of these crimes against humanity. This may sound like a bad thing,

  • but the visuals are so shocking and unrestrained that it only builds upon the foreboding atmosphere

  • of your quest. In lust, you battle condemned prostitutes with exaggerated parts of typical

  • female anatomy, and though it's gross, it certainly makes you believe you are truly

  • traveling through this corrupted land.

  • As you dive deeper into hell, though, very few disturbing abominations await. Early on,

  • you fight grotesque prostitutes, incredibly obese monsters who

  • typify the gluttony mentality, and even an army of unbabtized babies this is sure to

  • disturb even the most jaded of players. But once you get past the first few hours, the

  • imaginative enemies fade away, giving way to predictable hack and slash. Battles and

  • levels blur together, resulting in an often monotonous trek through the nine circles of

  • the damned. And while it is certainly shocking fighting these horrible beings when you first

  • encounter them, they stay with you the entire adventure, which diminishes the initial hint

  • of repulsion you tasted. It certainly makes sense that you would fight prostitutes when

  • in Lust, it makes a lot less sense that they continue to show up in Anger, Hersey, and

  • every other circle.

  • The epic level design from the early stages also disappear after the first few hours.

  • Initially, you would see a titanic being far off in the distance and you knew you would

  • have to fight it when you finally made your way through the obstacles between you. But

  • that feeling of making progress through the depths of the underworld quickly goes away,

  • replaced by a series of smallish rooms that don't even hint at the larger world around

  • you. Unlike God of War, Dante's Inferno fails to evoke the feeling that you are a tiny person

  • surrounded by monstrous creatures in a hostile land. Aside from the constant screams from

  • the damned who line the walls, it's often easy to forget where your adventure takes

  • place as you dutifully march from one area to the next without any noteworthy encounters

  • to break up the drudgery.

  • The combat is also lifted wholesale from God of War and, like the enemy design and level

  • layout, it too only gives a taste of the source material without ever doing justice to the

  • real thing. Battles are vicious and bloody, letting you tear into the flesh of your angry

  • enemies without reckless abandon. It is certainly fun slicing and dicing your way through these

  • despicable beings, but the combat has a few flaws that make it a bit annoying. When you

  • start a combo, Dante will see it through to completion, even while you're slamming on

  • another button so you can avoid an imminent blow from you enemy. Also, you have a projectile

  • attack you can use at any time. This works well when fighting one-on-one battles, but

  • the auto targeting is way off, making it a pain to hit a specific enemy when you're surrounded

  • by a seething gang.

  • There is a clear distinction between the quality of the first third of Dante's Inferno, the

  • middle third, and the end. It starts out as an epic adventure with gloriously disturbing

  • imagery, then loses the imaginative aspects but still has enough fun combat to keep you

  • motivated. But the final third of the game is awful. For the final few hours of the game,

  • level design and clever enemy battles has been completely removed in favor of objective-based

  • combat on floating platforms. Instead of being introduced to vile caricatures that exemplify

  • the sins of being a traitor or politician, you fight the same enemies as before with

  • artificial constraints tossed in, such as "Don't use magic." This is not fun in the

  • slightest and feels like a way to pad the game out so it doesn't end quite so abruptly.

  • It's a shame the entirety of Dante's Inferno couldn't match the imagination presented in

  • the first few hours, because it seemed like this game was going to be a worthwhile alternative

  • to the superb God of War series. But most of the game falls flat, and the final few

  • hours are tedious and uninspired. This is a pale imitation of the real thing, and though

  • it's fun for a while, there are much better action games out there.

Many games borrow disparate elements from other popular entries in a genre, mixing familiar

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