Right away you know that Dante's Inferno is a no bullshit, kick you in the dick tip adaptation of Dante Alighieri's Inferno, the first of three parts making up the classic poem, The Divine Comedy. What EA and Visceral Games have done is take the classic poem and loosely, and I mean loosely, base their video game around it. And in turn what you get is Inferno with a God of War twist. In fact, everything about Visceral's Dante's Inferno screams God of War. But in all honesty, that isn't a bad thing. If you're going to ape something, you might as well ape the very best.
The demo for Dante's Inferno opens with a tutorial, much like how the God of War games start. You'll be picking up the action in medias res with Dante fighting in the Crusades and doing what he does best: killing bitches. This brief tutorial will get you familiar with all the moves at Dante's disposal, and for God of War vets, most should feel familiar. You have your heavy and light attacks, your grab, the ability to block on a whim to cancel out combos, and to perform a dodge is but a simple flick of the right joystick.
Once you've massacred your way through a few waves of baddies Dante gets sucker-punched, or maybe sucker-stabbed is a better way of saying it, and comes face to face with Death himself, there to claim Dante's foul soul. However, Dante isn't having any of it (you can do that?), and a gentlemen's duel breaks out on the edges of oblivion.
Death: "I've made a huge mistake...."
Death isn't too hard to overcome; he's got some heavy attacks that are predictable and easy to block once you've spent a minute or two in the ring with him. Then once you've beaten him senseless for a few minutes he'll fall to his knee and you'll be given the "finish him" button prompt. This is the second instance when you realize Dante's Inferno is a carbon copy of God of War.
After brutally finishing off Death, and taking his scythe as a victory trophy, Dante returns home to his hot, half naked wife, Beatrice. However, It seems Dante is a bit too late and finds Beatrice, as well as his house maid, murdered. As Beatrice's soul begins to rise to Heaven, Lucifer steps in and whisks her away to assuredly tap that, taunting Dante as the two spirits blast off into the nearby woods. Dante is, as expected, pretty pissed about this and runs after them. This cutscene kicks into gear the second half of the Dante's Inferno demo.
Here you'll be hunting down Beatrice's soul as the world around you begins to crumble and turn more "hellish." You'll fight more retched souls and new bird-esque harpie beasts. You'll also be given a new weapon: the cross. With the cross you'll be able to blow away demons with divinity, whether on ground or in air. The cross becomes Dante's long range projectile weapon with a holy twist. You'll also be able to use the cross during grapple maneuvers to either condemn or absolve enemies. If you choose to condemn, Dante will brutally finish off whatever baddie he's holding. But if you choose to absolve the sinner then Dante will whip out the cross and "save" them with a blinding white light. It's a cool option that really plays up the Dante's Inferno property.
Blinded by the light, revved up like a duece, another runner in the night
You'll also find foundations scattered around the landscape that replenish your health and mana. And guess what? To take advantage of them you'll have to run up and hold down a button (in this case R2) and then hammer on the "circle" button to refuel Dante's cross and replenish your health or magic. Very God of War-esque, don't you think? Yuppers.
And finally, the demo concludes with Dante fighting a gigantic minotaur looking beast that once you drain enough of its health you're able to perform a mini-game to climb on its back and ride it around, pummeling enemies who look like ants below, and breathing fire to roast them.
If there's one thing to take away from the Dante's Inferno demo it's that it's essentially God of War with a new skin. There's no if's, and's or but's about it. But as mentioned previously, that isn't a bad thing. God of War is the creme-de-creme of extreme action gaming, so if Dante's Inferno wants to take that foundation and give us a new mythology and story to experience it with, I'm more than welcoming. Especially since it includes so many new awesome blasphemies.
