Dante’s Inferno Review

Take control of Dante in his crusade to save Beatrice by entering and kicking seven shades of ‘you know what’ out of hell in an attempt to break free and save the trapped souls under control of the evil and sinister Lucifer keeping them there.

Story

Dante’s Inferno is heavily based on one man’s passage through the circles of hell in order to free Beatrice – his sweetheart who was cruely taken as bait into hell – and to defeat the entities representing the rulers of the 9 deadly sins, to ultimately take over the Throne of God.

Throughout the game, you will see your passage take the path echoing the 14th Century Poem – Divine Comedy – on which the story is based on. The allegory is the telling of Dante’s adventure through a medieval interpretation of what hell is and what it represents and sees him travel through the 9 circles of hell in order:

Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sullenness, Heresy, Violence, Fraud and ultimately, Betrayal.

Later in the game, Dante must face up to and ultimately fight his own sins in a tale of treachery, war crimes, family tragedies and more as his descent into the center of hell deepens and the pursuit to rescue his beloved reaches a stunning climax.

Graphics

Normally, the path in which my reviews go lead on to the gameplay side of things next, but the presentation and quality of the story telling in Dante’s Inferno is so impressive it needs to be addressed now.

All of the main story developments are presented using a 3 tier mix of in game cutscenes (all of which have production values so high, they could be mistaken for real life), a cartoon-come-story board presentation similar to an historical timeline and a fully fleged animation.

It’s this stunning attention to detail and depth to the story telling that is ultimately the main feature selling point to Dante’s Inferno. WIthout a doubt, you’ll have your breath taken away in the opening scenes and hooked to the end because of it.

In game graphics continue the high quality theme as the journey through the 9 circles deepens and your crusade picks up pace, the action and environments react accordingly and with each increment in difficulty along your path, the tasks and challenges, enemies and puzzles reflect in a deeper, darker and more sinister presentation of your surroundings.

Boiling blood, fire effects are all impressive, but are dwarfed in comparison to the sense of scale both of the levels and in the size of the main ‘entities’ (think of these as ‘end of level’ bosses) and their respective attitude’s.

All in all, it’s bloody beautiful. Animation is slick, environments seedy, shiny and highly detailed and polished to a squeaky clean sheen and it genuinely pushes the limit of the 360 in terms of the stunning FMV interludes.

Gameplay

Think of this as the ultimate mix of hack ‘n’ slash, adventure, mini RPG and story telling and you’re pretty much there.

The standard mix of spam ‘x’ button and press ‘a’ to jump to kill and fly and jump from swinging vine to swinging vine idea is all present, mixed in with opportunities to scale and ride the larger enemies to either ‘absolve’ or ‘punish’ them by shoving your fabled cross in their face or by slashing them in half respectively by doing on screen commands (such as push the analogue sticks in opposite directions at the right time, or by mashing ‘b’).

Throughout the game, you’ll have the opportunity to develop the way in which you play with the introduction of magic and expanding your arsenal and killer moves by collecting souls and exchanging them as a sort of in game currency in order to progress further.

You also have the ability to rank up a good and an evil side by either rescuing souls at the appropriate times or by punishing them. Doing so much of one or the another allows your XP to rise in order to ultimately rank up and unlock the more advanced abilities depending on your play style.

Puzzles are a regular occurence and are often based and feature the same principles as the previous ones, such as: drag this block to hold this object up, or shove the block up to make an easier platform to jump up etc.  There’s no serious head scratching moments, it’s just simply a break up of the never ending slaughtering of the ever increasing amount and size of enemies throughout the game.

All objective or point of interests throughout the levels are highlighted by a spinning circle allowing you to grab, jump to, swing from, slide down or pull (ie. switches) and any interesting fixed objects that are able to be destroyed glow and flash in order for you to swing your scythe at in order to reveal new pathways.

It’s a simple game, but very enjoyable and for a hack and slash newbie like me, the storyline drove the game forward at a perfect pace and was complimentary to the simple gameplay design.

Sound

From the menacing screams of tortured souls or the desperate plees for help while climbing the walls within hell, the representation of hell is one of a pain and suffering.

Excellent voice acting throughout the game, whether via in game action or cutscenes adds to the sense of high production values. Dramatic tense undertones in the background whilst playing, through to the mechanical movements of stairways, chain lifts and creaking statues all add to the sense of depth and scale of hell.

To summarise the audio quality and cinematics, they’re complimentary to the proceeding comments on graphics, without being outstanding. Great voice acting talent is a genuinely pleasant addition.

Summary

Dante’s Inferno is an epic depiction of one man’s travel through hell using stunning graphics and simple to pick up and play game controls so everybody can enjoy and feel pro whilst gorging on it.

If a little short and some what lacking in replay-ability, the game is a must play for fans of such series as Devil May Cry and God of War, and whilst some fans of the forementioned series’ may feel that this is a blatant ‘rip’ of their favourite franchises, they can relax fully in the knowledge that this can sit comfortably next to them due to the quality and attention to detail Visceral Games have added to it.

Lost in Nightmares Review

Lost in Nightmares is the first of four DLC releasing this year for Resident Evil 5. The next bit of extra content containing extra chapters is called Desperate Escape which is coming out early March and the 2 other packs I mentioned are costumes packs. All can be found here. I have decided to purchase all the DLC because I have had Resi 5 since launch but coming out on March 9th is Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition which contains all the DLC on the disc. Each DLC costs 400 and the Costume Packs are priced at 160.

Lost in Nightmares is a new chapter that shows one of Chris and Jill’s old missions, it is not very long. On Amateur it took me 20-25 minutes but on Veteran it took me well over an hour. The mission takes place in Ozwell E. Spencer’s (Founder of Umbrella) mansion and it looks exactly like the one off the first Resident Evil. As soon as I started I was taken back to when I first played Resident Evil and it felt brilliant. The first half of this DLC takes place in the main part of mansion and you don’t have much combat, more running around finding pieces of paper and a crank.

There are a few boss fights later on but they seem to have re used a boss of the Resident Evil 5 storyline, of course the boss has had a few mild changes. When it got to final confrontation I was actually surprised it was ending, it was just starting to get better. After you have finished Lost in Nightmares you have the chance to give Mercenaries Reunion a go. This is basically Mercenaries but with different characters such as the famous Barry Burton and the evil Excella Gionne, unfortunately not in her Urboros state.

I have put a few hours into the new Mercenaries mode and I am still enjoying it. I need to finish Lost in Nightmares on Professional mode still and this time I will run through as Jill because as soon as you complete it once on any difficulty you get the option to choose Chris or Jill which is nice as some people do prefer Jill. This is also like the first game where you also there had the option between Jill and Chris.

I love the Resident Evil series and Resident Evil 5 did deliver. This DLC is a great addition, it’s just a bit disappointing how short it is and that it could have been much longer. I would not recommend buying this DLC unless you play Resident Evil 5 on a regular basis. I hope Desperate Escape is just that little bit longer when it comes out next month.

8/10

Mass Effect 2 Review

Missed travelling the galaxy with your favourite crew and your ship the Normandy? Not to worry, Commander Shepard and co. make there return in EA and Bioware’s Mass Effect 2.

Commander Shepard returns in the sequel to one of the best selling games of 2007, Mass Effect. When you first start you are on the Normandy and you are wiping out the rest of the Geth resistance which continued from ME. Joker (The Pilot) then notices an unknown ship coming in on an intercept course for the Normandy; he tries to shake them off but the unknown enemy ship charges weapons and strikes the Normandy multiple times. You then have a confrontation with Ashley Williams from ME1 and how she wants to help but Shepard makes her leave with the rest of the crew.

You now take control of Shepard and must reach the cockpit to speak to Joker and get him off the ship. Just before you reach Joker, you walk through part of the deck where the hull has been breached and you can see into space and it’s absolutely breathtaking. I wanted to stand there forever just looking at the stars but I had to save Joker. Once you reach Joker, you have to convince him that the Normandy is a lost cause and he must get in the escape pod. He agrees, and you put him in the pod and just as you are about to enter it yourself the enemy ship attacks again making Shepard lose his footing and flying out of the hull breach in the ship. He clings onto a control panel and manages to launch the escape pod with Joker inside and then Shepard flies out of the cockpit hitting debris on the way out damaging his oxygen supply and the last show Shepard flying through space towards a planet, trying not to suffocate.

The gameplay in Mass Effect 2 has been greatly improved since Mass Effect. In the first Mass Effect, I didn’t like how it played at all and I am surprised I gave ME2 a chance but I did and I wasn’t disappointed. Bioware have introduced a whole new combat system and I found it easier to use my biotics/talents (I chose Adept Class). Now instead of just having one biotic being mapped to Y, you can now have 3 biotics/talents mapped for easy use. You can level the power of your biotics/talents by using squad points, you can each one up to Level 4 and I managed to get my Push Talent up to level 4 and when I did I got a choice of what kind of Super Biotic I want it to be like (E.g, Push multiple enemies or a superman push move) I went with the Superman Push move which means, if an enemy gets hit with it, he will go flying!

This goes the same for your squad, you are still allowed to take 2 with you on missions and there has been an introduction of new characters and the main ones being Miranda and Jacob. We see the return of Garrus, Ashley and Tali. When choosing a squad I normally like a mix of strength and biotics, I normally go for Garrus and Miranda. New characters appear all around the galaxy and you might even see some old faces.

ME2 has beautiful visuals, I was really impressed and you can tell the differences from ME. There are lots of new planets to visit and even though some parts of the Mass Effect universe are dark and evil, it’s still nice to look at. You can now customise your armour, with new patterns and colours. I went for a sort of Red Tiger style from Call of Duty. The artists and level designers have put a lot of thought and passion into ME2 and they have not let us down, I can’t wait to give it another play through just to look at the stars and planets.

Due to the game being set in 2185, the music can be different depending which planet you are on. Example, Omega has a club called Afterlife there which plays dark club music. I loved the music there and I often just travel there just to listen to the music and have a dance but the music hasn’t evolved that much considering the time period. The voice acting is as good as ever, including Commander Shepard (Mark Seer) and Miranda Lawson (Yvonne Strzechowski). All the voice acting is good throughout the game, even for minor characters throughout the story. Voice acting plays a big part in todays modern games and storylines, without good voice actors most games wouldn’t be played. The music is composed by Jack Wall and he has done a brilliant job with it, I hope he continues to work with Bioware for ME3.

Overall, ME2 is a great story and I would truly recommend this game to anyone, even if you didn’t like the first one. I didn’t like ME but I gave it’s sequel a go and I love it, it’s my Game of the Year at the moment. With so many different choices and paths in this game, you can give it more than one play through and get a total different story. Be good, be evil, be Shepard.