A new game from Electronic Arts is always a call for celebration and thankfully Dante’s Inferno, the latest new IP does not disappoint in any way. However be warned it is not the easiest game in the world even on the easiest settings and will provide you will eight to ten hours of fast paced touch hack and slash action. Let’s get the obvious comparison out of the way straight away. It would be very easy to look at this game and just think it is EA’s answer to God of War after all that title features a character who fights creatures from an Ancient Greek heaven and this game has a character who fights creatures from an medieval Christian Hell but this is so much more than that and is another super title in a two month start to 2010 that has been like no other. The game is actually based on a piece of classical literature (not exactly the first place you would expect developers to look for inspiration) with EA and Visceral games taking the basic storyline from Dante’s The Divine Comedy and then adding the action premise and coming up with a visually striking tour of Hell for the player to enjoy. The basic storyline is that Dante is a crusader who returns home from a war that he has become disillusioned by, to find his home destroyed and the love of his life and fiancée Beatrice laying dead outside. Distraught he approaches his beloved when all of a sudden Lucifer appears and takes her soul and takes it to the pits of Hell. Dante decides to follow and rescue his beloved from the eternal torture she faces there. What follows is a quest through Hell where Dante faces not only his own sins but the sins of the human race in general and then a battle against Lucifer himself to save his beloved from Hell and damnation. Make no mistake this is a very adult game as the basic premise suggests. Throughout his quest you will come across some of the most graphic violence yet encountered within a video game together with various scenes of male and female nudity. This is certainly not a game you want to be giving your younger children as a present despite the fact that they will probably want it. As you would expect from a hack and slash game the feel of the controls and the combat is very important. There is no problem there as the developers seem to have tried to make the controls as easy to use as possible. His main weapons are his scythe and his cross which develop as the game progresses and you learn more skills. To start off with it is just single button presses but later on you are able to string together some very impressive combos. The flowing attacks that you are able to produce really boost the gameplay of the game and increase your enjoyment of the title. As well as the hack and slash elements of the game there are also some platform levels and some puzzles for you to solve in order to progress through the levels. These on the whole are well thought out and prove to be an interesting diversion and rest bite from the hack and slash action. Graphically this is an absolutely top notch title. The graphical representation of Hell is both beautiful and terrifying and the cut scenes are all beautiful presented. The animation featured within the game is all very well done. You actually come away from the game not realising that the pallet that has been used, colour wise, is actually quite limiting compared to the majority of games out there. Sound wise there is a beautiful orchestral score and the vocal acting for the most part is of the highest quality. The screams that some of the creatures come out with as they die can completely chill you to the bone and add to the atmosphere in a very big way. In order to prolong the life of the game, once you complete it you can start again in Resurrection mode which basically allows you to play the game again on a higher skill level and there is also a timed endurance mode. Overall this is a fantastic game and of the three hack and slash titles that has been released lately, this is certainly my favourite of the three. Having said that this is rock hard even on the easiest skill level in places but I hope that does not deter you from continuing because if it does you will miss out on a fantastic title. I won’t spoil the ending of the game but just to say that I hope the feeling that more is to come is correct and that this is not the last we see of the tale. It is not the perfect title but nothing even in Heaven and Hell is but it is certainly a title that all game players should have in their collection even those who are desperately waiting for a certain other title to arrive. | 
XBox 360 
