A game that begins by allowing to slay Death and grab his scythe and wade into the depths of Hell to save the soul of your beloved? Well, Visceral Games’ Dante’s Inferno does just that and spectacularly too. We have seen our share of eye-popping games (hey, we have played both the God and Gears of War) but in terms of magnificence and scale, we must admit that this one takes the cake. It is loosely - very loosely, in fact - based on Inferno, the first book of Dante Alighieri’s literary classic, The Divine Comedy.
You play Dante, a warrior from the third Crusade, and battle through nine levels of Hell to save the soul of Beatrice, his lover who has been dragged by the Dark Lord Lucifer himself. Of course, Lucifer wants to get the Hell out of Hell (we could not resist that pun!) and take over the throne of God. And equally of course, you have to stop him from doing just that. What are heroes for, after all?
In brutally blunt terms, this is basically a large scale hack and slasher with elements of magic thrown in (you tote around a Holy Cross too), but it is the sheer scale of the game that has us impressed. The different levels of Hell, the bosses at different levels (which include Anthony and Cleopatra, incidentally), the numerous enemies (including one which generates babies with razors instead of hands) the special effects, the music - it all has an absolutely grand feeling to it.
Followers of Gandhi might find it way too violent for their tastes, but we must confess to being utterly enraptured.Hell never felt this spectacular.
The game is available in two flavours for the PS3 - the Divine Edition (Standard edition) for Rs 2499 and the Death Edition (includes a lot of extras like full game soundtrack, 3D lenticular cover art and Wayne Barlow digital artbook) for Rs 2999. It also comes for the Xbox 360 in a Divinee Edition for Rs 2499 and for the PSP at Rs 1599.
We played the Xbox 360 version but would recommend the PS3 one, if you happen to have the console. The special effects deserve HD treatment!
