Episode 21: Dante's Inferno.
Disclaimer: I won none of the material mentioned in this review as it is owned by EA games, Visceral Games, and based on source material written by Dante Alighieri not me.
Bold Italics: Lyrics to a parody of the Angry Video game Nerd theme song by Kyle Justin the parody is mine the real deal is Kyle's
Random singer: He's gonna take you back through time, to play the games that are a real crime.
He'd rather have an Alpaca take a stomach flu crap all over his knees.
He'd rather chew the rotten asshole of road killed possum and block it out with some cheese.
He's the angriest gamer you've ever seen.
He's the angry Nintendo Nin.
He's the angry Atari, Sega Nin.
He's the angry video game Nin.
Airnaruto soon showed up dressed up in almost the same fashion as the angry video game nerd minus the glasses.
"Hello I'm the Classic Critic; I remember it so you're not required to." He said before grabbing an Xbox 360 controller off the floor.
"Okay gang it's time for me to review another video game, so what am I reviewing today well read it and weep folks." Airnaruto said as he flashed the game case in front of the camera. "I'm gonna be playing some Dante's Inferno for the 360." He said as he turned on the system.
"Now for those who don't know this game was released only eight months ago and is loosely based on the first book of the epic poem The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieriwhich was pretty much an allegorical vision of the afterlife which set up the Western Church's perspective of how Hell and Heaven are set up and set up the Tuscan Italian dialect as the written Italian standard." He said as he got to the main title screen.
"First I'm going to warn you that this is not a game you let little kids or anyone who doesn't have the stomach to handle, mindless gore, nude, religion, or sex touch so if you're among any of four categories of people that should stay away from this game and get the hell out of here." He warned the audience before turning back to the game before a text in bold letters that said story on it appeared above his head.
Story:
"This game's is as mentioned a loose adaptation of the original first part of the poem, so there are a few tweaks to the plot, for example; the year the game is set in is 1190 during the 3rd crusade and Dante is in the role of a soldier returning to Florence from the crusade and he's constantly being hounded by his sins from the war, as well as his life. which include, killing 3000 Kurdish prisoners out of frustration, having sex with a female prisoner who pulls the Abram and Sarai sister actually being wife trick on him, and letting the brother of the woman he loves take the proverbial bullet and be hanged to death." Airnaruto said as we see the scene of Dante fixing a leather blood red cross-shaped tapestry which has the designs of each of the sins Dante has committed in his life up to now that has been sewn onto his torso.
Dante: At the mid point of the journey of life, I found myself in a dark forest, for the clear path had been lost.
The next part of the story showed the aftermath of the battle of Acre in which Dante had defeated the grim reaper and taken his scythe but Airnaruto decided to add his two cents on something.
"I find it odd that the game takes place 75 years before Dante was even born but on the other hand it is a loose adaptation of the poem." Airnaruto said before getting back on track.
"Anyway, Dante returns home to find that his father and his beloved Beatrice have been murdered, Dante finds Beatrice's corpse outside just as her soul is about to ascend into heaven, however the shadowy essence of Lucifer that had been pursuing Dante grabs her and drags her off to an old church…..Wait a minute!" Airnaruto said before cutting himself off for a quick rant.
"I thought Satan would never step into a church even if he's just a smoke-like projection of himself, let alone take a soul meant for Heaven to the depths of Hell?" Airnaruto asked the audience before they also started thinking it over.
"Well folks do you want the reason why well here it is, apparently before he left, Dante promised Beatrice two things; first off to forsake any sexual desires until he got back from the crusade, and the other to protect her brother Francesco and as I mentioned earlier he failed on both accounts, while at the same time Beatrice had made a bet with the devil that Dante would remain faithful to her and if he wasn't then Lucifer would get her soul, fortunately Dante still has Beatrice's cross on him which he promised to give back to her when he returned, except now it possesses holy ranged attack capabilities and the power to absolve souls. Now armed with this and the scythe Dante along with his guide the ghost of the Roman poet Virgil make their way down through the nine circles of Hell to save Beatrice's soul." Airnaruto said before condensing it for the audience.
"In other words, the game takes the first part of the poem and turns it into a classic save the damsel in distress archetype kind of story but as shown through a various amount of in game cut-scenes, CG cut-scenes, and animated cut-scenes but still you won't fully understand it unless you get the 9 DVD animated epic set which fills in some of the gaps that are left in the game., Now let's move on to the game play of this thing." Airnaruto said as we see another bold text section appear.
Game play:
"Now most people would call this game as nothing more than a knock off of the God of War games, and to be honest I can see where they would come up with this complaint. I mean the combat controls for the most part are set up in the same way as God of War, you know destroying enemies with a combination of light, heavy, magic, and ranged attacks, cutting enemies to pieces, and kills that involve quick-time events. I can only find part of this being because one of the head developers of the game had worked on the first two God of War games, there all also some environmental puzzles you have to solve to progress further down into Hell though they aren't as frustrating as some of the puzzles in God of War." Airnaruto said before getting to the main difference between the games.
"However there is a key difference between the two games and it's this, in Dante's Inferno with certain enemies you get to choose how you finish them off. You can either punish them by cutting them up with your scythe or absolve them with the cross but be careful which ever choice you make will determine how holy or unholy you'll become as you progress through the game and along these paths depending on how many souls you have which act as your currency, you can purchase upgrades to your health and manna meters, the maximum amount of relics you can carry, your redemption meter, as well as various attack upgrades for you're scythe, cross, and magic." Airnaruto said as he moved on to the collectables in the game.
"What about collectables you ask, well there's a good bit of them in here too." Airnaruto said, as he explained about what to find while we see him cutting his way through some of the enemies in the first circle Limbo.
"As far as collectibles go you'll find certain holy or unholy relics that can increase certain attack damage, keep your combo attacks going without being interrupted by attacking enemies, journal entries from Virgil which pretty much explain a little bit about the circle you're in or about to enter, shades of various people in history up from as far back as ancient Assyria, to about as far ahead as Dante's life that you can choose to either punish or absolve but in the case of the latter you'll have to play a 40 second mini game that involves you capturing the shades sin and giving you souls depending on the number of sins you caught multiplied by 30." Airnaruto explained as he showed Dante absolving Pontius Pilate.
"The 30 silver coins of Judas grant you 3000 extra souls for every 5 coins you find, and three Beatrice stones which enhance the absolution of your cross and if you find all three of them you can choose to auto absolve a shade but I more often then not choose not to cause you won't get any souls from auto absolution." Airnaruto said as he showed an auto absolution.
"Well we've covered the game play so what about the visual design? Let's take a look at them and find out." Airnaruto said as the word "Design" in bold lettering came into view.
Design:
"The design of this game is just grim and dark but in a good way as each circle fits the imagery of it compliments the sin perfectly and the backgrounds are just as impressive and organic except for the circle of Greed which is more like a factory of some sort." Airnaruto said before we see some example of this such as; a Tornado filled with the carnal damned in the circle of Lust, Gluttony looking like someone or something's digestive track, the Phlegethon, with souls bubbling beneath the boiling blood river in violence, Charron himself on the river Acheron, the murkiness of the river Styx in the circle of anger, and the evil glow of the city of Dis before we Charron utter a familiar line from the poem.
Charron: Through me the way to the city of woe. Through me the way to everlasting pain. Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
"The enemies in this game really show how above and beyond the designers went to show that you are in fact in the depths of Hell" Airnaruto said as we see some the enemies as he explained. "You have to take down regular sword wielding shades, exploding shades, minotaur demon things, Malecoda who's just a minotaur on fire, behemoth demons that you ride on after taking out their masters, and this next batch I kid you not on these guys and these are probably the most mind fucking of all them." Airnaruto said as he pulled out a list of the enemies that he though would fuck people's minds.
"First off you have unblessed infants with scythe blades for hands, prostitutes who's vaginas will latch on to you like a harpoon and pull you towards your death and be careful these bitches are quick so keep your guard up when you can, a hoarder fused at the hip with a waster wielding a huge gold mace and be careful when they start spinning stick to the scythe because your cross will have almost no effect on them, massive intestinal worms that spring out of the ground to eat you, King Minos judge of the damned, Cerberus who looks nothing like his Greek counterpart." Airnaruto said as he showed a photo of a three headed red worm dragon creature. "However in my opinion the most disturbing to look at of all are the gluttons massive over weight female damned and I swear they're female with not one, not two, but three sets of teeth two of which are their hands and to make things even more disgusting these butt ugly beasts attack you by either chasing you and then grabbing you to literally bite your head off or they'll shoot you with their own vomit and shit." Airnaruto said we see the gluttons fire said projectiles.
"All I can say to that is…unholy shit!" He said as we hear a rim shot effect. "Now on to my final thoughts on the game." Airnaruto said as we see "Final thoughts appear again in bold text.
Final Thoughts:
"All in all if there ever was a game that told you to go to Hell this is probably it, it's fast paced, easy to pick up and play and pretty gruesome. The drawbacks to this game in my opinion are that the this game is rather short, you'll beat this thing in about 7 to 9 hours due to the fact that some of the circles of hell are rather short, and some parts of the game will get frustrating as the enemies never seem to give you any breathing room, the sound of the game is hit and miss." Airnaruto said before explaining; "What I mean is the music matches the game's dark, gothic and disturbing imagery very well but the voice acting's for the characters is out of sync on some occasions but still the game's pretty good aside from being the total epiphany of evil…"So good it's a sin so it gets a 3 and half out 5 from me." Airnaruto said when suddenly his 360 controller flew out of his hands and hit went towards his 360.
"What the….?" Airnaruto asked before he got nailed in the face with his controller. "Oh my God a possessed 360!" Airnaruto exclaimed before the system barfed in face.
"Your great granny sucks cocks in Hell." The system said in a raspy demonic voice which ticked Airnaruto off as he took the game out of the system.
"What the shit biscuit did you just say?" he asked it.
"I said your great granny sucks cocks in Hell!" The game said again scaring Airnaruto.
"GO BACK TO HELL YOU EVIL MOTHERFUCKER!" Airnaruto exclaimed holding his arms in front of him in the shape of a cross.
"Shove it up your ass you pig sniffing cock sucker!" The game mocked.
"Okay that's it, THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!" He screamed at the CD.
"What a brilliant day for an exorcism." The game mocked.
"THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!" Airnaruto screamed again.
"Go fuck your mother." The game told him.
"Now you've done it buster. The power of super robotic annihilator Christ compels you!" Airnaruto screamed and into the room stepped what appeared to be a cybernetic version of Jesus Christ with a bionic left eye, metal plating all over his body, an entire collection of guns all strapped to his back by a special holster, this was Super robotic annihilator Christ who began pumping the game full of blessed silver bullets.
"Yeah Super robotic annihilator Christ 4000 BC version 6.0 Gamma bitch!" Airnaruto exclaimed.
"FUCKERS! FUCKERS!" The Cybernetic Son of God screamed as it destroyed the game only for Lucifer himself to emerge from it in his black smoke form.
"My Gratitude for releasing me from that prison however you now you've opened my way back to paradise!" He gloated as Airnaruto stared him down.
"I don't think so." Airnaruto said as he pulled out a silver cross began praying for forgiveness for the sins of his past and then thrusted the cross in front of the Devil's face and trapped him back in the game which was remade from the shards that were scattered on the floor.
"Well I guess that takes care of that, I'm the Classic Critic I remember it so you're not required to." He said as he left we heard a particular part of the song from the start play again.
He's the angriest gamer you've ever seen.
"You bet your ass I am." Airnaruto said.
He's the angry video game Nin.
Dante's Inferno final rating: ***1/2 out of 5
Pros: Well done level design, easy to use controls, over your head in design enemies, free choice to either absolve or punish enemies or shades and an interesting take on the source material.
Cons: Story is a little disjointed; voice acting occasionally is out of sync, some levels feel rushed, play through time is rather short, and the ending leaves little to be desired.
A/N: Well folks I hoped you like this one and for those who didn't get the Abram/Sarai sister is actually wife trick look in Genesis chapter 12 verses 10 through 20 of the Bible if you wanted to know. So until next time read and review folks