Much has been said about Dante's Inferno – namely that it's nothing more than a God of War clone. While it is definitely a God of War clone, it's a damn fine good one, which does enough in this opening installment to pave the way for what I can only hope is a series that covers the entire length of The Divine Comedy (or at least continues in a way that's just as interesting). If you've got the stomach for it, Dante's Inferno is a really fun and exciting game.

Dante's Inferno is an adaptation of the first installment in The Divine Comedy – a long and epic poem that chronicles a poet's journey through hell. The story has been changed from the original source material, but don't go thinking that means it's boring. In EA's Dante's Inferno, you play as Dante, who has just come back from the holy crusades to find that his wife is dead, and that Lucifer has claimed her soul. Unable to accept such a fate, Dante decides to plunge his way into hell in order to save his wife. As he embarks on his quest, he comes to learn that perhaps he's more bound for hell than he thought.

Dante

I actually really thought the story of Dante's Inferno was really engaging. I'm a helpless romantic at heart, so I loved the initial premise of the game, in which Dante tries to save his wife from eternal damnation. As the game progresses, however, Dante's journey becomes something more personal and intimate, as Dante starts to see how so much of his past has shaped him to be a patron of hell, and how Beatrice's death is a direct result of his own flaws. The story unfolds a bit too sporadically, as there aren't a ton of story scenes, but when they are there I found myself really spellbound. Fans of the original source material might be thrown off by the changes, but as someone who has never read The Divine Comedy, the game actually makes me want to go and read the original story.

Much like God of War, Dante's Inferno is a mixture of combat (most of the time combat), platforming, and puzzle solving. Combat is fast, fluid, and pretty challenging at times. Players primarily use the X-button to perform scythe attacks, while using the B-button to perform cross attacks (a projectile based attack). As you kill enemies and punish or absolve souls, you're rewarded points in order to upgrade your character and make them more powerful. Upgrades are tied to levels, which you get by punishing (Unholy) or absolving (Holy) enough enemies. Punishing enemies allows you to get more powerful scythe attacks, while absolving improves your cross powers. You'll also be awarded magical powers – some through upgrading and some through the natural progression of the story – and even have the chance to find hidden relics in order to improve the performance of your character. Relics can make you immune to projectile attacks, allow Dante to absorb a percentage of damage, etc. Relics are also tied to how Holy or Unholy you are, so some relics won't be available to all players on a first play through.

Platforming and puzzles also play an important part in the game, but less so in regards to the combat. You'll have to climb walls, rappel and swing across gaps, climb up crumbling walls, jump over spinning blades, etc. As for the puzzles, while not too complicated, some will have you thinking for just a minute or two. Overall, the game is nicely paced, giving you a ton of combat one moment, but then cooling you off with a little puzzle solving and jumping shortly after.

Despite enjoying the story and combat, there are a number of flaws that ultimately hamper the experience. For starters, there isn't enough done with each individual circle of hell - especially in regards to the enemies themselves. While the game starts you out with enemies specifically tied to each circle – giant fat monstrosities for gluttony and moaning women with protruding penis like appendages for lust – in the end they recycle the enemies and quit adding new ones. The game does a great job at representing the circles as environments, as you'll see images of people emerge from boiling blood, see giant teeth gnawing in gluttony, and so much more. In fact, the game's environments are quite sickening at times, and are disturbing. For instance, imagine fighting a giant naked woman, whose nipples split open so that she can throw un-Baptized babies at you that have blades for arms. Yeah…it's quite frightening.

Big Baddie

Another thing I hated about the game is the final portion, which has you competing in a series of challenges. It's not that the challenges were hard – only one gave me a real pain – but it's the fact that out of the blue you find yourself suddenly limited in what you can do or have certain moves more available now. Having such a shift in gameplay come out of the blue like that certainly hindered my enjoyment a little, especially since it comes on right at the end.

Graphically, the game is quite ugly, which in some cases is a good thing and sometimes a bad. On the good side, the gore and settings are disturbing and rendered very well. I love the figures of the damned clawing at you or boiling up through blood, but I didn't like how relatively small some enemies appeared at times, so it was hard to see very much detail at all given the darkness of hell. On the audio side of things, I thought the voice acting was very well done, though whoever played Dante sounded a little too much like Gerard Butler in 300. What I really enjoyed was the background music and the ambience that was prevalent. There's nothing like climbing up a living wall, only to hear distant moans, echoes, and the begging of the damned to really put you in a strange funk.

There's a lot of things about Dante's Inferno that's been done before. It's a God of War clone through and through, but that doesn't mean it isn't a solid experience for the die-hard action adventure fans out there. I thought the normal difficult was quite challenging and perfect, the story was engaging, and the action frantic and insane. It's a clone, yes, but don't let that stop you from experiencing the game, because as it "hopefully" moves on from here, I have the feeling it will start separating itself from those clone remarks.

Score