Dante’s Inferno (X Box 360 version)

This game involves a crusader cast into Hell to try and rescue his true love, whilst fighting Satan’s minions and descending through all the Circles of Hell.

So much for the story, let’s talk about what was good and bad.  Good, or rather excellent, was both the gameplay and graphics.  This looked absolutely fantastic (though hellishly disturbing at the same time – this really is a game suitably rated at 18), and was rendered smoothly and richly.  The movement and action was excellent, smooth and going exactly where you intended it (with some minor issues aside, when the hero was climbing) and matched the controller precisely – no lag, no ‘I didn’t mean him to do that!’, no significant issues at all. 

In terms of gameplay, if you’ve played God of War, or the recent Castlevania game (or even Arkham Asylum), you’ll have a good idea what to expect.  It was a linear narrative, with some very nice tapestry-style artwork used when giving the detailed backstory of Dante and his activities, and very little exploration outside the linear (but you need to explore, to get various bonuses).  There’s also some problem-solving, which was nicely balanced – it was tricky in places, but usually not so difficult you had to keep revisiting youtube to see how to do it.

The monsters were interesting, but after about halfway through the game, you tend to encounter variants of the same thing.  This leads to the weakness of the game – it is quite a button-masher.  You’re pretty much powerful enough to just go head-to-head with Satan’s hordes in 95% of situations.  Most of the time, that’s fine, that’s part of the fun, but there were times it got a bit too much. The penultimate-to-final level was particularly bad for example, where you have to face 10 very similar challenges, one straight after the other, and after about 6 or 7 it’s old and boring. Having said that, these are relatively minor quibbles, and becuase of the great visuals and fluid gameplay, I’d recommend this game heartily

Rating: 8/10