Dante's Inferno captures essence of God of War

Dante's Inferno (Electronic Arts; PS3, Xbox 360; rated mature)

The Dante of this video game is not much like Dante Alighieri, the medieval poet, and the game itself is not much like the first cantica of his epic poem, The Divine Comedy, for which it is named. There’s nothing wrong with that; the game is clearly inspired by the poem, and crafting something new out of old materials is a perfectly valid expression of creativity.

Here, Dante is a soldier in the Third Crusade who defies Death by stealing his scythe and dispatching him with it. Returning home, Dante finds that his love, Beatrice, has been murdered and her spirit has gone to the afterlife. The poet Virgil appears to guide Dante as he descends into the inferno. Just as Dante imagined what the circles of hell might be like, so too have the designers of this video game. Hell, it turns out, makes for great, epic visuals and battles.

It’s fair to say that Dante’s Inferno is a clone of God of War, right down to the collection of mystical orbs and power upgrades. There’s nothing wrong with that, either, especially if the derivative game is able to capture the essence of the game it copies, and this largely does. At times, the content is ridiculously gratuitous—the spirit of Beatrice always appears with breasts bared, for example. But for those who enjoy a visceral hack-and-slash in a dramatically designed environment, Dante’s Inferno is a fine way to spend time in purgatory.