Dante's Inferno Demo Impressions

[finalark]

Link to original post: [drupal=2864]Dante's Inferno Demo Impressions[/drupal]



... you know, I'm in a moral dilemma right now. I hate EA, and Dante's Inferno is nothing more than just a bland God of War rip-off. SO WHY DID I LIKE IT!? Throughout the game's development I did nothing but laugh at this GoW clone and considered it example of what's wrong with gaming these days. But I download the demo expecting it to be just a terrible clone, but I suddenly found myself enjoying it. Hell, I might even end up buying it.

Okay, so the demo opens with Dante sitting in the forest giving himself a massive cross tattoo onto his chest as he rambles on about loosing his way in the dark forest (that part of the poem was supposed to be metaphorical, guys) suddenly, we cut to a flashback that is suddenly animated for no reason at all (extremely smooth and stylishly, by the way) in which we see Dante killing people during the crusades. So the game starts and I start acting like I'm playing God of War, and I wanted to make a comment about how much of a GoW rip-off this all is but I was just having too much fun. I'm serious, not even five minuets in and I'm enjoying this game. So the game goes on, I die in a cinematic and then suddenly the Grim Reaper shows up and tells Dante that he's been doing wrong and is about to take his soul. So what does Dante do? Does he just give up and let the reaper take his soul? No way, Dante takes his spear and starts fighting the guy. A boss fight ensues, I kick his *** and even get to take the Reaper's Scythe after you've finished him off.

So the game goes on, you find out that your wife is dead and so you have to go to Hell to get her back. Along the way, I got a cross that shoots out holy energy, I met Virgil and I also got to control a giant monster. And I was enjoying ever last minuet of it. I don't know why, but this generic God of War clone did something that really made me enjoy it, and now I'm not sure if I should go buy the game or continue boycotting EA... anyway, if you have a PS3 then go download the demo. It's well worth your time.

 

[Jam Stunna]

Story time:

While I was at college in Virginia (way back in 2003-2004), I thought that going into videogame development was something that I wanted to do. So I came up with the idea to turn Dante's Inferno into a videogame. It would be a 2-D sidescroller in the same vein as Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The nine circles of hell would be the nine stages, with each stage ending with a boss fight. If it went well, then it would become a trilogy, like the Divine Comedy, with the other two games being based on Purgatorio and Paradiso.

Eventually I decided that I didn't want to do game development, so I shelved the idea. A few years later, I became friends with some guys who were serious about getting into game design and development, so I ran the idea past them. They really liked it, and said that at some point they would like to work on it as a downloadable game through XBox Live or PSN, you know, not a full-blown $60 game, but in the same way that you can buy Mega Man 9 or Braid.

Not even a month after I told my friends about my idea, EA announced they had a game called Dante's Inferno in development, and the announcement was made by none other than Kim Kardashian. Dissapointed does not begin to describe how I felt.

tl;dr- Frak EA, this game, and Kim Kardashian.

Spoiler

I'll probably end up downloading the demo, it does look cool as hell.

 

[finalark]

I don't think that I could even come up with words that quite describe my raction that that, Jam. I'm going to assume that this pretty much summed up your expression at the time:

But seriously, I'm sorry to hear about that. Man, that would have been amazing. It's a shame that EA pretty much took your idea and copyrighted it.

I think I'm going to add that to my list of reasons to keep boycotting EA now....

 

[Jam Stunna]

I mean, it's no big deal. This isn't the first game based on Dante's Inferno, and it won't be the last. Sure I was upset at the time, but EA is an actual game company, and I'm just a guy with no real interest in making games. What am I really going to be upset about?

 

[pickle962]

Story time:

While I was at college in Virginia (way back in 2003-2004), I thought that going into videogame development was something that I wanted to do. So I came up with the idea to turn Dante's Inferno into a videogame. It would be a 2-D sidescroller in the same vein as Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The nine circles of hell would be the nine stages, with each stage ending with a boss fight. If it went well, then it would become a trilogy, like the Divine Comedy, with the other two games being based on Purgatorio and Paradiso.

Eventually I decided that I didn't want to do game development, so I shelved the idea. A few years later, I became friends with some guys who were serious about getting into game design and development, so I ran the idea past them. They really liked it, and said that at some point they would like to work on it as a downloadable game through XBox Live or PSN, you know, not a full-blown $60 game, but in the same way that you can buy Mega Man 9 or Braid.

Not even a month after I told my friends about my idea, EA announced they had a game called Dante's Inferno in development, and the announcement was made by none other than Kim Kardashian. Dissapointed does not begin to describe how I felt.

tl;dr- Frak EA, this game, and Kim Kardashian.

Spoiler

I'll probably end up downloading the demo, it does look cool as hell.

You came up with the idea and EA plagarized it? That's messed up! You should sue them for taking your idea and passing it off as their idea.

 

[finalark]

I mean, it's no big deal. This isn't the first game based on Dante's Inferno, and it won't be the last. Sure I was upset at the time, but EA is an actual game company, and I'm just a guy with no real interest in making games. What am I really going to be upset about?

True, but I'm sure anyone would be upset for a bit if they were put in such a situation. If I were you and I really wanted to make your (er, my?) idea a reality then I'd just wait a few years for the memory of EA's Dante's Inferno to fall out of the minds of the general public then put yours (mine?) out.

 

[Sucumbio]

not at all doubting you, but who's Kim Kardashian to you? And like, what, do these friends of yours work for EA? I'm just tryin' to connect the dots a bit here, on how it's not merely coincidence. IP rights could have been enforced if you'd written the idea down somewhere, like here.*

This sounds like an awesome game, but shouldn't be called Dante's Inferno.

*I had an idea for a movie rendition. It's the year 21xx and the remains of Dante have been exhumed for scientific purposes. The brain is to be reconstructed digitally so that his "journey" can be witnessed first-hand. The only way to do this is by inserting oneself into the digital recreation. They would then take the journey that dante takes, the observer taking the position alongside dante as it was in his cantos. The Twist? As dante is leaving, the observer, who until now was really pretty much unable to interact w/the vision, now suddenly finds himself face-to-face with the devil, who's ... noticed him, somehow. And would like him to stay. For ... eternity. mwahahaha. what WILL he do!?!?!

Purgatorio barely but Paradisio definitely too ... lofty to be translated into a palatable medium like film, or game... but at least Inferno is story-like enough.

 

[§witch]

****, my first thought was that this thread was about the poem/epic.

I don't know why my expectations are at all high here anymore.

 

[Jam Stunna]

not at all doubting you, but who's Kim Kardashian to you? And like, what, do these friends of yours work for EA? I'm just tryin' to connect the dots a bit here, on how it's not merely coincidence. IP rights could have been enforced if you'd written the idea down somewhere, like here.*

This sounds like an awesome game, but shouldn't be called Dante's Inferno.

The point is that it is a coincidence. I'm not being serious at all here, it's just an interesting stor. And the Kim Kardashian thing is just a joke. Besides, no one can enforce IP rights on Dante's Infrerno, it's 400 years old. A different game called "Dante's Inferno" could be released every week.

 

[Sephiroths Masamune]

@ Jam
Are you serious about them taking your idea? If that's so WTF? Why not fight this so you can get your fair share of the income? Man this was YOUR game practically where's your share of the doe?

 

[Jam Stunna]

The point is that it is a coincidence. I'm not being serious at all here, it's just an interesting story.

Yes, I had a similar idea. No, it is not plagiarism. It was just a neat coincidence, that is all.

 

[finalark]

^There are days when I've wanted to do this.

Anyway, so Jam's interesting story aside: did anyone else play the demo?

 

[Lythium]

I watched it on Giant Bomb. I dunno, I thought it was a neat idea, but it just looks like a GoW clone, as you said. If it held up in literary merit, I would probably be more interested. I dunno, button-mashers aren't really my thing anyway, so I'm sure that I'll pass on this one.