Dante's Inferno - PS3 - Demo - Review - spoilers

1011mb download.

I tell you, I really love this whole demo thing on PS3, it is something consoles have been missing forever.

One other thing before I begin, I got a 1080p HD TV last Aug. and if your doing consoles, it is a worthy investment. Don't get me wrong, movies on it are great as well but gaming in HD is the shit!

bwahahahaha, starts off with a big disclaimer "Warning, may contain content inappropriate for children". Looks like I'm in the right place, heh.

If you let it sit at the "Press Start" screen for a few seconds it goes into a movie showing various parts of the game... woah, Levels of hell, yes indeedy. I am not sure how to even describe what it shows... Violence, nudity, gigantic monsters, blood, battle, torture... it's all in there.

Option Menu:

Video calibration
Controller vibration on/off
Controller map
Subtitles on/off
Tutorials on/off

Play Game Menu - Four difficulties listed, only the first two selectable. I'll start with the easiest.

Opening cinematic - Your some twisted crusader in the holy land, sewing a cloth cross onto your chest... WTF? There are a bunch of civilians captured and they have just broken out then right into battle... time to kill them I guess. OK, your in this smallish area, third person and you have this long axe thing for a weapon. In the background you can see an ocean with ships firing balls of fire at you... or anyone else around, no idea if they are friend or foe. A bunch of unarmed men and women burst from their cages at the sides of the screen and you proceed to slaughter them. Alrighty then... Perhaps your character deserves to be sent to hell. After killing everyone a flaming ship comes crashing into the area your on. First little annoyance here, there seems to be no camera control. The right thumb stick usually controls the camera but here in has you "evade" by lunging in whatever direction you push it. I find I keep trying to change the camera angle and instead just jump around the screen... gotta get used to that I guess.

The ship allows you to get into another area where... it goes into cinematic and some guy stabs you in the back. Death then appears, a very big but very traditional looking Death and tell you that you are going to hell for your sins. You assure him that "the Bishop" (whoever that is) told you your war crimes would be ok. You then go into battle with Death. Everything fades and changes to a big circular arena of stone floating in some type of vortex. The battle is mostly attack, attack, attack until you get him down to about 10% health (health bars for both in the upper corners), then goes into the old "we show you a button and you press it to perform some super attack" mode... bleh but it does look very cool (though lack of camera control is VERY annoying in this battle). You eventually get the button order down and kill Death and take his scythe.

Then suddenly your in Florence... not real sure how we get there but whatever. Now that you know the bishop lied to you and you have Deaths weapon, you want to find your wife. You go into your house and find some holy man (the bishop? not sure) dead with a crucifix in his eye, then out to the back where your wife is also dead and has her boobies hanging out. Her spirit comes out of her body all white and naked and a black spirit comes up behind her and grabs her, caressing her and she tell you she has to go with him. Noooooooooo you scream as she is whisked away and a bunch of graves that you seem to have in your back yard open up... WTF is going on in this game? I mean. I want to keep going but WTF?

OK... as soon as this battle begins you get a new menu (Start button brings it up the rest of the game). It seems you can look at:
Collectibles - Two types, Judas silver and Beatrice(your wife) stones... ehhh, no idea
Magic - Looks like four spells can be found... ehhh, no idea
Upgrades - When you kill things you collect their souls and spend them for attack upgrades. Two types, holy and unholy, looks like you can use both.
Relics - You can collect many but equip two at a time. Modifies stats and abilities
Dante's Journal - I'm not sure WTF this is. Where you met type's of monsters? Not sure


OK, I'm going to stop the play by play here and give my thoughts on it all.

I kind of dig the play, very God of War, hacking guys apart is pretty sweet. The story is... really out there and weird but I want to see where it goes. I don't understand any of the things like magic or collectibles but I don't have a manual either, I expect they are explained at some point. The lack of camera control is my biggest beef, you often find yourself wanting to change the angle and can't... instead you hurl yourself to your death. Fucking annoying.

Bottom line - I'm going to finish the demo before I decide on buying the game or not. The play is ripped off but enjoyable, the story is very unique and I want to see where it goes. I expect though that I'm going to wait for it to hit the bargain bin.

I hadn't checked the latest demos. The lack of camera control may well kill it.

Seems like whatever this game has to offer, I'll get it better with God of War III. I'll end up getting it used, probably.

I don't know how the three games compare in realm of character development, but I felt Dante's Inferno had inferior action.