Dante's Inferno (demo).

The internet kills excitement, it's a fact (well for me anyway). When I was younger I'd go in a game shop and find a £10 PS2 game every week and I'd love it. Now I have the internet I know from the press of a button which games are meant to be shit, which are meant to be good and whats incoming. So know now, I don't give a shit about any game and that includes this (well I do kinda care about BioShock 2 since the first is probably the best game I've ever played and if they announced a Ninja Blade sequel I may urinate from excitement but aside from that...). I only played the demo because I heard some good things and I had naff all to do. Enjoy!

I'm hoping the demo wasn't the opening part of the game because the segments they offer you are sloppily thrown together and incredibly rushed. It was like like different chunks of the story had been sewn together by someone who couldn't sew, I'm hoping the actual game is slightly more coherent. 

Over the course of the demo a man sews a cross into him by a fire in the woods, a girl shows her tits a lot and the guy with the cross sown in him feels bad, kills Death and fights his way into hell. It's a total mess but once again I'm guessing the full game will create a much better sense of flow and a more coherent narrative, I'm guessing the demo wanted to get this out of the way so you could test the actual gameplay which is what matters most even if in recent years graphics, story and multiplayer have seemed to take the limelight for the most important part of a game for critics. But that is retarded. 

So yes, the gameplay. The controls aren't the best, namely having to tap the right stick to evade in whatever direction you tap in just makes you feel like your hands are in knots. Other crap choices include making the right trigger a grab button which allows you to kill someone in one hit in a 'save' or 'punish' scenario (Bioshock anyone?) and a magic button making the left back button a button you need to hold and then you press the button you associated the spell you wanted to use with. 

However everything else plays brilliantly. Just by mashing two or three buttons you'll be twirling, hurling, whirling, smashing, flipping and kicking ass like it's easy...because well...it is. Dante manages to master Death's scythe in the demo without even using it, which is pretty incredible. I guess the only downfall with this is, magic and punish/save grabs are really cool but unnecessary and since they ruin the flow of the buttons you might end up avoiding them. Well in the demo at least.

Then of course it has the obligatory quick time event finishers which are no different to any other action game, so they are neither good nor bad. 

You also get this cross which when thrusted outwards fires what looks like the Kamehameha only in the shape of a cross. Yes it's stupid, but it looks pretty badass as you blow away like half a dozen enemies who were getting up in your face with a holy Kamehameha. 

Visually it's pretty weak too. The design is really nice (even if Dante and his woman look so ugly) but the graphics look dated and the random cartoon cutscenes are rather awful and also look really dated. It feels cheap. But it doesn't get in the way of anything. 

Aside from that there is a particularly annoying fight where the floor could fall away mid combo meaning you can't jump out of the way. Thanks to the shitty evasion controls Death can be pretty frustrating but that's fitting, it'd make no sense for him to be easy. Aside from that the game is insanely easy but in a way all good action games should be. 

A 'should you...' ending wouldn't really fit with a demo but I do say check the demo out, it's badly put together and pretty ugly but a joy to play at the end of the day. Poet and I didn't know it!

P.S. most of the images in this review were just screenshots and may not show things that were in the demo.

Think about it!

-Locke.