IGN Preview
December 9, 2009 - Since the beginning of the year, we've been following Dante's Inferno, the upcoming action game from Electronic Arts based on the Divine Comedy by Dante Aligheri. Players will take on the role of Dante as he fights his way through the nine Circles of Hell to save his beloved Beatrice from Lucifer. Up till now, we've described segments of Dante's fight through Hell, such as his battle through the Circle of Lust against Cleopatra and her minions and his fight through the Circle of Anger. However, we've never gotten a chance to see the start of Dante's quest, or how Beatrice was captured by Lucifer until recently. I had a chance to head to EA to play the demo of Dante's Inferno, which will include the opening level so players can get a glimpse at the action of the game.
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Upon starting the demo, players are introduced to a cutscene of Dante sewing a tapestry into his flesh in the shape of a cross, which he does as an attempted penance for his sins within the third Crusade in the year 1191. As he gets to one painful stitch, the game flashes back to show Dante's role within one battle during the Crusade at the citadel of Acre. As one of the Knights under King Richard, Dante and his fellow crusaders captured the city of Acre and held 3000 citizens of the town hostage in return for a holy relic held by Saladin, the protector of the Holy land. However, as Saladin refused to negotiate for the artifact, the knights became restless, and started to slaughter the citizens, causing a larger conflict to break out.
Before Dante can kill the townsfolk, he has to fend off sword wielding attackers with a poleaxe. This serves as a quick initial tutorial to Dante's light and heavy attacks, as well as evading incoming blows and blocking strikes from enemies. Hacking through these enemies isn't a serious challenge to Dante, but what comes up next is: as Dante leaves the holding cell area of the citadel and heads towards a courtyard, an assassin sneaks up behind Dante and stabs him in the back. Feeling his life ebb from him, Dante comes face to face with Death, who tells him that his soul has been damned due to his sins and transgressions during the war. However, Dante refuses to accept his fate, and attacks Death, which serves as the first "mini-boss" fight of the title.
The fight against Death actively tests your blocking and counterattacking skills, as the Grim Reaper teleports around the battle arena, using dashes, rapid strikes and sweeping attacks against Dante. After landing enough attacks, Dante does the seemingly impossible, wresting Death's scythe away from him and killing him with it. Through with the crusades, Dante heads back to Florence, Italy to return to his lands and his beloved. Unfortunately, when he gets there, he finds Beatrice has been sexually assaulted and murdered and his home completely destroyed. As he approaches the body of Beatrice, her soul appears for a few seconds before quickly being spirited away towards a distant church by Lucifer. While Dante gives chase, Lucifer raises an squad of the damned to slow his pursuit.
However, because Dante has Death's scythe, he is able to harvest the souls of the damned once he's destroyed their bodies, which can be used to gain new abilities and attacks. The manner that you collect the souls affects what kind of points you'll gain. However, if you primarily use the scythe and choose to punish the enemies by brute force, you gain unholy points. If, on the other hand, you choose to absolve enemies with Dante's holy cross, you gain holy points. These points can be redeemed across seven levels of holy and unholy skills, which also affects your style of gameplay. If you choose the unholy path, you'll acquire abilities from the destruction of bosses and enemies, and your strikes will be tinted red or orange to indicate their power. You will, however, acquire fewer souls as you destroy your opponents, because it's much easier to be unholy fighting the denizens of Hell.
By contrast, Holy abilities will provide you with more souls, but there are fewer of them, and the cost for your abilities is much higher. The holy attacks you wield, however, will have a white or blue light to them to indicate the purer nature of the strike. Obviously, it will be much harder to attempt to be virtuous throughout the nine circles of Hell, but you can try your best. Now, you aren't locked into playing a particular style throughout the entire game (you can switch between punishing and absolving at will), but it will be impossible to acquire all skills during a single playthrough. However, I was told that you'll be able to take your acquired skills with you in a second playthrough so you can effectively turn Dante into a brutal killing machine.
Speaking of becoming a killing machine, each successful combo that you perform fills up Dante's Redemption meter, a small gauge at the bottom left of the game screen. Once this meter is full, Dante is able to convert the power of this gauge to move twice as fast and cause twice as much damage to enemies for a limited period of time. Players can purchase additional segments for the meter, allowing Dante to wreak havoc for longer periods of time, which would be particularly useful for attacking bosses or clearing out large groups of enemies, which would restock the Redemption meter once again.
Eventually, Dante fights his way into the church, which quickly falls to pieces and descends into a fiery chasm leading to the Gates of Hell (molded after the Auguste Rodin artwork). Standing before the gates is Virgil, who informs Dante that he was sent by Beatrice to lead him through Hell so that Dante could save her. Strengthened by this news, Dante fends off incoming attacks from undead minions and eventually destroys a rider atop a large demon, which he then uses to decimate the remaining hordes. But instead of simply killing the gigantic beast, Dante uses the demon to pry open the Gates of Hell and enter the unholy realm. From there, the demo ended, and displayed a sneak peek video of further circles of Hell.
What stood out to me after playing this demo were a number of the gameplay and visual changes that have been implemented to the title. For one thing, the punishment and absolution feature has changed so that there are random prompts to pull off your action, each with their own animations. For example, players might need to move both analog sticks apart to rip an opponent in two, or button mash the icon that pops up on screen to force the cross down onto a demon struggling to free himself from Dante's grasp. The inclusion of the Redemption meter provides additional focus for boosting your hit counter and performing stylish moves as you eliminate demons. Furthermore, many of the visuals have been redesigned – Dante's life and mana bar has been redesigned to include the levels of holy or unholy points that you've acquired.
Similarly, players will now use "holy" fountains to gain mana, health or extra souls; I was told that the demonic chests that used to hold these items are now being saved as chests that hold the various relics hidden throughout the game. These items will be hard to find, and you're not required to use any of them during a playthrough, but will be worth searching for, as they'll do everything from augment your damage and armor to boosting your health and mana bars. However, I was told that there are two caveats to relics: the first is that each relic will have its own holy and unholy level requirements, so you won't be able to use every single one during the game. The second is that you'll be limited in the number that you can use at any time, ensuring that you'll have to pick and choose what abilities you want to bring into battle.
Looking to get your own taste of Hell? US PlayStation 3 owners will be able to download the demo exclusively on December 10, while Xbox 360 owners will have to wait two weeks until December 24 to destroy demons. That's the same date that European PS3 and 360 owners will gain access to the demo, resulting in an unholy night for all.
Before Dante can kill the townsfolk, he has to fend off sword wielding attackers with a poleaxe. This serves as a quick initial tutorial to Dante's light and heavy attacks, as well as evading incoming blows and blocking strikes from enemies. Hacking through these enemies isn't a serious challenge to Dante, but what comes up next is: as Dante leaves the holding cell area of the citadel and heads towards a courtyard, an assassin sneaks up behind Dante and stabs him in the back. Feeling his life ebb from him, Dante comes face to face with Death, who tells him that his soul has been damned due to his sins and transgressions during the war. However, Dante refuses to accept his fate, and attacks Death, which serves as the first "mini-boss" fight of the title.
The fight against Death actively tests your blocking and counterattacking skills, as the Grim Reaper teleports around the battle arena, using dashes, rapid strikes and sweeping attacks against Dante. After landing enough attacks, Dante does the seemingly impossible, wresting Death's scythe away from him and killing him with it. Through with the crusades, Dante heads back to Florence, Italy to return to his lands and his beloved. Unfortunately, when he gets there, he finds Beatrice has been sexually assaulted and murdered and his home completely destroyed. As he approaches the body of Beatrice, her soul appears for a few seconds before quickly being spirited away towards a distant church by Lucifer. While Dante gives chase, Lucifer raises an squad of the damned to slow his pursuit.
However, because Dante has Death's scythe, he is able to harvest the souls of the damned once he's destroyed their bodies, which can be used to gain new abilities and attacks. The manner that you collect the souls affects what kind of points you'll gain. However, if you primarily use the scythe and choose to punish the enemies by brute force, you gain unholy points. If, on the other hand, you choose to absolve enemies with Dante's holy cross, you gain holy points. These points can be redeemed across seven levels of holy and unholy skills, which also affects your style of gameplay. If you choose the unholy path, you'll acquire abilities from the destruction of bosses and enemies, and your strikes will be tinted red or orange to indicate their power. You will, however, acquire fewer souls as you destroy your opponents, because it's much easier to be unholy fighting the denizens of Hell.
By contrast, Holy abilities will provide you with more souls, but there are fewer of them, and the cost for your abilities is much higher. The holy attacks you wield, however, will have a white or blue light to them to indicate the purer nature of the strike. Obviously, it will be much harder to attempt to be virtuous throughout the nine circles of Hell, but you can try your best. Now, you aren't locked into playing a particular style throughout the entire game (you can switch between punishing and absolving at will), but it will be impossible to acquire all skills during a single playthrough. However, I was told that you'll be able to take your acquired skills with you in a second playthrough so you can effectively turn Dante into a brutal killing machine.
Speaking of becoming a killing machine, each successful combo that you perform fills up Dante's Redemption meter, a small gauge at the bottom left of the game screen. Once this meter is full, Dante is able to convert the power of this gauge to move twice as fast and cause twice as much damage to enemies for a limited period of time. Players can purchase additional segments for the meter, allowing Dante to wreak havoc for longer periods of time, which would be particularly useful for attacking bosses or clearing out large groups of enemies, which would restock the Redemption meter once again.
Eventually, Dante fights his way into the church, which quickly falls to pieces and descends into a fiery chasm leading to the Gates of Hell (molded after the Auguste Rodin artwork). Standing before the gates is Virgil, who informs Dante that he was sent by Beatrice to lead him through Hell so that Dante could save her. Strengthened by this news, Dante fends off incoming attacks from undead minions and eventually destroys a rider atop a large demon, which he then uses to decimate the remaining hordes. But instead of simply killing the gigantic beast, Dante uses the demon to pry open the Gates of Hell and enter the unholy realm. From there, the demo ended, and displayed a sneak peek video of further circles of Hell.
What stood out to me after playing this demo were a number of the gameplay and visual changes that have been implemented to the title. For one thing, the punishment and absolution feature has changed so that there are random prompts to pull off your action, each with their own animations. For example, players might need to move both analog sticks apart to rip an opponent in two, or button mash the icon that pops up on screen to force the cross down onto a demon struggling to free himself from Dante's grasp. The inclusion of the Redemption meter provides additional focus for boosting your hit counter and performing stylish moves as you eliminate demons. Furthermore, many of the visuals have been redesigned – Dante's life and mana bar has been redesigned to include the levels of holy or unholy points that you've acquired.
Similarly, players will now use "holy" fountains to gain mana, health or extra souls; I was told that the demonic chests that used to hold these items are now being saved as chests that hold the various relics hidden throughout the game. These items will be hard to find, and you're not required to use any of them during a playthrough, but will be worth searching for, as they'll do everything from augment your damage and armor to boosting your health and mana bars. However, I was told that there are two caveats to relics: the first is that each relic will have its own holy and unholy level requirements, so you won't be able to use every single one during the game. The second is that you'll be limited in the number that you can use at any time, ensuring that you'll have to pick and choose what abilities you want to bring into battle.
Looking to get your own taste of Hell? US PlayStation 3 owners will be able to download the demo exclusively on December 10, while Xbox 360 owners will have to wait two weeks until December 24 to destroy demons. That's the same date that European PS3 and 360 owners will gain access to the demo, resulting in an unholy night for all.
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k
is a new chakan game already?
.
