Dante's Inferno - First Impressions

I perused the EA site today after listening to one of the podcasts that have been done by EA and Visceral. They had mentioned that they were working on the Dante's Inferno title, and the thought of making a game based on that old literature intrigues me. I think it is a fascinating concept and setting for the type of game that they are making. Looking at the game play footage, I have no doubt that the title will be fun to play.

The game play, reminiscent of God of War or Heavenly Sword, looks to be fast pace and action packed. However, my concern is that like the other two titles mentioned, it will be a button smashing game with no real strategy to the attacks. Although, the attacks may look nice and pretty, these types of games tend to bore me after a while, and usually end up causing me some hand cramping. I generally prefer a little more strategy in my combat, titles such as Hitman, Mad World, or The Mark of Kri. All of these titles did more than just provide a button mashing kill fest. However the game did provide a brutal feel that I think that many new games are going for. The difference is that even though the brutality of these titles were present, it wasn't mindless killing (well, its pretty mindless in Mad World, however the fighting system led more to some quick thinking to perform the brutal kill you were going for that would provide you with more points).

Hitman and Mark of Kri relied more on assassination, the silent kill, to complete the mission. These allowed you to avoid the all out frenzy of being detected, and rewarding you as such for doing so. The interesting thing is that these titles also still allowed you to experience the frenzy of many on one combat, and did not really punish you if you wanted to run through the mission and be detected by everyone. I think that Assassins Creed tried to have this mix, but I felt as I played it that it was not very good at allowing you to do the stealth kills as well as I would have originally expected. At times it felt clunky and what would seem like an obvious kill would go unnoticed, where as a well planned and executed kill sometimes set off alarms.

I am hoping that Dante's Inferno will have a good balance of the brutal combo kill, button smashing, and the strategic areas where more skill and finesse is required. I am realizing that game developers, with their multimillion dollar budgets, have a need and desire to appease a wider audience of gamers, and providing "easy to understand" control schemes goes a long way to doing this, and by uncomplicating the combat system also pushes a game into more hands. I just feel as if players who wish to learn complex combat systems and strive for perfection in their gaming are being ignored due to them being in a much smaller demographic. I mean, where are games like the old Tenchu?