Both of these games caught the corner of my eye for two reasons; one is because they don’t have a 2 at the end of their titles, and also because their promotional tactics strike me as odd.
I was just reading the Wikipedia article for the Dante’s Inferno video game. Apparently, video game critics were sent $200 in the mail by Electronic Arts with an accompanying message; either you succumbed to greed for cashing the check in, or were a wasteful individual for not. But either way, you’re sinning. What if I gave the money to charity? Would EA claim I committed a mortal sin if I spent the money on competing games like The God of War Collection? Is the one true path to salvation through making an offering towards the almighty John Madden?
Dante’s Inferno is based on The Divine Comedy, a legendary work of literature that I never read. So for all I know, this video game could be a dead-on accurate recreation of Dante Alighieri’s megapoem. But I doubt that for about three hundred reasons. One is the gratuitous use of the Crusades as a backdrop, trying its damnedest to evoke the same themes of religion-abuse as Assassin’s Creed, to the point where I began suspecting that developer Visceral Games consisted of a multicultural team of various religious beliefs. Then we have Dante himself, swinging an axe vividly and single-handedly chopping down legions of Arabs like grass to a weed-whacker. The mighty warrior just happens to get knifed in the back by a heroic Muslim, and the Grim Reaper comes to claim Dante’s soul. It was around the point where Dante pulls the knife out of his back and says something along the lines of “oh fuck you, you’re dead Death!” and engages in a boss fight with the Reaper that I began to question the game’s faithfulness to the story.
And thus begins Dante’s descent into the warm vacation spot of hell. There are a bunch of story sequences in there; like Dante stitching some logo to his chest because he’s a sadomasochistic sicko, and his wife’s soul getting kidnapped in the most naked fashion possible. Seriously, I swear that every shot of damsel Beatrice in the demo also features shots of her titties. This Beatrice woman puts out a lot more than the Princess Peach has in heir 25 year existence. But all of the story sequences are shown with so many quick flashes and so out of order that they just don’t make any sense. And as for the gameplay itself, well I need not spend too much time talking about the gameplay because it is, quite honestly, a pixel-for-pixel imitation of God of War. The same attacks, controls, dodging, special attacks, magic attacks, quick-time event attacks, even the ever-generous “combo system” that allows even the most primitive monkeys score a 125 hit combo in the opening sequence. If you want to save some bandwidth on downloading the demo, just boot up God of War or the Wolverine movie game and you’ll get as accurate a demo as this.
The second game on the docket is Bayonetta. I was interested in downloading this demo more out of spite than anything else; a website to go unnamed here was giving out free keycodes to allow players early access to this demo as part of a contest. “Who would even attempt to make an effort to sign their name up for such a contest?” I thought. “Why, people whom would gladly add their e-mail address to Sega’s marketing mailing list, of course!” Anyway, I only found that contest funny because the demo came out a week later. Fools.
Where Dante is trying his damnedest to sulk and swim in the deepest pool of self-pity like Kratos, Bayonetta is only mildly trying to impersonate the other video game Dante. The gameplay of this game, from the speed of attacks to the fluidity of the combinations, is very akin to Devil May Cry, but there are some nice little tweaks. Having guns on her arms and legs, you can link any attack into gunfire, one-upping Wet in the field of female characters wielding phallic weaponry. And you can reverse-bullet-time enemies by dodging them at the last minute, slowing them down…for some reason. Oh, and Bayonetta’s attacks are often manifested from her clothes for some reason, meaning that her spandex will fly off at assorted intervals to transform into giant fists, for example. This game is fulfilling all kinds of fantasies.
Not that it’s all bad; the action is as Devil May Cryey as you’d expect. There are two boss battles with a giant troll dude, one of them involve the troll using the very bridge you stand on as his Samba De Amigo rattle controller. And just like the Dante’s Inferno demo, the story sequences are all ripped from random points of what I presume to be the main game and thus make absolutely no sense. One moment you’re applying your craft as a dominatrix towards random trolls and monsters, the next you’re in a heated grudge match with some warrior in a monastery that you apparently have history with. Is it intriguing? I don’t know. Those story sequences all seem so serious and melodramatic, and I so prefer the game when it’s trying to be campy. I like the hokey twists, like how your lock-on target crosshairs look like lips and how rose petals surface when you land on the floor. I’d rather Bayonetta relish in its oversexed cheese factor.
So, are these games good? They could be. Dante’s Inferno has the novelty of turning nine circles of hell into gameplay levels, and on sheer art direction alone, I’m intrigued. Bayonetta could be funny as all hell and turn out to be a fun little Devil May Cry 4-clone, provided they don’t make the players replay all of the stages and bosses twice over again. But if the goal of a demo is to make players halfway interested in an upcoming game, then these downloads at least succeeded. And I think we can all agree that Nintendo very badly needs to get on the demo bandwagon and soon. Unless, of course, they’re ashamed of their Wii games. Are they?
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