Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat. This review is not written from the point of a view of a PS3 fanboy, in fact I have been an XBOX gamer since 2003 when I convinced my parents to buy me one along with Halo: Combat Evolved. Now with that being said I think this game borrows nearly all of its gameplay from better games in the genre, ala God of War 3. The worst thing is that I believe Visceral Games not only knew that they were making a clone, but that they also knew that it wasn’t as good. The thing that had me most excited about this game was that it was for the XBOX 360, because there are NO good Hack-n-Slash games for the 360. That is until I played Darksiders (but that is a different review). I am going to break this review down into five categories.
6.5 Presentation: The depiction of hell is actually quick lovely. My problem lies with the awful shock value content that is only there to keep your mind off the awful game. Visceral Games really tried to make this game as epic as their first gem, Dead Space but they just failed.
5.5 Graphics: Not to be cliché, but 2007 called and they want their graphics back. When I first popped this game into my console I was a little bit overwhelmed with the reds and browns. The camera can cause some GIANT headaches.
8.5 Sound: The sound was actually one of the only things I loved about the game. The soundtrack is intense and defiantly causes complete immersion. The ambient noise is top notch and so are the sound effects.
5.0 Gameplay: One thing comes to mind, “Been there, done that”. The game play would be fantastic, if God of War didn’t exist. The gameplay is not all bad, but as a reviewer I couldn’t get over the fact that it a complete copy of better games. On a positive note, if you have good gaming headsets then the audio and music will be very enjoyable, the person who took care of the audio deserves respect.
6.0 Replay Value: Until the DLC comes out there would be absolutely no reason to return to Dante’s Inferno, unless you want to show your friends what a good promise turned bad looks like.
5.5 Overall (out of 10/ also NOT an average)
Final Notes: I wanted to like this game so much. The weeks leading up to the release it was all I could think about. The fact that I was so harsh on this review was because I was so disappointed. The biggest problem with this game is the fact that it was not good enough. I expected big things from this game, and it did not deliver. I hope that Visceral Games can rebound with Dead Space 2.
