LOS ANGELES — Sitting through demos, not being able to put your hands on a game, can be a bit rough. But sometimes you get a movie-like experience that makes you drool.
And then sometimes you get (fake) protesters.
We got to experience both with Dante’s Inferno, Electronic Arts’ latest attempt to show off its recent creativity.
“Inferno” takes you to hell, in an interpretation of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s epic, “The Divine Comedy.”
It’s a third-person action game that cycles you through a tour of the afterlife as you descend, sin by sin, through the the nine circles of hell.
You assume the role of Dante, who descends into Hell after returning home to find his beloved Beatrice murdered, with Lucifer seducing her soul into the underworld. Dante sets out to save her but has to face down his own demons first.
You get to use two very different weapons: a scythe that Dante steals from Death, himself, and the Holy Cross, given to him by Beatrice. The cross lets Dante use spiritual powers and spells as you progress through the game.
Watching the gameplay, Dante’s Inferno looks a lot like God of War with crazy combos and giant enemies you have to get past. One thing I liked was that Dante gets to tame and take control over some of his larger enemies, like a giant demon that can lay waste to most smaller enemies.
EA’s Visceral Games studio is behind this title as it prepares to put out Dead Space: Extraction, which I loved.
EA was criticized for staging fake protesters at the event. They were even saying “we’re not against video games, just Dante’s Inferno.”
By the way: This version corrects our incorrect reporting that the protesters were real.
Blast Magazine staff writer Bradley Ouellette contributed to this report, also from Los Angeles.
The protesters were staged.
Do they even need to protest if they don’t like the game just don’t play it.