Hmmm it seems I’ve been on a Team Fortress theme lately. I haven’t done one of these in a while because I really haven’t been playing any demos. I’ve been *GASP* buying whole versions of games. But, this past weekend, I got around to downloading two demos on the Playstation 3: Beyonetta and Dante’s Inferno. While I enjoy the occasional button masher, I still have never held the genre in high reverence. I’m nowhere near as excited about God of War 3 as Joe-gamer or any Sony fanboy is. But even I can respect the pure awesomeness that occurs when you get the chance to veg-out in front of the TV and relish in the pure as hell game play mechanics that are derived from hitting this damn button to make your dude do this attack, hit these buttons to do this combo of awesomeness, rinse and repeat while basking in the glow of eye candy.

I played the hell out of games like Final Fight when I was growing up, and it’s really interesting to see how far we’ve come from making Hagar do his spinning clothesline of death by hitting two buttons. Simple, yes, but still challenging given the opposition you faced. Such simple attack systems have been made a foundation for an rpg-lite feeling of character advancement where you continuously gain new combos which, if you’re me, you’ll stick to a choice few and forget the rest. The opposition has changed from a few challenging foes to a slew of enemies which stand little to no chance against your might by themselves, and then usually a tower of meat and metal for a boss, each coming closer to a Shadow of the Colossus sized beastie. So how were the demo’s?

Dante’s Inferno – I’ve not been following this game in great detail. It’s a video game re-imagining of the 14^th century poem. Having already explained my lackluster history of reading, you can probably guess that I’ve not read it. If you have, and have played the demo, feel free to chime in regarding opinions of the game based on something written nearly 700 years ago. Whether you are for or against a company “cashing in” on such source material is an entirely different argument. Sorta like if you’re okay with a movie being made about a very large ship which hit a very large chunk of ice and killed tons of people.

The imagery in and out of combat is vivid and, for lack of a better word, alarming. Not necessarily in a bad way, although some will probably really take offense to it. I get this feeling like the creators wanted to put the awfulness of the Crusades in visual terms that someone from today would grasp. Starting off by showing you how mad with faith Dante is by having him sew the cross from his tunic into his flesh (don’t let him fool you though, he’s a hoot at parties), then moving into pieces of animation showing some atrocities during the crusaders battles. The end of the animation sequence shows Dante about to kill some locals and that’s where the player comes in. After taking care of business, you run around the corner and feel a slight twinge. Oh, sorry sir, is this your knife in my back? Oh snap, I’m dead! Evidently Dante wasn’t a nice enough guy, and that bishop who said he was cool to kill everyone without fear like 007 was full of shit. Death himself comes to take you away, but Dante was not in the mood. You can guess by Dante wielding Death’s Scythe on the cover art who wins. The set pieces in the game are fantastic. Epic in scale and eerie as….hell. The graphics are crisp, and run at a very solid framerate, at least on the PS3 version. The gameplay is not much different from God of War. I’d even go as far as saying Dante may be more of a badass than Kratos, if for no other reason than the fact that dude sewed shit into his own skin and wields a huge scythe made of bone and metal.

The demo leads you from Dante’s almost death, to the gates of hell. It ended right when I was really getting interested in it, so it did its job by making me want more. But, I know that at least for me, it would probably be a regretful purchase. I like single player action games, there just rarely worth top dollar in my opinion. If you’re looking for something to tide you over until God of War 3 though, this may be up your alley.

Bayonetta – As a preface: I played the Playstation 3 demo. At least prior to the demos, the PS3 version of Beyonetta looked to run far worse than the Xbox 360 version. While I really couldn’t tell you if these problems have been resolved as I don’t own an Xbox, I can say I don’t think any amount of visual improvement would make me like this game to a point where I would want to own it. A game which got a perfect score from Famitsu (one of only 12 games to ever receive that score). Based on the demo, I can’t see how it would yield more than a 5. Is it a “bad” game? No, not at all, but it’s so mediocre it drives me bonkers as to the hype/media train behind it. It’s Devil May Cry with a woman whose outfit is made of her hair. She gets nearly naked at times, which may have been the sole reason it’s getting the press, as a result of some of her attacks in which her hair becomes massive weapons of destruction. Visually it’s neat, but repetitive as hell. The first time you see a special move it seems amazing, but then after seeing it 20 times, pretty meh, and they make the normal attacks look bland. Nothing about the combat was really neat, and I had numerous times where I felt like I needed to reposition the camera so I could see what the hell I was attacking, something I never had to do in Dante’s Inferno (because it was mostly fixed).

The thing that really made me dislike the game was the last part of the demo where you got a taste of the Witch Walk (or whatever the hell it’s called). Basically it’s walking on walls. You can jump to other surfaces and fight, and it was AWFUL. I felt like I was going to be sick trying to get the camera to catch up to me. I can’t see owning or even renting this game, but if you are a fan of the Devil May Cry series, you might dig it. Check out the demo and see for yourself.

Edit: Changed Buttom to Button….thanks Rer!!