Why playing Dante’s Inferno is now my life’s goal

Written by: Robert Balint

Every February, as the NFL’s two best teams battle for supremacy, the war for the best Super Bowl commercial rages with no less fury. But one in particular stood out. While I was watching the game last night (Who dat?!), the commercial for the new video game, Dante’s Inferno, came on screen. As the screen returned to Tracy Porter’s interception that handed the game to the Saints, my mind stayed locked in Hell.

That was one of the coolest videogame previews that I’ve ever seen! Everything about it was incredible. At first, I didn’t know what it was that was so appealing. It was only after watching it a few more times online that I began to unravel the masterful scheme that the game’s advertising department pulled off. Let’s take a look, shall we?

The opening shot is what grabs the attention of the target demographic for slice-‘em-up games. Give teenage males a look at a knockout like her, and you’ve got them in your pocket.

So... you from outta town?

The dame in question is Beatrice, the beloved of Dante, the game’s protagonist. Just as you’re getting acquainted with her flowing white gown and soft eyes, however, a black mist envelops her and drags her down into a fiery chasm. The perpetrator? It’s none other than the Prince of Darkness himself, who has taken Beatrice as a prize into the pit of Hell.

Dante: In the next shot, we see Dante roar Beatrice’s name and throw himself into empty space, in hot pursuit. His descent into Hell manages to include some of the coolest things I can think of: after the swan dive, he combat-rolls off of a demon’s back, slides down its shoulder while dodging flames from its mouth, hacks away at multiple other demons (all while in midair), and finally lands easily from a thousand-foot freefall, cracking the stone beneath his feet. He has a moment’s glance at Beatrice, and then it’s back to work, whirling Death’s scythe and eviscerating onslaught of damned souls.

Even Chuck Norris would get vertigo from a fall like this. Please don't tell Chuck Norris I said that.

Wow. A chiseled Beowulf-style warrior, armed with a blade of absurd proportions and a fierce, chivalrous determination to rescue the woman he loves from the horrors of the underworld? It’s every testosterone/adrenaline-crammed kid’s dream.

It gets even better for the guys of that kind that paid at least some attention in high school English. The game is taken from a poem of the same title, written by Italian poet Dante Alighieri in the early 1300’s. His Inferno is a tale of his descent into Hell, filled with grisly descriptions of each every kind of sinner and each ensuing punishment to which they are subjected. According to Dante, there are nine circles of the Devil’s lair, each reserved for different types of criminals. As the game’s Dante, you will travel through each of these, searching for dear Beatrice while struggling with your own less-than-spotless past.

So a hack-and-slash game coupled with literary context? That’s the pièce de résistance for us bookworms. Throw in “Ain’t No Sunshine” by Bill Withers, and you’ve got a piece of advertising rivaling Modern Warfare 2’s recent promo video. Dante’s Inferno hits stores tomorrow, and it’s been getting scores in the high 8’s and 9’s by reviewers. So pick one up, then please invite me over to play. It’ll give me something to do besides watching this trailer all day.

What shows up next to "badass" in the dictionary.