100 More Gruesome Games ( 65-61 )

65 - Dante's Inferno (C64) :

Games are sometimes inspired by some odd sources, including 14th century poems about a journey through Hell it seems! Yes, the next two games I'm going to look at both use Dante Alighieri's epic Divine Comedy's Inferno section as their source material, and as such are filled with suitably Halloweeny-Hellish imagery.....

First up is Denton Design's take on the poem....it has us take the role of a pilgrim trying to escape Hell, by traipsing through all 9 of it's circles and reaching Satan, who hopefully will allow us back to live for a bit longer and hopefully end up in heaven next time.....

The game is basically a series of little mazes, with items lying around that you'll have no idea what to do with, but are important for progressing through the game. The first one for instance is a bag of gold that you give to Charon the ferryman by holding it up so he'll stop his boat allowing you to climb aboard and get ferried to the other side....something you'll want to be doing sharpish, as if you stand on the banks of the river too long, wasps will appear and try to sting you...and they can only be avoided by hopping on the boat!

When you reach the other side, you'll have to avoid getting caught up with the poor chaps and chapesses who were a bit too lusty in life, as they get blown around by strange winds which form two or three lines you'll need to run between to get past....and then you'll discover what hell has in store for you next!

It's surprising how true to Inferno the game manages to be, and if you're familiar with the work you'll see references to lots of aspects of the circles of hell. I only made it as far as the Garden Of Suicides though, as I found it incredibly difficult! This isn't helped by the fact you'll need to work out for yourself what each of the items lying around actually does, but I suppose that adds to the longevity of the game, as it doesn't seem particularly lengthy....

Overall, it's not too bad....just bloody difficult...but you should probably play it just too see what fate awaits a huge proportion of today's society, most likely including yourself, if the criteria for entering Heaven is as strict as it appears to be from the rules presented in the poem!

64 - Dante's Inferno (360) :

Viscerals take on Inferno also has lots taken form the source, but also adds some of its own storyline to make it a better fit for the God Of War style game it so obviously wanted to mimic. Its Dante is a man who returns from the Crusades to find his lady Beatrice's soul taken captive by Satan and dragged to Hell....a fate for which Dante and the sins he commited whilst away are to blame......

Off he trots down to Hell, aided by the poet Virgil, who imparts his knowledge about the various circles to help guide Dante. All manner of twisted denizens will be met, and luckily you'll constantly be finding relics and power-ups to help absolve or punish them so you can rush on to the next level.

You get souls from the creatures you dispose of, which act as currency for purchasing upgrades. The souls are either Good or Evil, depending on whether you decide to punish the baddies and rip them to bits, or redeem their souls and send them to heaven. Occasionally you'll also come across various figures from history, who you must also judge! This starts up a little mini-game sequence where you'll have to hit the correct buttons as souls fly into a circle in the middle of the screen, gaining you extra souls upon completion.

All of these souls you collect can then be spent on two different sets of upgrades.....again both Evil & Good...and these will help improve your health or magic or give you new moves with which to batter your foes with.

The main meat of the game is the God Of War style hacking and slashing and block-moving, lever-pulling, monster-mashing puzzles though...and very enjoyable stuff it all is! The game feels suitably epic, and despite a few camera issues and the occasional annoying jumping sections, you should have lots of fun as you make your way through the wonderfully-hellish looking, nicely constructed levels. It's definitely not a title for younger players either, as it's filled with violence and nudity...so keep it away from youngsters or you'll definitely find yourselves going downward when you pop your clogs!

But yeah, definitely recommended for action game fans and horror lovers...although maybe not for some overly religious or stuffy literary types who have been quite vocal concerning the fact a game based on Inferno was ever considered for release in the first place, failing to notice that such a thing already existed as early as 1986! (see above)





And these two weren't the only ones either...whilst looking for videos and info on the games for the blog, I stumbled upon another game that was due for release based upon Alighieri's work...

Irrational Game's The Lost was due to be a modern take on the theme, but was unfortunately canned before release due to various issues....still, you can read more about the game by clicking here... and here's a couple of videos to show what it would have been like..

The game code and rights were eventually picked up by an Indian company FXLabs who changed some of the graphics and plot, gave it a Bollywood makeover and released it on PC as Agni : Queen Of Darkness so maybe I'll try and hunt that down and take a look at it next year!

63 - Blood Will Tell (PS2) :

Another game based on literature now, this time based on Osamu Tezuka's manga series Dororo! It tells the tale of Hyakkimaru, who due to a deal with demons his father made before he was born, is now comprised of mainly prosthetic parts...The demons each demanded a part of Hyakkimaru in exchange for "bringing peace back to the land", and now rescued by an old inventor and all grown up, Hyakki decides to hunt these fiends down and retrieve all 48 body parts that were stolen from him.......

He soon meets up with a young thief named Dororo, who decides to accompany him on his quest, and at various points in the game you give commands to Dororo, or even take control of him at certain points....The game plays as a standard third-person action adventure type affair, with Hyakkimaru hacking, slashing and blowing up demons using his prosthetic arm-swords and knee cannons...and occasionally you'll be required to solve some puzzles, especially in the sections where you take control of Dororo as these are less combat based....

I've really only just started playing this game, but so far I've noticed a few things that really make me want to continue playing this game right the way through...Firstly, it uses the lost body parts thing really well! At the start of the game, everything is in black & white...and it stays that way until you recover your eye from one of the demons, which then lets you see the game in colour! Every part you recover adds something new to the game with your nose allowing you to sense demons for instance, which vibrates your PS2 pad when one is near! It's a really cool game mechanic, and I like it lots....

Second is the plot! The storyline is crazy, and will make you want to stick with the game just to see how it all pans out...and playing through has made me want to check out the manga series too! There's even a live action film I'll need to try and find an English subbed version of that looks pretty good too....

But by far my most favourite thing about Blood Will Tell is the freakish enemies you'll have to fight throughout the course of the game...some look creepy, some look weird..all of them are wonderfully bizarre and Japanese and some would provide great inspiration for some totally mental Halloween costumes!

It does have problems...the camera can be really annoying and fiddly at times, and it can get a bit repetitive...but so far, the story, enemies and fun of unlocking new stuff with every body part  has got me hooked! I definitely recommend it for monster lovers or fans of manga!

62 - Nosferatu (ZX Spectrum) :

The written word references continue, with this...the game based on the film that was based on Bram Stoker's Dracula! Not the 1922 original but the 1979 Werner Herzog remake....

Unfortunately, it's one of those isometric 3D wander-a-round-a-thons that there seem to be approximately 7 kajillion and 1 of on the Speccy....I've only played it briefly though, and it does seem to be a pretty good example of one. I did manage to get stuck fairly early on though and couldn't work out where I was supposed to go, and my interest really wasn't held enough for me to continue.....

It all looks suitably creepy though, and has a nice day-to-night lighting thing going on and is probably really good once you get into it...I'll need to revisit it some other time though, when I get the urge for isometric stuff..which does happen every now and again actually! Anyway, if you're looking for exactly the same sort of thing, why not give this a try and see what you make of it? If you find it to be the most amazing game ever you can always come back and tell me and then I might be persuaded to give it another go....

While we're talking about Nosferatu again, why don't I just stick the film up for those who have yet to see it to take a gawp at? Yes....I think I will! 

Enjoy.....

61 - Gogo the Ghost (C64) :

I don't know what it is about the Commodore 64, but I've always seemed to find its games a lot harder to play than the ZX Spectrum's.....any game I haven't played that I find on the Speccy, I can usually get quite a bit into it and manage to see a fair few screens at least before getting killed by anything....

Not so with the C64...most newly discovered games have me dying every two bloody seconds, getting really frustrated with them and giving up on them pretty quickly! This is another such game....(maybe I'm just really crap at C64 games through some psychological want to not be good at the Speccy's rival's games or something? I dunno....)....

You play as Gogo the ghost as he tries to make his way through 150 screens of obstacles and enemies in a haunted house, to reach his "dream princess!"....Well, she'll be waiting a long bloody time, as I only made it as far as the second screen after quite a few goes.....

The game is far too difficult to get anywhere at all in, and although I know I'm pretty rubbish at C64 games, looking around online suggests that others find this game way too tricky as well.....one to be avoided then....unless you're a masochist.....