Demos in Review: Dante's Inferno, Bayonetta, Trine

Unlike last year I have no awesome game to play through the New Year long weekend. Last year I had Bioshock, but this year I just managed to finish Uncharted 2 on Wednesday which left me with only a slew of demos I'd yet to play through on my PS3. ( Uncharted 2 was pretty good. It's no Bioshock, but if you liked Uncharted then this is a good follow along true to the original. )

Two of the demos are kinda crazy awesome and somewhat similar: Dante's Inferno and Bayonetta. Both of which I really only have heard of from when I went to PAX this past year. Both are out soon and amazon's discounting them a few bucks. Dante's Inferno is out February 9th as well Amazon's giving a $10 coupon for a future purchase and Bayonetta is out January 5th.

Dante's Inferno makes me think of the Kingdom of Heaven movie in visual style and maturity. It's rated M though I dunno if it's for the gore or the nudity. Having not followed the game the story from the demo appears to be this: Bad ass crusader Dante did some bad stuff, gets stabbed in the back ( literally ) then refuses to die and kills Death/Hades making him some sort of in between demon christian. He return home to find his wife dead and some sort of mystery surrounding that as her soul is taken by a shade. Dante is not the type to give up and I can only assume descendes through the levels of hell to get her back. So there's your R rated movie plot to facilitate this over-the-top button mashing hack and slasher.

I'm fairly impressed in the movie quality of this game. The graphics are well done, it has a fairly adult plot that could actually have some story depth to it, as well it's the first game I've personally ever seen with frontal detailed nudity, in the demo no less.

The game play is pretty awesome too. Every button invokes some kind of attack and you can get pretty far just button mashing and watching the carnage if that's all you want. ( You should learn how to block though, it seems pretty important with the bosses ) However, there are also combos you can 'buy' and then use if you like. The system for this is what's become a standard light/dark set of abilities in a ladder organization. To further push the light/dark choices you can make there's actually one ability that lets you impale an enemy on the scythe you stole from Death and either punish or Absolve them.

I highly recommend this Demo if you don't mind some bloody hacking and slashing; and nudity. I'll likely GameFly this one and play through it.

The next demo I played was Bayonetta.

The best way I can think of describing this is a girlie version of Dante's Inferno, as if it and Final Fantasy X-2 got married. It's a button mashing hack and slash like Dante. A bit dark and kick ass, but with a distint girlie aspect.

Bayonetta looks like a model and shows some valley girl tendencies at times when she isn't channeling a sexy librarian vibe, glasses and all. I think your current target is marked with huge red lips, and some of the special attacks involve your very large high heal shoe coming through a portal and either stomping or kicking your enemies. Oh also, the heel of her high heel shoes are guns which she can shoot a la Chun-Li's whirlwind kick. So it's a bit lighter as well there's no actual nudity. When it would be there, bits are covered; such as when Bayonette channels her, magical?, clothing into an extension of her hair to beat down a boss.

There's some back story about a secret enclave of which she's an outcast or something, and there's a vague WET like cut scene mode which utilizes film strips so it does have some pretty good visuals. The game play is much like Dante too, combos you can use, but don't have to, though you'll likely invoke them on accident anyway.

I might end up playing this though given Dante's availability I'd likely choose it first. The girlie tint to it is perhaps a tad overdone for my liking, but I highly recommend the demo for how somewhat bizarre this game is.

For an added bonus I'll also share Trine. This is a cute side scroller pseudo-puzzler with neat visuals. The basic premise is a thief, wizard and knight all get trapped in the same body after touching a mysterious jewel and being transported to a new world. The story is light hearted and humorous and the game play is pretty light in a good way.