Remind me not to defraud anyone, ever, because even the slightest mendaciousness will land me straight in Malebolge, the Eighth Circle of Hell. Roughly translated from Italian, “Malebolge” means “evil ditches” or “evil pouches,” and boy, has the team at Visceral Games crafted one hell of a gloomy cavern for the Fraud level of Dante’s Inferno. I mean, it’s so dark that it’s literally difficult to see what’s going on around you -- unless things are on fire, of course. Check out the developer diary above, in which the dev team discusses the point at which things begin to get “pretty twisted.”

“Combat-heavy” seems to be an understatement for Fraud -- the way the developers talk about it, using phrases like “wave after wave of enemies,” it appears that killing things is pretty much all you’re going to be doing here, in a series of arenas. I’m actually quite intrigued by the talk of the variety of enemies, which the developers say will force you to use all the different weapons, techniques, and skills you’ve unlocked and learned throughout the game. I’m less enthused about the old “Capcom boss syndrome” taken to the extreme -- you’ll have to deal with every type of enemy you’ve come across in the game all over again.

As much as I’ve maligned Dante’s Inferno for being a shameless God of War clone (after I played the demo), I’m still willing to give it a shot, if only because the idea of using all the tools at your disposal to dispatch a group of varied enemies is really appealing to me. We’ll find out if Visceral can back up their talk with a great game when Dante’s Inferno comes out for PS3, 360, and PSP on February 9th.

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