Not many would liken Dante’s Inferno to Duck Hunt. The brutal action title set in the underbelly of Hell has neither ducks, laughing dogs or even the color blue. But we do compare it to the God of War. It’s only natural, of course: both titles deliver plenty of brown and buckets -- nay, barrels -- full of gore. While seemingly annoying, it appears as though this comparison doesn’t irk the Dante team. In fact, they consider it a compliment if producer Jonathan Knight does indeed speak for the whole team.
“We never get sick of hearing it because it’s the greatest compliment we can be paid, Knight said in the most recent issue of PlayStation: The Official Magazine. “We hope to be worth of that. Those guys are at the top of their game and there’s no question God of War III is going to be spectacular. I'll be the first in line to get it.“
“I hope those comparisons are being made because of our combat system and is just as responsive -- the control over the character is very immediate, it's very fast-paced, you can branch out of moves very easily, you feel very powerful and overall is a very fun game to play," said Knight.
Knight continued, telling TOPM that the Dante team has other influences not named God of War. He stopped short of revealing them. Instead, he talked about the fiction Dante is attached to and how fresh game ideas evolved from it.
The two games appear strikingly similar on the surface, but there are some key differences. Foremost, we’ve yet to see monster-filled demon breasts in God of War. We’re pretty sure Dante has that one on lock.
[via VG247, via Games Thirst]
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Contest:
7:40 PM on 10.01.2009
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Well...the footage I saw at E3 literally had exact replicates of Kratos' moveset; specifically the square, square, triangle lunge attack. At first, the dev team attempted to say it was "completely different": that's why it was a bad thing.
People called them out on it, and now they kind of just went "oh, right, yea, we knew that".
Okay I get it now. I thought it was just another outcry for unoriginality but if they claimed it was original and it clearly wasn't then I get it.
We already have God of War, and having 2 competeing, interchangable franchises in the same genre risks the saturation problems that Guitar Hero and Rock Band have. Furthermore, I would rather have two completely different awesome games than two extremely similar awesome games if given the choice.
Why must all the big new franchises be extremely similar to already existing franchises? The games that become classics are never even remotely similar to the games that precede them.
I dunno, I think it's a good thing. For one, it's God of War-style game for the Xbox 360. God of War is never coming to a Microsoft console, so EA saw a legitimate business opportunity and went for it.
It's actually better to have two great games in a similar genre fighting each other. Would the Forza team be so dedicated if they didn't have to compete against Gran Turismo? Halo took the Horde mode from Gears of War and improved on it. I'm sure Gears of War 3 will make another improvement of Halo's Firefight mode. It would be terrible if we had no "choice" in our game genres. Let's hear it for some good old fashioned competition!
I'll repeat what I said back at the Rock Band news story.
Every genre goes through the same cycle of finding something awesome, milking it, being lost trying to find something new when interest and sales die, and then finding something new and repeating itself. Sorry dude. It's just the entertainment world in general.
Please ignore the buisness side for now and consider the following:
If you had consumers choose between two games which set of options are better for consumers:
GTA Vice City and GTA San Andread
Or GTA San Andreas and Pokemon G/S version?
Personally, I feel the latter is the better option. The two games serve different consumer desires and compliment eachother, rather than flooding thw market with two much of a single goos thing.
@ Xyliac
I disagree with genres repeating themselves only because the video game industry is too young for there to be evidence of that. The 2D platformer craze has yet to have the opportunity to return. But I do look forward to it's return this Christmas. It may very well be the first true revival of a mostly dead genre. Most 2D genres are dead, and show no signs of a genre reboot. The 3D platformer also mostly died, with only Mario for platformers.
I wonder what happens when many genres die at the same time. As in, the actiony God of War style games, the Command and Conquer RTS's, the JRPGs and RPGs, and the shooters, both first and third person. All the genres seem to be hitting a saturation point to me; the point at which even the most exciting new IPs are mere clones of existing IPs.
Think that's what causes crashes like the Atari 2600 fiasco? a saturation of all genres simultaniously?
To sum up my thoughts on it: I think its a great thing that they're trying to be more like God of War, as that series is a top tier action game. Dante will have enough differentiation in terms of its setting, which looks incredibly riveting so far.
So basically, they're selling it based off the fact that each world feels completely unique, and it plays at least as good as God of War. While I don't feel like the GOW series is the pinnacle of the action genre, a lot of Western fans do, and if we want to see any more games by this developer, they should probably attempt to address that in some form.
i may have seen that in devil may cry.
i'm going to find it hard to pick this game up because it's such a shameless rip off. GOW and DMC are different enough to co-exist, but this seems to be raping both of them, as well as the classic literature it's based on.
yeah i suppose original concepts and gameplay are too much to ask for. let's learn to enjoy mediocrity.
I agree with you that xbox360 need a god of war-ish game even though I can't help but remember the first level of god of war 2 after looking at the title screen shot.
Let's just hope the game turns out to do something different or fresh in at least two or three circles of Hell.
I can think of two game ideas off the top of my head that I think would make a better game than this (mind you, I dislike Hellish landscapes)
1. Turn the Touhou series into a 1-disk compilation and sell it across the consoles.
2. Take the mechanics from Shadow the Hedgehog and make a non-Sonic game around it that was designed for fast-pace thrid person shooting (as opposed to what they did in shadow where they made levels and enemies designed for a Sonic game and then overpowered shadow by giving him a long range projectile weapon)
There. Two ideas for a game in genres fresher that the action genre. Touhou is a game with an insane cult status (type "Owen was her remix" into youtube for proof), and Shadow the Hedgehog is a game that sold a million copies in spite of being bad. Both of them are better game ideas than taking a centuries old poem about observing hell and making it into an action game that blatantly rips off two other action games.
You don't need to be a terribly old industry to learn the ropes of what makes entertainment sell. That's just marketing 101.
Look at arcades. They were very young before they were on the verge of failure and a great idea brought them back. The MMO was young before it died and came back.
I mean I'm not trying to sound stuck up or like I'm right and you're wrong but it seems to me to be common sense for making money that if an idea works stick with it. Attack that market with a vengance. Especially if you're EA and you can afford it.
And at the end of the day if they have a hundred GoW clones (which in itself can't help but show some inspiration from DMC even if just tiny bit) and they're all fun who cares? I know, I know, that isn't realistic. Gosh.
The arcade is dead and buried. And while I don't know much about the MMO landscape, I would venture to say that it's not the MMO that came back, but World of Warcraft that made a different kind of MMO, and only WoW desreves credit for any resurgence of the genre.
Common sense says if an idea works, stick with it. History says that to make a classic, you must make something that is "new", a version that changes the fundamentals of a genre to make them more appealing to the masses. History does not reward clones. All the Pokemon clones are very limited in their success, all the Mario clones never stood up to Mario, no Halo clone has ever had a quarter of the success of Halo, and WoW clones are nothing compared to WoW.
Dante's Inferno, if it is a God of War / Devil May Cry clone, has no hope of becoming a classic.
I mean back in the day the arcade made a comeback. And regardless of their success compared to WoW MMOs have definitely gotten a boost in numbers. Just not WoW big but dammit it's WoW.
The reason most publishers take a risk on new ideas is because either they still follow a basic formula or there is a need for something new because the old has because the old has been done to death. Plus who is saying every game is or is trying to be a classic?
Also take note that every single game you just mentioned was developed in a time when their respective markets were high and dry after their popularity had died.
Mario came from the near death of arcade (we're talkin' way back in Donkey Kong). Halo came when the FPS was losing the mainstream after PC gaming kind of fizzled out of public eye. WoW obviously revamped the MMO after Everquest rose up and subsequently dropped the ball.
And Pokemon? Okay I'll admit that's the one part of gaming history I never did much reading on and as far as I can tell really can stand on it's own.
Classics are the product of original ideas and the market will follow. It's the way the world works. And it's not negative. If every game tried to be a revolution we'd never have good games because everyone would be trying so hard no one would just make fun games anymore.
Oversaturation of any market is a flawed theory that can't be applied to everything. Oversaturation is what happened when everybody and their grandma was making a console or handheld. Oversaturation is the shit ton of plastic instruments on the shelves. Oversaturation is a hundred different 360 SKUs. But you can't say just because there's a bunch of different games with the same idea there's oversaturation. That's competition. Oversaturation is when it actually hurts the market which two GoWs doesn't.
By dying, I refer to the Microsoft 'strategy' of taking it's few customers and having them buy 10 games each, and the PS3 with it's 3rd place sales and only moderate attach rate. THIS is one of those times that historically demands a classic, not a clone.
Incidently, I don't want everyone to be trying to make original games. I want everybody to be trying to make fun games that sell. Don't spit back God of War, make it more fun and better than God of War and then give it to me.