My first reaction to the idea of a video game version of Dante's Inferno struck me as a fantastic idea. What better way to explore the imagery of Alighieri's most famous work than through an interactive medium? After seeing the preview, however, I realize that I should never have gotten my hopes up. "Oh, right," I said. "Characters in gritty video games have to go around destroying NPCs, or else they don't sell. Which means Dante won't be a poet walking around with his deceased mentor Vergil, but will instead be an action hero a la Kratos from God of War."
While I'm glad that Dante-inspired imagery is being used for the game, this is far from the Inferno. What next, a gritty adventure game based on Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles?
