Why I'm psyched about: Dante's Inferno

October 19, 9:30 AMPittsburgh Video Game ExaminerEric Keihl

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"Weather is beautiful, wish you were here."

"This said, the gloomy region trembling shook / So terribly, that yet with clammy dews / Fear chills my brow. / The sad earth gave a blast, /That, lightening, shot forth a vermilion flame, / Which all my senses conquer’d quite, and I / Down dropp’d, as one with sudden slumber seized."

--Dante Alighieri, Inferno, Canto III

What... a... friggin'...wuss. Seriously, folks, as fond as I am Signore Alighieri's Divine Comedy (it's easily my favorite epic poem about a journey through the afterlife written by an Italian in 14th century,) his depiction of himself in the Inferno section (covering his travels through the terrors of a thoroughly Catholic hell) leaves a lot to be desired. It seems like every time there's even the slightest sign of unimaginable horror or certain doom, he either cowers behind his guide (the Roman poet Virgil) or drops into a dead faint. Paragon of virile masculinity that I am, I have a hard time tolerating that sort of limpwristed milquetoastery, and I find that it makes the poem far more difficult to get through. As such, I've often wondered whether there might be some way of having all of the fun and excitement of hell without without the burden of a spineless, weak-kneed narrator who's to busy worrying about his soul and the dreadful nature of fate to enjoy his fantastic voyage through the postmortal planes.

And then I learned of a wondrous project by Dead Space developer Visceral games, an electronic adaptation of the Inferno which, from what I've seen so far, will give the the character Dante a much-needed injection of liquid badassery.

Perfect example: in the text version, Dante carried no weapon. No sword, no bow, no axe, no automatic plasma rifle. Nothing. In the game, you wield the scythe of the Grim Reaper himself, ripping it from his bony claws after beating him down in a one-on-one battle for supremacy. You'll also carry a magical cross which can be used to stun enemies, and a partial suit of armor to do what armor generally does.

You're damn well going to need them all, because it's not just Dante that's being updated for a more violent generation. Hell itself isn't the dreary, pitiful place that Alighieri wrote about, and it's not full of self-pitying doomed souls and fallen angels who invite contemplation into the harsh nature of God's judgment. In the electronic hell of Dante's Inferno, there's no time for all that contemplation and introspection nonsense. You'll have demons and damned alike clawing, biting, and vomiting at you, and your job is to chop those bastards down like a a Brazilian rainforest, making your way from circle to circle battling enemies designed around the Seven Deadly Sins.

And what, you might (if you're an English nerd) be asking, about Beatrice, the girl Alighieri pined for / stalked in real life, and who helped lead him in his journey through the afterlife? Well, she's your smokin' hot girlfriend now. That bastard Satan took her, and you're going down to hell to get her back, even if that means killing Lucifer himself and upsetting the very balance of creation. Nobody ever said love was going to be easy.

Needless to say, all of these changes sound exciting and dynamic, and if Dante's Inferno ends up being as good as I hope it will, perhaps we'll see more classic literature retold in the same fashion. The war between the loyal angels and Satan's legions in Milton's Paradise Lost (spiced up with some bomber planes and tactical nuclear strikes) would make a great RTS, and I wouldn't mind being able to punch out the Wife of Bath in a fighting game based on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. And while adapting literary masterpieces probably won't inspire anyone to actually read the book, at least they'll be aware that they exist. At this point, that's probably the best we can hope for.