The blogs I consider to be SVGL's "neighbors in spirit" -- Michael Abbott, Chris Dahlen, Mitch Krpata, Iroquois Pliskin, Corvus Elrod, L.B. Jeffries, Duncan Fyfe, to name just a few, are written by folks with whom I share a key motivation: to elevate the discussion around games. While I don't think any of us begrudges our audience games that are just for fun, we also seem to share a desire to see games that are more than that, even while we look at what's out there to see if we can see things in more nuance.So while I can't speak for everyone or anything, I'd say we're the group most likely to have collectively groaned at the adrenaline-and-testosterone-ization of The Divine Comedy as rendered by EA's Visceral Games with Dante's Inferno. The slim hope that we'd see a thought-provoking video game allegory on sin, suicide, revenge and redemption quickly dissipated when we learned the titular soul-seeker would be recast as a scythe-wielding Crusader out to rescue Beatrice from a pervy Lucifer. Wha?
Anyway, since I'm usually accused of taking myself too seriously, it might surprise you that while I'm reserving judgment for now on whether or not Dante's Inferno is a "good" game -- I only saw a brief demo -- I don't really mind the generous liberties with the source material. Yeah, y'know? It's okay. After seeing the game I explained at Gamasutra why I think it's okay if it doesn't aim that high. For a counterpoint, check out Brian Crecente's impressions: he says the liberties taken with the adaptation "threaten to deflate the experience."
And for a much more elaborate counterpoint, I highly recommend you visit First Wall Rebate, the smart folks with whom I did a (wholly sober and thoughtful!!!) podcast a few weeks ago. It's a bit lengthy -- this coming from me -- but this is the kind of thorough, thoughtful analysis my neighbors and I really love to dig into, so if you've got some time and a chin to stroke, you should definitely give it a read.
It also makes me think a little bit about who the audience for a game like this is really meant to be. Is it terribly cynical of me to say "the core market's just not that smart," and "at least now they'll have heard of the poem?"
In a similar vein, this user comment on the Dante's Inferno official site keeps cracking me up: "I legitimately have a tattoo of Dante's Inferno on my triceps. I was wonderin if there is any type of help I can get with obtaining the game."
You could probably legitimately obtain one at retail when it comes out, bro. Also PICS PLZ.
[UPDATE: If you missed it in the comments section, my Gamasutra colleague and Idle Thumbs maestro Chris Remo has also weighed in, and expands on it a bit at his blog.]
35 comments:
It's a bit of an odd one. One the one hand, you've got people who've read and enjoyed the poem, who are definitely not who the game is aiming at, as it's, well, not much to do with the poem.
And on the other you've got people who've never read the poem, and may have only heard it in passing. Similarly, it can't be aimed at them, because they may as well have just gone for a completely new IP to do with hell. Really, it just seems like an excuse to use a familiar name, in which case, yeah, it's probably working. If it was just some new concept of a God of War clone set in hell, I doubt half the controversy and publicity would be surrounding the title, getting it a few garuanteed curiosity sales.
Let's face it: doing a fairly literal translation of the Divine Comedy would suck. Especially as you couldn't really do a sequel. Purgatory would literally be a grind, and heaven would be too forgiving!
That said, it doesn't sound like they'll get the spirit of Dante's work even if they pass over the more controversial material. It's more an excuse to get an edgy environment. And where's Virgil to guide me through?
Discussion around this game really brings Tocqueville to mind for me. Like, "in this market, core gamers get the games that they deserve." Besides, I don't think we're missing out on a whole bunch of artistic worth by not being granted a very direct adaptation of Dante's petty grudges.
Here's the thing -- I totally dig the recognizable mythological cues in God of War, even if it's a completely hyperbolic fiction. Here's another hyperbolic fiction with recognizable historical/literary cues.
If they had named Dante's Inferno something else and not billed it as an "adaptation," would we all be oohing and aahing at how all the Divine Comedy references accorded the action title more depth than we were giving it credit for?
I don't begrudge EA's take on Dante's Inferno. It's highly unlikely they could or would be successful if tried to stay true to the source material. I also suspect if they went that other route there would still be negative responses. First, people would complain that it fell short. Second, people would complain that their claims of trying to stay true to the source were disingenuous and they always intended to make a standard beat 'em up. At least they are being honest about their intentions.
The route they are taking is probably the most financially sound as well. I wouldn't be surprised if many people who buy the game don't even know of the poem and the gamew isn't an original IP.
The game has also provided hours of hilarious discussion on the "Idle Thumbs" podcast. So I'm thankful for that.
I just don't see why this is based on Dante's Inferno. If, as you say, the core market is "just not that smart" -- and you're probably right -- what good is it to have just "heard of the poem," then having played some God of War clone ostensibly based on it?
I don't understand why this isn't a game simply influenced by Dante's imagery, as a million creative works have been over the centuries, rather than actually claiming to be any kind of even remotely meaningful adaptation of the poem. To me, it's an amazing vindication of the claims of video games' inability to thoughtfully construct ANY kind of meaningful thought -- here's the adaptation of one of Western culture's defining works, and it consists of brutally ripping apart demons for eight hours, surely complete with idiotic throwaway one-liners.
Now, I know it's not the responsibility of any individual game designer to "justify" games to anyone who doesn't play them, and it shouldn't be, and obviously as a gamer I know full well that games are capable of more than this. But the reality is that most games DON'T have anything to say; most games DON'T communicate any meaningful thought; and most games DON'T deal with their subject matter in anything other than the basest, most ridiculous way. You could say the same for most fiction of any medium, but it's certainly even more true for games.
Obviously that's not a dealbreaker for me, since I still play a lot of video games, including the ones covered in the category I described above, and it doesn't bother me all that much; if it did, I wouldn't play a bunch of them.
But by claiming to have anything to do with Dante's Inferno, this game just drives that proportion home for me in a really frustrating way. It could have simply been "Righteous Duty" or whatever bullshit game, with the same plot and mechanics -- they could have even given Dante a shoutout in their ridiculous PR pitches -- and I don't think I would have batted an eye. But as the game industry's big-budget, highly-publicized representation of a work that everybody knows by cultural osmosis, even if they've never read a word of it, it's a big huge fucking depressing failure.
EDIT: in response to "If they had named Dante's Inferno something else and not billed it as an "adaptation," would we all be oohing and aahing at how all the Divine Comedy references accorded the action title more depth than we were giving it credit for?"
Well no, I sure as fuck wouldn't be oohing and aahing at it. I'd still think it's juvenile copycat crap. But it would just be one of many, rather than what is to me a particularly objectionable standard bearer.
Yeah, I guess they did set themselves up for this -- give a game a name like that, and it's probably not unfair for people to expect a little more from it.
My belief is that they reckoned God of War always sells millions each iteration, so they needed a setting that had the same literary clout/recognisability and lent itself well to the Third Person "Fatality!" action genre, and someone at Visceral suggested the Inferno part of Commedia. I don't think there's really any major interest in promoting the literary source, or appealing to people who have read and enjoyed it. It's just that, a setting with instant recognition that allows them to have all kinds of crazy but recognisable enemies that can be destroyed in 'colorful' ways.
Plus, it's not like they are going to have to pay someone else for IP rights to use it.
That's just me being cynical. As has been said before, I'm not saying the game isn't going to be any good, since it will probably appeal to the God of War/Devil May Cry crowds.
I personally just don't see why they're calling it an adaptation of Dante's Inferno, even from a marketing standpoint. I can't say I know many people who enjoyed the poem enough to buy something based off of it AND actively play video games (or, at least, bloody action games).
Calling this Dante's Inferno would be like calling a WWII flying sim "Joseph Heller's Catch-22."
Its not just that its a generic action game, its a generic action games that misses the entire point of the poem its supposedly based on.
Here's the thing: It's not Dante's Inferno. There's an apostrophe there, right? But this game is almost completely removed from what Dante's Inferno (the book) is all about. I mean, I get why EA is calling it that, but, like, come on. Jumping off of that, will they call the sequels Purgatory and Paradise? I'd really like to know.
Also, Leigh, I don't know if you're aware of this guy: http://www.spaaace.com/cope/ but I kind of thought you should be.
Oh yeah, I love that dude -- I wish I had more time to read blogs, because I've fallen behind on his :(
Yup. What is it with that British humor that drives us Americans so crazy?
Humour, I guess.
Also, I just went and read my last comment and I'm worried about whether or not it makes sense. Does it make sense?
Yeah, I think the whole thing is kind of mildly depressing. Just right on the edge of being so mildly depressing to not even bother commenting.
I first heard about this several months ago... maybe even a year and I think a bit of cola came out my nose when I laughed. We all joked about how it would be a generic beat-em-up GoW clone, ha-ha-ha. We even joked about just MAKING another, different Dante's Inferno game, since they actually couldn't stop you. Oh the laughs we had.
But now I just find it kind of yucky and I feel morose when I think about it. Why not 'Demon Hunter'? Why not 'To Hell and Back'? Why not 'Love be Damned'? how about just 'Infernal'? (probably taken)... but anyway - reiterating the point that a generic demon killing game would be better marketted to a generic audience of demon killing game fans by losing the pretentious title and just calling it what it is.
Is it an *active attempt* by EA to undermine the credibility of people who actually might one day aspire to make a real game adaptation of Dante's Inferno or any other serious work? hrrmm...
When does it ship? Someone should build an indie dev team and release a real Dante's Inferno game for PC and broswers and iPhone and facebook and launch it day-and-date with this one just to confuse EA's communications and cash in on the hype with a game that people might actually find beautiful. That would be divine comedy.
Clint's point is exactly the one I was trying to make, said more succinctly.
Also, now I totally feel like I have to write a counterpoint to my own article.
With such a wealth of literature to pick from, why restrict ourselves to a direct rebuttal? Let's work to releass a broad spectrum of literary games in response.
I'm currently designing a Flash game based on Pale Fire. Join me in making a game based on your favorite piece of literature and let's show them how it's done!
You could always build a life sim game that features the hilarious antics of a fictional EA employee - let's call him Dante - in his office which is tragically without air conditioning during a particularly hot summer, while he crunches desperately to ship a videogame based on the works of Shakespeare.
Press the A button every 6 hours to remind him to eat meals! Press the Y button every evening at 11PM to remind him to go home from work! Tap the B button repeatedly to stave off the inevitable onset of depression and self-loathing!
... that might be too meta.
You want to know what's really depressing? This interview (and specifically the creative director):
http://crackle.com/c/Jace_Hall#id=2453907&ml=o%3D12%26fpl%3D349935%26fx%3D
Past the Katee Sackhoff part (starting about 4:50), it's an interview with the EP & CD on Dante's Inferno - leads me to believe even the team itself is a little torn on these issues.
One day all our great artworks will be replaced with tits.
Sigh.
I can't help but wonder if associating their "God of War, but with demons instead of minotaurs" brawler with Dante's Inferno was just something the Visceral team did to get the greenlight from EA's upper echelons. After all, the vague cultural awareness people have about the Divine Comedy applies equally well to executives. It's easier to sell (both to the audience and pitching to execs) Dante's Inferno than Demon Slayin' Dude's Hell Romp.
Or perhaps the association was added as "name recognition" after the execs determine it might not be marketable enough as an unproven demon-slaying brawler.
And apparently this isn't the first game based on Dante's Inferno. I wonder if EA's version will feature a gigantic skull vomiting unbaptized babies.
I disagree that a good game couldn't be made from a literal interpretation of Dante's Inferno. Imagine a game in the style of, say, Silent Hill (which is thematically related to the Inferno), or Indigo Prophecy/Heavy Rain, or even Eternal Darkness.
I think the Divine Comedy could have been an opportunity to break away from the Hell-themed beat-'em-up (fun as they are, I think the idea reached its apex with Painkiller), and present a strong but suicidal character who is going through an increasingly bleak landscape in search of a loved one.
There's a lot of interesting material in the Divine Comedy, it's just a shame it's being shanghaied in service of that type of game.
Apocalypse Now, Age of Innocence, Cruel Intentions, The Graduate, Alice in Wonderland, and Dr. Strangelove – all of these movies took extreme liberties with their source material, but that doesn’t make them lesser adaptations. And it definitely doesn’t affect the way we read the original works.
Now, it would be a bit premature (and generous) to add Dante’s Inferno to these ranks, but how can people speak so passionately about a title they have never played? Or for that matter, seen beyond a brief clip or two?
Dante’s Inferno won’t be a page-by-page adaptation, we know that, but it could be a colorful, gruesome hell of a good time. Or it could be an average God of War clone. Or it could just suck. We don’t know.
What we do know is EA’s PR, in a bizarre effort to promote this title, organized a fake Christian zealot protest. That ruffles my feathers.
I'm a little on Chris' side here in that it's far too early to pass judgment on whether the game and the liberties it takes with the source were "worth it", but I think it's worth asking why people didn't react in the same way to God of War and its merciless butchering of ancient Greece's mythical cast.
Is it because Greek myths were generally meant to be taken literally, and as such naturally conducive to that kind of activity?
If they were just going to do a crazy hell story then do a crazy hell story, not take a name from one great Poem and bastardize it as much as possible. They don't really need the Dante's Inferno name and they can keep the setting and still have Dante Inferno references.
@Gauntlet
How can a video game bastardize a classic poem?
Come on, will anyone even remember Dante's Inferno the game happened one hundred years from now? Or even twenty?
@Chris Remo "EDIT: in response to "If they had named Dante's Inferno something else and not billed it as an "adaptation," would we all be oohing and aahing...?
...Well no, I sure as fuck wouldn't be oohing and aahing at it. I'd still think it's juvenile copycat crap..."
Let's flip this on its head. What if 2K Boston had named BioShock The Fountainhead?
I pretty much agree with your take on this game, Leigh. The whole idea is hilarious. Once you hear the words "Dante's Inferno: The Video Game," you have to assume that fidelity to the source material is out the window. But that's not really an indictment of video games as a medium, or proof that they can't provide meaningful experiences. It means that literature and video games don't have very much in common.
(Side note: I'm reminded of the Chappelle's Show sketch when Paul Mooney is criticizing "The Last Samurai," starring Tom Cruise. That's exactly the feeling I get about this game. It's just so ridiculous that you've got to laugh.)
Plus, as I think some people pointed out already, there's nothing stopping anybody else from making a more faithful interactive adaptation of the Divine Comedy. (Except, you know, the unfortunate reality that nobody would buy a faithful interactive adaptation of the Divine Comedy.) But it's up for grabs, for anyone who wants to give it a shot.
(Side note two: Is anyone else surprised that Activision hasn't yet announced an action-adventure game based on Paradise Lost?)
Thanks, Mitch -- I'm glad someone kinda gets what I'm trying to say, although I am definitely feeling both sides of the argument.
I just kind of step back and I don't necessarily see it as a major loss to video games' legitimacy if this particular title isn't willing to be what people would like it to (and I definitely don't feel like all is lost if we can fun up a brawler with some legit references for we literary nerds out there).
And yeah, I'm waiting for ATVI, too -- when they see sales numbers on God of War III is probably when they'll go after the genre, I think. They got no shame, just business sense.
I get why people would be unhappy about it, but to me it would be worse if someone tried to do a straight adaptation and failed than if they did whatever the hell this is. It is so silly that I cannot help but love it.
Do you have any particular affinity for the poem? I wonder if that's part of it -- I'm sure I read some of it in high school or college, but despite its obvious literary importance it holds no special place in my heart. But I wonder how I'd feel if something I cared about more were given this treatment. Say they made a Catch-22 game in which you play as the badass bombardier Yossarian, bombing the living daylights out of Italy and hitting ammo dumps for point multipliers. I might be ripshit.
Not any special one, no. But when you even speculated on the idea of ATVI getting its hooks into Milton, I twitched a little. So yeah, I'm sure your opinion on the Commedia has something to do with it.
"One's opinion," not "you" specifically!
@Mitch
If someone made a Catch-22 game based on your description, I think I'd lose my lunch. Just the thought of it makes me nauseous.
Thanks for linking to my post at First Wall Rebate, Leigh. I'd love to have you come on the show again sometime so we can have part of this dialogue in real time.
Mitch, you said that this particular case with Dante's Inferno "means that literature and video games don't have very much in common." I understand the point you're making but I definitely disagree. I believe we put way too much importance on the superficial qualities of media because we are asked to be little more than consumers of media, constantly trying to decide where to best spend our money. But if we can think more abstractly about what a game is in the first place, I think we can find a lot of cross-pollination between written artforms and visual-interactive ones.
Dante's epic poem essentially argues an 8-level structure for Hell. That magic number of 8 is one video game designers have used a lot to vary their levels/dungeons/etc, as well as to stretch their game's narrative underpinnings. Even (and especially) something like Super Mario Bros is, to some degree, a replication of this 8-level structure.
Now, is Dante Alighieri directly responsible for Miyamoto's designs? No, of course not. But if we can liberate our preconceptions about games (and literature, for that matter...) from the ghetto of consumerist categorization, we will be able to have different (and I'd argue more interesting) conversations about them.
Say they made a Catch-22 game in which you play as the badass bombardier Yossarian, bombing the living daylights out of Italy and hitting ammo dumps for point multipliers. I might be ripshit.
You, my friend, have just had what may be the greatest stupid idea in the history of great stupid ideas.
Catch-22 The Video Game could be really, really awesome. What better medium to convey sheer absurdity and illogic than the video game, which is practically built on it?
I can just imagine the But Thou Must moments. "Fly another mission? (Yes/No)"
Of course, as I've said in other places, for all the literary praise and so forth that it's gotten, at the end of the day, "Dante's Inferno" is just fanfiction.
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