Dante's Inferno

[mrmud]

I really, really loathe Divina Commedia (probably because I was stuck dissecting Inferno for half a year in school) but I really don't see how this could be fair to the original work. The people who actually know enough to recognize the book will probably think it is beyond silly to play a magically powered Dante slashing his way through hell.

[Amentep]

Really this is no different than God of War using Greek mythology for their own purposes. I can just imagine the project meeting now:

 

Sony's God of War franchise is making tons of money, we need to rip it off!

But where would we set it? Ancient Greece would be too obvious!

We already made a bunch of hell creatures for Dead Space, why don't we set it in hell?

I got it! Dante's Inferno!

 

Actually it *is* different from using mythology because they're not pulling from a singular source. Even that recent Joan of Arc game had numerous legends to pull from for the game (despite the fact that, historically Joan never fought in battle). Had God of War been called Hesiod's Theogony perhaps the comparison would be more apt.

 

What this is closest to, in some respects, is Konami taking Shuǐhǔzhu

Edited February 19, 2009 by Amentep

[mkreku]

I still don't get why people get upset about this. I don't think it's any weirder than Tim Schafer turning a roadie into a rock god that battles demons in Br

[Amentep]

It's a game, it won't try to be the book.

 

How can it be trying NOT to be the book when the game is supposed "to re-introduce Dante to an audience who, until now, may have been unfamiliar with the remarkable details of this great work of art

[Hurlshort]

"brand recognition"

 

 

In the US, at least, due to the overwhelming brilliance of our educational system (sarcasm), the brand recogniton of Dante, The Inferno, or any book that isn't about either a) celebrities or b) making huge amounts of money with no work, is exactly 0.

 

What, are you the magical exception to this rule? ...Or were you educated abroad and so have broken away from the trend? I don't know about others, but I was first introduced to the work in high school and then read it extensively at university.

 

Dante's Divine Comedy is freshman level reading at virtually any university that springs to mind, unless of course the university in question only admits first year applicants who attended a high school where it was required reading. Maybe you just haven't attended university yet.

 

As far as the game goes, it sounds uninspired right now, the fact that it's inspired by the literary work notwithstanding. I don't mind folks getting some sort of exposure to classical works through computer games, although sometimes the games themselves make me cringe.

 

EDIT: And I would love to see a good game based on Paradise Lost. The problem is making the game good.

 

Actually, I teach the Divine Comedy in 7th grade to my students during our Renaissance unit. It is part of the state standards, so anyone in California going through 7th grade in the last 8 years has earned about Dante in some form or another. Is it the brilliant education system at fault, or the students who don't pay any attention to what they are learning?

[Wrath of Dagon]

It's a game, it won't try to be the book.

 

How can it be trying NOT to be the book when the game is supposed "to re-introduce Dante to an audience who, until now, may have been unfamiliar with the remarkable details of this great work of art

[Monte Carlo]

There's two ways of looking at it -

 

1 (Optimism) Hey, pop culture references classics - mebbe The Kids will dig it and read the original. Huzzah!

 

2 (Realism) The Kids will think that Dante was a cyborg-commando-assassin

 

I suppose it's like hoping that too much GTA will make kids want to read Crime & Punishment. Problem is, video games don't make kids want to read. My generation came to computer games as a secondary diversion from reading (after all, there was only so much pong you could play before your eyes bled, and arcade games like Galaxians were just too expensive) whereas too many of today's kids are exposed to computer games in lieu of books in the first place.

 

Oh well. I like the game Maria started - howabout The Canterbury Tales using the Assassin's Creed engine? Jeff 'Iceman' Chaucer is a katana-wielding 12th century assassin, slaying an assortment of medieval archetypes.

 

Cheers

MC

[Amentep]

Oh well. I like the game Maria started - howabout The Canterbury Tales using the Assassin's Creed engine? Jeff 'Iceman' Chaucer is a katana-wielding 12th century assassin, slaying an assortment of medieval archetypes.

 

Cheers

MC

 

So long as they don't include any of the sex from the original, they'll probably be alright.

[Purkake]

It's a game, it won't try to be the book.

 

How can it be trying NOT to be the book when the game is supposed "to re-introduce Dante to an audience who, until now, may have been unfamiliar with the remarkable details of this great work of art”.

 

Again creating a character to go ass kicking through a version of Dante's hell is okay; saying that this is somehow going to bring people to the "remarkable details of [a] great work of art" when seeming to change those details is a bit silly, IMO.

So it's the usual marketing bullcrap. We're not exploiting violence, we're educating. There was even a court case where the judge used God of War as an example of an educational game, lolz. Greek mythology is a body of literature same as Divine Comedy. There weren't any Spartans either who killed Ares, so that's a gross historical distortion.

 

I think that an important difference here is that "Greek Mythology" is more of an open setting than a straight story like Divine Comedy. Having a fictional character killing stuff from Dante's 9 hells setting would be much better(totally ok if they changed the name of the game as well). Also, most of the stuff that is in God of War(that I have seen) is at least plausible thanks to the crazy stuff that happens in Greek mythology. Turning Dante the poet into a superhero with magic powers is pretty much redoing the story from their (weird)perspective.

 

It's like no one even considers making anything other than a "superdude has powers and kills stuff" game. At least for AAA titles.

Edited February 19, 2009 by Purkake

[Monte Carlo]

I'm wondering if there's a Dante's Inferno graphic novel out there. Because that could be cool.

[Purkake]

I'm wondering if there's a Dante's Inferno graphic novel out there. Because that could be cool.

 

They should totally base it on the game. Then they can make a movie based on that - Dante's Inferno the game the graphic novel the move: Dante's re-revenge.

[Hurlshort]

The Divine comedy has been illustrated by Gustave Dore.

[Purkake]

The Divine comedy has been illustrated by Gustave Dore.

 

He doesn't strike me as the Graphic Novel type.

[Aristes]

Really, Greek Mythology has been fluid since the very beginning. It borrowed from neighbors, interpolated material from different times and different traditions, and continued to change with new tellings over time. It is not the equivalent of Dante's Inferno. However, I don't really get too terribly upset about these games using old works of fiction. The fact is, many will not learn anything more about the books because of interest in the game, but many will.

 

As far as American education goes, I think it's a shallow sort of statement to pronounce blanket condemnation of an entire group, especially since it's become quite en vogue to attack Americans in general and American education specifically. It's cliched. Of course, when all else fails, you can simply cut one or two sentences out of the body of my post in order to respond. haha Seriously, I'm not angry and I don't want to feud with you over this issue, Crash. I just think that most high school age kids will have some exposure to La Divine Comedia. I'm really not all that educated on this issue. I've never, for example, translated any of it. I've always read it in translation, so it's not like I'm claiming to be a hard core academe on this issue.

 

Really, I can see why it offends your sensibilities, and Purkake's and others. I just don't think it's all that dire. I think there is an area between the two scenarios Monte proposes. Sure, we can't rely on games like this to educate anyone, children or adults, but some of the ideas will come through and some folks will be interested. I simply can't discard the notion out of hand.

 

However, the way they pitch the game sounds stupid. I just don't think it'll be that good. Maybe they'll make it a decent FPS. Fair enough. I might like it. Like Amentep, I question any adaptation of the Inferno where the protagonist, Dante or not, defeats the forces of evil alone. It is, after all a religious work. That might offend some folks, but if folks are irritated by the overt religious nature of the work, they can't then complain about the way the game bastardizes the point of the story.

 

So, I like giving you guys hell, but I'm not really invested in the debate. Even games based on Greek mythology, on which I have invested considerably more time and effort, don't offend me. The game is the game. If it's good, then I'll enjoy it and maybe even learn something. I'm more concerned about how it sounds like it might mangle gameplay than the story.

 

Who was it that suggested an adventure/puzzle game? Good idea! I like that one a lot.

[Slowtrain]

I'm not angry and I don't want to feud with you over this issue, Crash. I just think that most high school age kids will have some exposure to La Divine Comedia. I'm really not all that educated on this issue. I've never, for example, translated any of it. I've always read it in translation, so it's not like I'm claiming to be a hard core academe on this issue.

 

 

no problem. I was exaggerating for effect anyway. But yeah, I just think that using works like the Divine Comedy or The Canterbury Tales or even Don Quixote because they have a built in marketing boost here in the US would be questionable. You've read them, I've read them, MOnte Carlo and Purkake and others have read them (not all here in the US of course), Hurlie teaches them, but I know way too many people who really can't read, and those who can read don't read anything of that sort ever.

 

I think adapting any of these works to a video game format is fine. Not only fine but would be cool. And there would be changes that would have to be done to make them work. I've got no problem there. But completely rewriting the basic concept of the story? I think its pretty silly. IF you're goign to do all that, just write your own story. For example, Painkiller was kinda like a supercharged Dante going to hell and laying waste to all the devils and demons and whatnot. And it was a pretty fun shooter, too.

[Amentep]

I'm wondering if there's a Dante's Inferno graphic novel out there. Because that could be cool.

 

An Italian company was going to produce an adaption - not sure what became of it: http://www.dantesinfernocomics.com/

 

I think there have been a few loose adaptions (one with Mickey Mouse!), parodies, or homages in comic form.

[Purkake]

Really, Greek Mythology has been fluid since the very beginning. It borrowed from neighbors, interpolated material from different times and different traditions, and continued to change with new tellings over time. It is not the equivalent of Dante's Inferno. However, I don't really get too terribly upset about these games using old works of fiction. The fact is, many will not learn anything more about the books because of interest in the game, but many will.

 

As far as American education goes, I think it's a shallow sort of statement to pronounce blanket condemnation of an entire group, especially since it's become quite en vogue to attack Americans in general and American education specifically. It's cliched. Of course, when all else fails, you can simply cut one or two sentences out of the body of my post in order to respond. haha Seriously, I'm not angry and I don't want to feud with you over this issue, Crash. I just think that most high school age kids will have some exposure to La Divine Comedia. I'm really not all that educated on this issue. I've never, for example, translated any of it. I've always read it in translation, so it's not like I'm claiming to be a hard core academe on this issue.

 

Really, I can see why it offends your sensibilities, and Purkake's and others. I just don't think it's all that dire. I think there is an area between the two scenarios Monte proposes. Sure, we can't rely on games like this to educate anyone, children or adults, but some of the ideas will come through and some folks will be interested. I simply can't discard the notion out of hand.

 

However, the way they pitch the game sounds stupid. I just don't think it'll be that good. Maybe they'll make it a decent FPS. Fair enough. I might like it. Like Amentep, I question any adaptation of the Inferno where the protagonist, Dante or not, defeats the forces of evil alone. It is, after all a religious work. That might offend some folks, but if folks are irritated by the overt religious nature of the work, they can't then complain about the way the game bastardizes the point of the story.

 

So, I like giving you guys hell, but I'm not really invested in the debate. Even games based on Greek mythology, on which I have invested considerably more time and effort, don't offend me. The game is the game. If it's good, then I'll enjoy it and maybe even learn something. I'm more concerned about how it sounds like it might mangle gameplay than the story.

 

Who was it that suggested an adventure/puzzle game? Good idea! I like that one a lot.

 

I'm no big fan of the Divine Comedy, I respect it as a classic. I am in no way personally offended by what they are doing with it. What bothers me is that the games industry feels the need to take it down to that level to make it sell/be viable. Gaming is still a new industry that needs to prove itself and this is not exactly helping. If someone wrote a book based on the Divine Comedy where Dante fights his way through hell slashing devils left and right, it would be a satirical work on today's society/entertainment or it would just be dismissed.

Edited February 19, 2009 by Purkake

[Maria Caliban]

The Divine comedy has been illustrated by Gustave Dore.

 

He doesn't strike me as the Graphic Novel type.

 

William Blake also did a series of illistrations. If you bound them together in a book, you'd have a comic. (I hate the term graphic novel)

[Darth InSidious]

Oh well. I like the game Maria started - howabout The Canterbury Tales using the Assassin's Creed engine? Jeff 'Iceman' Chaucer is a katana-wielding 12th century assassin, slaying an assortment of medieval archetypes.

 

Cheers

MC

 

So long as they don't include any of the sex from the original, they'll probably be alright.

Provided Madame Eglentine speaks in Frenssh after the scole of Stratford-atte-Bowe, I'm in.

 

Edit: Botticelli also did a series of illustrations for the Divine Comedy.

Edited February 19, 2009 by Darth InSidious

[Hurlshort]

I thought I remembered Botticelli doing illustrations! I think I have them in my classroom somewhere, I'll have to rummage around for them.

[Maria Caliban]

The idea that Dante's Inferno doesn't have name recognition in the USA because people haven't read the books is questionable. References to it pop up in comics, movies, and episodes of the Simpsons. There are online tests that tell you what level of hell you'll end up in.

 

I've never read any of the trilogy. I picked up the Inferno, read a half-dozen pages, and found it boring. Yet, I could tell you about the only two lovers whose love managed to survive hell, how the greedy are chained to massive diamonds and forced to beat one another with them, how the gluttonous become giant blobs of flesh, or that the phrase 'Abandon all Hope Ye Who Enter Here' is carved into the gate of Hell.

 

People might not know the book, but the geography Dante described has become part of our popular consciousness.

Edited February 20, 2009 by Maria Caliban

[Purkake]

The idea that Dante's Inferno doesn't have name recognition in the USA because people haven't read the books is questionable. References to it pop up in comics, movies, and episodes of the Simpsons. There are online tests that tell you what level of hell you'll end up in.

 

I've never read any of the trilogy. I picked up the Inferno, read a half-dozen pages, and found it boring. Yet, I could tell you about the only two lovers whose love managed to survive hell, how the greedy are chained to massive diamonds and forced to beat one another with them, how the gluttonous become giant blobs of flesh, or that the phrase 'Abandon all Hope Ye Who Enter Here' is carved into the gate of Hell.

 

People might not know the book, but the geography Dante described has become part of our popular consciousness.

 

Yeah, the question is are there people who go: "Hey a Dante's Inferno game, I liked the book so I'll get the game". If it is about the setting then it's even harder to use in marketing. Sure people will recognize stuff from the poem in the game, but how does that help make people buy the game?

 

It could just as well be a Apocalypse: Hellspawn as someone said earlier and with the same marketing it would probably sell as well whether or not it included Dante's stuff like the 9 circles of hell etc.

Edited February 20, 2009 by Purkake

[Slowtrain]

I think far more people would know Dante from Clerks than Dante of the Inferno.

 

More people might know Joe Dante than Dante of the Inferno.

[Purkake]

I think far more people would know Dante from Clerks than Dante of the Inferno.

 

More people might know Joe Dante than Dante of the Inferno.

 

I don't live in the US, but the only places where I have encountered Dante's stuff is high school literature class and in DnD where they lifted the 9 hells concept. When the stuff is mentioned, it's usually not associated with Dante Alighieri in any way.

[Meshugger]

The Divine comedy has been illustrated by Gustave Dore.

 

I actually have that edition. The illustrations are very beautiful to look at you're reading.