Live Dante's Inferno interview

By Robert Purchese Published 26 February, 2009

Top-dog Jonathan Knight was very chatty.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (38) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • robg #1 3 years ago

    Finally, some coverage of this...well, it's not just a game, is it. It's frankly the key turning point of all of our lives.

  • glaeken #2 3 years ago

    I think the coverage is a little OTT given its still a year off release. I would rather not see this level of coverage until the game is a month or so off release.

    This really early coverage can back fire if the game ends up getting delayed.
    Edited by glaeken at 26/02/09 @ 16:20

  • Yossarian #3 3 years ago

    I personally am delighted that Eurogamer are going all out to bring us more information about this top title.

  • kangarootoo #4 3 years ago

    Even I have to admit this Dante coverage is starting to feel like an ice cream van rolling through the vatican. You would think EG had never seen a game announcement before.

    /insert joke here about changing their name to dantegamer.net

  • rauper Verified Managing Director, Eurogamer Network #5 3 years ago

    As per the other thread; we got a great opportunity to go meet the developers before everyone else and put together a week's worth of content from the trip - and thought it'd be a good idea to drip-feed that through the week. Clearly we misjudged the situation :) But hopefully this livetext will be a good opportunity to get some of the more sceptical people's questions answered.

  • robg #6 3 years ago

    Aww, I feel bad now. Carry on guys, you're still the only one I run to. For gaming reviews.

  • haowan #7 3 years ago

    I'd like to know if the decision to clone God of War came before or after they sought to plunder the public domain for IP that could compete with it.

  • haowan #8 3 years ago

    What are the crates in Hell made from? Do they have a special Circle where people manufacture these crates?

  • ChthonicEcho #9 3 years ago

    God damn it, why was I mentioned? I asked only 7 questions!

  • FenderMaster #10 3 years ago

    Yeah, I appreciate the honesty too Rauper

    I guess it's just that most of us trust Eurogamer a hell of a lot more than other gaming sites, and exclusives make us wary of underhandedness and dishonesty. But in fairness you guys have given some bad reviews to games advertising on your site, so I still trust you.

  • ps3owner #11 3 years ago

    we are all paranoid that's the problem ;)

  • kangarootoo #12 3 years ago

    @rauper

    I missed the other thread (I kind of stopped reading them as I'd been waving the pro-EG coverage torch a little too enthusiastically in previous threads), but thanks for responding. I'm sure a lesson has been learned :)

  • Machetazo #13 3 years ago

    "Well, we have a way to go still, the game won't be out for at least a year"

    huh? :o ok.

  • marilena #14 3 years ago

    Lol, I wanted to made a comment and sent a question instead! The comment was that I'm starting to warm up to the guy. The questions haven't been easy at all, but he answered them straight on.

  • Chufty #15 3 years ago

    Sounds like a nice chap. I will watch this with interest.

  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #16 3 years ago

    Lol, I wanted to made a comment and sent a question instead! The comment was that I'm starting to warm up to the guy. The questions haven't been easy at all, but he answered them straight on.

    Oho! I put your question/comment to him, too! He didn't say anything... :)

  • darleysam #17 3 years ago

    Hey, I've enjoyed this week's worth of stuff. I've been really interested in this since I first heard about it, and seeing more about it has been great. Don't forget that negative comments always get shouted louder than the praise.

  • ChthonicEcho #18 3 years ago

    Well, now that he faced my questions, he most likely will hate EG now.

  • Hunam #19 3 years ago

    Did you tell him to make System Shock 3 like I asked.

  • ChthonicEcho #20 3 years ago

    Clearly, you don't recognise a joke when you see one.

  • joe90 #21 3 years ago

    I can say with at least 99% certainty, that this game will NOT live up to its expectations, and in fact will struggle to get 6/10.


  • ChthonicEcho #22 3 years ago

    Really? From the interview, I saw a 7/10 game, at least.

  • kangarootoo #23 3 years ago

    Gah. The post I made last night got lost. Stupid internet.

    I liked this interview. It seemed top me he knew rarther more about the subject matter than a lot of those shouting heresey.

    This bit in particular.

    "The thing about Dante Alighieri is that he also wanted his works to be consumed by a large audience.

    He was extremely unusual in that he wrote in the Italian vernacular of the time. He didn't write in Latin, and he didn't write something that only the monks could understand.

    He's similar to Shakespeare in that way, who would go on to help solidify the English language a few centuries later, but who also expected his works to be consumed in a loud, raucous, bawdy, open-air theatre with people throwing stuff on stage.

    We don't think of these guys this way anymore, because we are forced to study them, and their language seems so inaccessible."

    So if Dante was around today, he might look at some of the dissenters from previous threads and tell them to get over themselves and stop whining? If I believed in reincarnation I might think I was Dante born again (only without the poetry skills).

  • marilena #24 3 years ago

    He was all right.

    I have to reject my classification as a retard. I had legitimate concerns and only the final game will prove to me that they deserve to use the name. I will concede that for now he earned a reprieve from me. I'll wait and see.

    Also, re QTEs: I don't think they are ideal, even in God of War; but at least God of War makes the best of them:
    - They are consistent, so they feel more like mini games than random button press requests.
    - They have spectacular results.
    - They don't start surprisingly. Hear that, Resident Evil 4?!
    - They aren't so hard to become frustrating, but also not stupidly easy.
    - They aren't the main component of the game. There's still significant actual combat gameplay and a lot of other stuff. They just spice certain things up.

    So, I think there is a reason why most people accept (not greet with glee!) them in God of War and despise them in other games.

  • kangarootoo #25 3 years ago

    "I can say with at least 99% certainty, that this game will NOT live up to its expectations, and in fact will struggle to get 6/10."

    Well, except you can't can you. Simply writing something doesn't make it true.

    Now if you had written 8% certainty you might have made a point, but using ridiculous numbers hinders rather than helps you. 99% indeed.

    Ah, but now I think on it, maybe you are right. Or half right. Your expectation of this game are low, so you maybe predict the outcome with 99% certainty... except if your expectations are low it probably WILL live up to those expectations in your eyes. If it failed to live up to them it would in fact be GOOD.

    Which means you think this game will be awesome! Well thanks for sharing your enthusiasm with us.

  • marilena #26 3 years ago

    Also, if Dante was alive today and a game designer, he would make an awesome original game. An accessible one, yeah, but not an accessible rendition of a classic book. Maybe Dante would have invented the Wii :p. but then, possibly not, as he still kind of had a lot of things he wanted to express that a simple game could not convey. Maybe he would do something really wordy and well written like Planescape Torment. I have no clue.

    But the anti-backlash-backlash is still more retarded than the backlash. It's defending the right to bastardize important cultural heritage and doesn't stop for at least a second to accept that people who don't like it have the right to not like it. Millions moaned when George Lucas bastardized his own heritage, but if someone is doing that to a 13th century poet, it's allright.
    Edited by marilena at 27/02/09 @ 09:26

  • kangarootoo #27 3 years ago

    "But the anti-backlash-backlash is still more retarded than the backlash"

    Awesome sentence.

    I think my point really is that it doesn't matter that much either way. This game doesn't put my nose out of joint, neither did George Lucas milking StarWars.

    It all just transcient creative output. If it makes people happy it has achieved the only real purpose it ever had for existing. Its all dust and ashes in the end.

  • joe90 #28 3 years ago

    @kangarootoo

    ok.. i bet you £50 that it not that good, and the hype machine will ruin any other chances of this being good for what it is.

    you going to take me up?

    Its going to be very hard not to make this a poor mans copy of a good game like GOW. Yes, the source materal seems good, but my years of playing games etc, tell me that something will just not make this work as well as hoped.

    Maybe, its the limited real scope, and the 'book' will be played on, and hence a really good game will not actually be made, just a standard hack-n-slash.
    Edited by joe90 at 27/02/09 @ 09:51

  • marilena #29 3 years ago

    /googles 'transcient'

    :p

    (it's 'transient', it seems)

    Well, in the grand scheme of things, nothing matters. But rather then getting into some existential angst, I prefer to express my unimportant opinions about unimportant games on unimportant Internet forums of this unimportant planet :p.

    /considers adding more smileys to avoid "most pretentious post of the year" award

    :p :D :o
    Edited by marilena at 27/02/09 @ 10:31

  • LowEnergyCycle #30 3 years ago

    @Hunam
    "Did you tell him to make System Shock 3 like I asked."

    I was so very very close to making a similar comment a few days ago when I noticed there was an absurd amount of coverage for what looks to me like a totally sub-standard GoW clone - one that I know I'll never buy, simply because it's not my kind of game. This interview hasn't changed my mind at all.

    I can't help but think that Dead Space was their attempt at SS3. And in any case, I'd feel safer if they sold the license to 2K so that Irrational could give it the justice it deserves.

    Totally off-topic. Many apologies.

  • kangarootoo #31 3 years ago

    @joe90

    Oh man, I was just poking fun at your excessive number usage.

    "that it not that good, and the hype machine will ruin any other chances of this being good for what it is"

    These are two different things really. It might very well be a good game, but if people are promised the moon on a stick I totally agree that the resulting (however tasty) toffee apple may not seem that great when it arrives.


    I'll bet you 50 internet pounds, underwritten by the bank of google.


    @marilena
    "(it's 'transient', it seems) "

    Noooooooo!! You see, this is why english is such a ridiculous language. It is packaged together from about 14 other languages, and never consistently obeys the rules of any of them. That is what you get when you go around pillaging and empire building I guess.

    Omniscient, science, prescience. These are all perfectly respectable words. What makes transience so special eh?

    Stoopid english.

  • Corben_Dallas #32 3 years ago

    BURN THE HERITIC!!!!! ]:)

  • kangarootoo #33 3 years ago

    @joe90

    P.s., with such subjective terms at the heart of the bet, how would we know for sure who had won?

  • darleysam #34 3 years ago

    CountFapula, I'm assuming this bit "(especially where he corrected one guy on the game's title- classic! :D)" is aimed at my question. Just wanted to say that personally, I'm fine with it being Dante's Inferno and well on-board with this game. It's the "English majors" on m'forums who are the ones protesting about how it's a travesty. Apparently anyone who hasn't studied English is too dumb to figure out why it's offensive.

  • Cheeky #35 3 years ago

    I just find it incredible how much hate this game is receiving. Is it an EA thing? 'Cos, ya know, that was sooooo 6 years ago or whatever.

  • Genji #36 3 years ago

    Yeah, Dante would love this game. He come out of his grave and happily pwn some skeletons if his arms wouldn't fall off.

    "I just find it incredible how much hate this game is receiving. Is it an EA thing? 'Cos, ya know, that was sooooo 6 years ago or whatever."

    You mean in this thread? The other threads? I haven't seen nearly as much as you seem to have. Sure, there have been some (such as me) who questioned why the game needed to be called "Dante's Inferno" when it's basically nothing like it, but I haven't seen a lot of "hate".

    And it's hardly incredible, either. If you love a book, and it's being adapted into another medium, isn't it natural to worry whether it's going to be at least a little bit faithful to the original?

    Frankly, I find it incredible how much love this game is receiving. It won't be out for at least another year, and we know next to nothing about it - yet there's a whole team of people (not you, as such, but various posters in other threads) ready to jump down the throat of anyone who wonders about one of the only things that we do know about the game - the source material, and the justification for its use.
    Edited by Genji at 28/02/09 @ 04:52

  • Genji #37 3 years ago

    "Genji- how the hell would you know if dante would like the game or not? At least he said he can only speculate- and if dante wanted his works to reach as many people as possible, and if he was open to new ideas and mediums, it stands to reason he would probably be in favour of this, if that was indeed his personality."

    That was a joke. Maybe a winky would have made that clearer.

  • Chupakun #38 3 years ago

    A game lying somewhere in-between Folklore and The Longest Journey is what I would have liked to see from Dante's Inferno.