I do get interested if they offer something that fits into the little niches I crave. Like if it has zombies or if it's something creepy and grot. I might watch one with a cool robot/ mech in it...but even then I'll have to look it up first :P
But when I heard that Dante's Inferno was getting the Anime treatment... I was curious. The whole movie/ Anime tie in thing has been happening for a while now. The earliest one I can remember was the Animatrix that came out back when the whole Matrix thing was crazy. It served as a means to broaden the Matrix world, delivering some back story where needed.
Like Dead Space: Down Fall accompanied Dead Space the game, EA/ Visceral Games latest offering, Dante's Inferno, is coming with it's own little animated feature coming along.
But unlike Dead Space: Down Fall that was sort of a prequel to the game, Dante's Inferno: The Animated Epic maybe be more of a spoiler for any one who hasn't played the game.
Providing not only a further back ground to the game, the anime follows Dante as he makes a quick 88min trip to the 9th circle of hell. Though I'm not sure to what extent the story of the film mirrors the game... for me it gave away a few details that I wished I 'd have picked up from playing the game. On the other hand... I've seen some game content that wasn't shown or mentioned in the film. So lets see how it goes.
It all looks good though....
The story is divided into several sections, each named after a different portion of Dante's hell. And we see this vision through the eyes of several animation teams and directors, each of whom have a very distinct style in terms of art and such.
Though chracter wise, our hero and his buddies stay the same director to director, the visual take each team had is very intriguing. The film won't be braking any new grounds in animation, but it does have it's moments of awe. From an editors stand point I thought the whole thing was put together very nicely. Though I wished they a lot more wide scenery shots, that established the grand scale of what Dante was getting him self into.
It seems that in the game, the environment it self is almost a character on its own, and this I thought was lacking a bit in the film.
I had a bit of an issue with what seemed like a rush pacing of the film too, but after a while I just went with it.
I'm home> you're dead> o you've taken her>I'll save you>shit there's a door>I can't get in> I'm in> there's a boat> I'm on> shizz it's Satan!!
But I really did enjoy this film. Especially since I'm on this massive Dante's Inferno trip right now. For any one caught up with shizz about the game, this is a must watch. But I would advise you to play through the game first if you don't want your story experience spoiled.
Even if you're not having sleepless nights waiting for the game, this is definitely something to check out if your into anything animated. The styles the directors bring to Dante, serves well to bring out his different aspects. With my fave look being the art style for Limbo, Lust and City of Dis.
Heck I love em all...
And though the story may not be as grand as the original poem...it still feels epic.
This is going to be a welcome addition to my DVD collection, and after watching it I really can't wait to tear into the game.
The film comes with six different covers, show casing the 6 different animated styles... I think I'll go with either the first or last one here.
Man it's been a while since I got a new game for ye ol faithful 360. The last one was Batman Arkham Asylum.
And as much as I love Dead Space... If I play through that thing one more time Ima have to plasma cut my eyes out. Thank god that the lovely people over at Visceral Games have dragged through their creative depths to being me (yes...ME) another awesome game for me to sink my devil slaying scythe into.
Pre-ordered and waiting.
It takes a fair amount of faith to pre-order a game.
With the rate of hit and misses that fill our shelves every year... if it doesn't score a 90% or more, I normally don't even bother. But then aside from your conventional game ratings and such... some times other factors play a great part on the games I buy.
The moment I saw the first screens of Dead Space... I knew it was something I wanted to play. And buying Batman Arkham Asylum was a no brainer for me, seeing as how I'm like one of the biggest Batman fans EVER!!. So when I saw the first trailer for Dante's Inferno...
...I knew.
Set in the grim recesses of hell, everything from the look and premise of the game makes my greedy little fingers itchy to play.
Loosely based on the first part of the Divine Comedy, Dante's Inferno the game follows our hero Dante (a duh) as he makes his way through the 9 circles of Hell in search of the love of his life. Whose soul is stolen away by none other than the original gangster him self... Lucifer.
Armed with Deaths scythe, a crucifix... and a move list of kick ass um... moves, Dante is gonna be cutting his way through the armies of Hell come next month. And I can't wait for my Death Edition of the game to arrive.
Isac you sexy devil slayer.
Cause not only does the Death Ed (savy) come with a hell lot of goodies... it also comes with playable model of Isac Clarke, the protagonist from Dead Space!
Now I'm not gonna go into any sort of bullshit review or preview of the game, as you'll find a shizz load of em online if you Google it. But I will mention that one stupid slack the game has been getting, is some people saying that the developers of the game have taken a great piece of literature and F'ed it up.
With the amount of crap that makes it's way into games these days, I'm actually happy that Visceral turned to epic literature as source materiel for its latest offer. After following news about the game for so long, I actually went down to my local book store to look for a copy of the poem, cause I was really inspired to check it out. Also cause the PDF was hurting my eyes.
I drew the bit below just as I began reading it...
As mentioned earlier, Inferno is the first part of a trilogy of sorts called the Divine Comedy, which was written by one Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321. It chronicles the journey of lost soul who is guided through hell by the shade of the Roman poet Virgil. For the things this bit of literature is known for, the biggest thing it did was to give us the concept of Hell and brimstone that we have today.
Dante's 9 circles of Hell and the depictions of the creatures that dwell in it, inspired a vision of Hell that lives to this day, and it is definitely worth a read if you have the time. It's not a blood and guts horror fest, but rather a surreal, slightly humorous and sometimes frightening take on a subject some of us have become too comfortable with.
After reading it, I kinda got reminded that Hell isn't really a cool place to be. A lot of the art and music that I follow has Hell dressed up as the anti-hero and not the anti-Christ it was meant to be.
But then here comes Dante's Inferno...
We have so many games where you have the hero fighting a 'Hell on Earth' or demons from the depth... but Visceral was all like:
"F**k this... our guy is gonna go straight into hell and we're gonna remind our players that Hell...is Hell"
So as I was going through my monthly intake of comic book titles, I came across an interesting number by DC/Wildstorm.
As we all know the recent Sherlock Holmes film that's gracing our theaters at the moment will no doubt be stirring all kinds of Holmes related merchandise. I'm sure the popularity of the books will pick up too as new 'fans' try to get their hands on more Sherlock Holmes. Expecting Robert Downey Jr and getting Basil Rathbone instead.
Now over the years we've seen the world's second greatest detective go up against all kinds of things. Many writers have taken Holmes out of his 'element' and placed him in various stories that range from pure delight to down right WTF.
So it should have come as no surprise when I came across this:
The Victorian Undead
When I was searching for pics to put up for the post, I mistakenly searched for Victorian DEAD instead of Victorian UNdead. The result of which was spooky shizz like this.
