Dante: “Where are the others? Why aren’t the other damned down here with me?”
Lucifer: “This isn’t their Hell, Dante. It’s yours.”
- from Dante’s Inferno

Dante’s Inferno is a half-hearted action game that gets caught up in its own spectacle. The offensive content of this video game is enough to repulse the casual observer, but those that actually play it will find its sins go far deeper: it is a video game that makes its own existence unnecessary with a combat system wrought by designers who have learned nothing about action games in the last five years. The result is an artifact that only serves as another reason why video game enthusiasts continue to bleat loudly and thump their chest while struggling to justify the cultural legitimacy of video games. Dante’s Inferno is a game that sought and received a lot of attention, but for all the wrong reasons. Electronic Arts’ campaign to promote the game was an embarrassing display, but fascinating in how it adapted to the response of the video game community. And yet the worst criticism levelled at the actual game upon its release was that it was a poor imitation of God of War, while glossing over the general offensiveness of the content – both visual and ludic – in what can only be labelled as acts of sloth. Dante’s Inferno is a mark upon the rich history of video games that reveals more failures than successes, but still manages to recognize the most noble of attempts. However, Dante’s Inferno has no hope of being a work as accessible or impactful as the ones that are the subject of so many retrospectives. Dante’s Inferno will be remembered, but not for the reasons Visceral Entertainment had hoped.

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Darksiders is a wave of nostalgia. It is playing A Link to the Past (1991) on a Super Nintendo console borrowed from a friend away for summer vacation. It is the limited edition comic book with holofoil cover that never existed; in the game are the characters that do battle on these imaginary pages. Darksiders is what happens when a comic book artist has something to say about a video game’s design. The art direction of Darksiders provides a solid foundation for this original setting, where a generous layer of grunge and oversized pauldrons was applied to a formula so revered by video game culture it has become all but untouchable. This aesthetic becomes one of the strongest points of Darksiders, as it is so convincing that the flagrant plagiarism happening underneath can be overlooked. This is not mere homage; the team at Vigil Games has created a video game. The intent of the game’s design is clear from the beginning, and like the adventure it contains, does not deviate from this prescribed pathway. Darksiders has scope and it has goals, but it does not over-reach. The mechanics are inviting and do not ask for anything but the player’s attention. Darksiders demands to be played.

Darksiders has been criticized mainly for its lack of originality; it seems pointing out an obvious trait of video games in general is cause enough for dismissal. The negative commentary claims everything Darksiders has to offer has been done previously – and better – elsewhere. The most popular example being the one-button finishing moves and gratuitous vivisections of the God of War series. However, when playing Darksiders there should really be only one series of video games that comes to mind: The Legend of Zelda. And this should come as no surprise, as it was always the intent of Darksiders Creative Director and comic book artist Joe Madureira^[1]. Typical for the reception of such an endeavor, Darksiders was the victim of offhanded associations from people who didn’t play the game, or worse – they weren’t paying attention while they played it^[2].

The individuals that purport to dictate taste through these indolent opinions are propagating a disease within video game culture, one that results in some offensive double-speak regarding the advancement and future of the industry. They want innovation, but they don’t want anything too different. They complain about formulas and sequels, yet express deep reverence for a character or game design as old as video games. No one can do platforming like Mario, or solve puzzles like Link in The Legend of Zelda. These memories are untouchable, and the games that inspired them incorruptible^[3]. By adopting this philosophy, the people who play these games with veneration overflowing in their hearts are limiting themselves to the regurgitations of the same formula, made by the same people, to the hollow ringing of cash registers. And in spite of it all, there is never a shortage of criticism when the big studios keep producing these duplicates. This feedback loop is the unfortunate ecosystem of the video game industry.

For the first half of Darksiders, the plagiarism is so obvious that it becomes a running gag as to see which tool will be received in each dungeon. One dungeon had hard to reach switches, which were obvious call signs for a boomerang. Only in Darksiders it’s called a “Crossblade.” The hook shot? It’s been suitably grittied up as the “Abyssal Chain.” Despite this overt imitation, these items were still fashioned to reflect the world of Darksiders. It also calls into question the Zelda series itself: aren’t the recent installments of the series essentially a facsimile of every Zelda game ever made? What Darksiders has going for it is that it isn’t a Zelda game. The genre bullshit can be cast aside because there is no genre – Darksiders is copying a game that has been in a genre of its own since its creation. Darksiders works because it is similarly consistent in its approach. It applies a formula that is obvious from the start and sticks with it for the entirety of the game. As a result there are no surprises, and the disappointments are only from attempting to assign attributes to the game it was never meant to have.

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Including the New York Public Library as a playable mission in the demo^[1] should have been a dead giveaway. As one of the signature setpieces in the film Ghostbusters, allowing players to take part in a second trip to this locale with familiar faces in tow, is essentially what Ghostbusters: The Video Game entails. It collects a series of touchstones for players to reminisce about, while attempting to tell a new story. Except the story reclaims entire sections of the film and its sequel, patching together plot points, locations and famous adversaries in what amounts to playing inside a world of Ghostbusters: Greatest Hits. You are constantly harangued by Walter Peck and the new Paranormal Contract Oversight Committee. You have to fight the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man (again). You get to destroy the Sedgewick Hotel (again). About the only thing interesting is the encounter with Ivo Shandor, the Architect of Dana Barrett’s apartment building from the first film, who remained a legend that was never really explored. In Ghostbusters: The Video Game, you discover how obsessed with the Gozerian cult he really was, as the Ghosbusters slowly uncover a plot designed by Shandor years ago, to bring about the coming of The Destroyer.

This brief incursion into Ghostbusters lore comes too late in the game, and it’s frustratingly obvious that the previous missions were filler to relive everyone’s favorite moments from the films. But as you play the game, its intentions are clear: this is not meant to be a video game as much as it is intended to be those Greatest Hits, as it was not designed for an audience who plays video games. Rather, it was created to placate fans of the movies that also happen to play video games.

As a result, both Terminal Reality and Atari are banking on this brand recognition to give the game a passing grade. Any critic or reviewer that has been paying attention over the last eight years would see this game for what it is: old, outdated, unnecessary. So why the relatively high scores^[2], respectable sales performance^[3] and praise as wistful recollections? The answer is simple: Nostalgia is a dangerous weapon used to great effect in the video game industry. It will beat people senseless – especially in a hobby that helped many people through their childhoods.

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With Borderlands, a game described as a “role-playing shooter”, developers Gearbox hope to capture the audience that spends many sleepless nights wandering through forgotten strongholds while pillaging corpses and undefended treasure chests. They want to make the grind of the modern Fantasy role-playing game appealing to those repulsed by the thought of more swords and sorcery and Siberian tiger mounts. Gearbox is going post-apocalyptic wasteland on this formula. They’re going to make this grind cool.

Borderlands is influenced by games that are second jobs thinly veiled as “entertainment.” There are enough trappings in most that the player does not immediately recognize it until they are separated from the system. Maybe the rewards are frequent enough; the increase in character abilities more steady and immediately gratifying. But Gearbox fails to dress up Borderlands to hide from the player the laborious byproduct of the genre. As a result, Borderlands merely resembles a mechanical facsimile of its influences.

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Prototype is excess. It is what happens when game designers grow up with American comic books post-comics code and the type of Japanese animation that is more interested in overblown displays of power than telling a story. It is a game with rules that are designed to be broken at every turn. The player is rewarded for brazen and barbaric tactics. In Prototype, there are too many abilities and limitless power, yet no loyalty to an ideal. Like X-Men’s Dark Phoenix, Alex Mercer is granted godlike status with no one to stand in his way. The game revels in bloodshed and in selfish pursuits that amount to little more than breadcrumbs on the trail of some government conspiracy. Prototype is advertised as a “superhero” video game. But Alex Mercer is no hero. He isn’t even an anti-hero. He is a plague on humanity. And at the end of it all, after everything he has wreaked upon the city of New York, this descriptor proves to be the most accurate.

After a few hours of play, Prototype will come across as a patchwork of unfinished concepts. On the one hand, it offers up such a varied selection of powers and skills that it will suit any playing style, and in theory adds levels of complexity to completing the tasks that are presented to the player. Yet on the other, Prototype provides two completely overpowered vehicles that will get any job done a lot faster, without the strategic use of Alex’s talents. This is a game that needs rules put in place. While I wanted to figure out other ways to approach Prototype’s challenges, the winning strategy was to cause enough havoc to summon a strike team, and then steal their vehicles. Aside from some fairly engaging boss battles where vehicles were not options, the challenge in Prototype is the player’s own restraint.

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