Pads & Panels

Title: Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic

Format: Blu-ray

Directed by: Victor Cook, Mike Disa, Sang-Jin Kim, Shuko Murase, Jong-Sik Nam, Lee Seung-Gyu

Writer: Brandon Auman

Producers: Starz Media, Anchor Bay, Electronic Arts

Film Rating:

Blu-ray Rating:

Review by: Bill Jones

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The Film

Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic is billed as the feature-length animated counterpart to Electronic Arts’ video game Dante’s Inferno. As such, it is based more on the plot of the game, rather than the epic poem by Dante Alighieri. Both follow Dante through the nine circles of hell, with assistance from the poet Virgil. But the Dante’s Inferno video game adds to that the story of Beatrice, the wife of Dante, who is taken by Lucifer after Dante mindlessly followed the church on a quest full of sin. He also encounters his own family in the Inferno. In the Divine Comedy, Virgil guided Dante through Hell and Purgatory, and Beatrice came into play as a guide in Heaven. (more…)

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Title: Dante’s Inferno

Platform: 360 (PS3, PSP)

ESRB: M

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Developer: Visceral Games

Rating:

Review by: Bill Jones

Dante’s Inferno is a third-person action-adventure game that takes the epic poem to disturbing new realms, as the title character battles his way through the nine circles of hell to save the soul of his lover. While many games have copied various mechanics of the successful God of War franchise, Dante’s Inferno clones them all, essentially becoming God of War with Christian source material and different skins.

The button-mapping and prompt-based real-time scenarios are all there, and Dante’s Inferno mimicks them incredibly well, which is as much of a compliment as it is an insult, as there couldn’t be better source material to mimic in the genre. From front to back, Dante’s Inferno is essentially the poor man’s God of War. (more…)

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So what an interesting, top-loaded week for video game news it was, eh? First, I couldn’t use my PlayStation 3 on Monday because, well, apparently the PlayStation thought it was Feb. 29, even though 2010 is not a leap year. Or something like that. Basically, Sony explained that there was some sort of clock bug, in which the console and the network weren’t synced properly, which could have caused data and Trophy loss to anyone who used the console until it was fixed, which happened, as Sony promised, within 24 hours. I risked running mine offline to watch a Blu-ray, and don’t think I experienced any problems. But it’s a good thing I haven’t picked up Heavy Rain yet, or I might have been really pissed.

The other big news came at the end of the day Monday, and unraveled over the rest of the week. It started with a report from G4TV that security had stormed the offices of Infinity Ward, and Jason West and Vince Zampella, two of the studio’s heads, had not been seen since a meeting with Activision execs earlier in the day. Later, readers on sites like Kotaku brought to light a Facebook post by West stating he was no longer employed. Later, LinkedIn updates from both West and Zampella seemed to support this, and it was finally confirmed that Activision fired both men after an investigation into “insubordination” and “breach of contract.” (more…)

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We love games, and we love writing about them here at Pads & Panels. We love it so much that no matter how much we get up on the site here, it’s never enough to quench the thirst of gaming journalism for some. That’s why our latest segment of Pads Around the Internet sees even more great articles published at other sites by our writers. Here’s the best of what’s related to Pads & Panels’ interests.

Chris Park

Dante’s Inferno Review

Valhalla Knights 2: Battle Stance Review

Shiren The Wanderer Review

Dark Void Review (more…)

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Ponderings is a new idea we’re testing out for the site, so please feel free to give us your feedback. Consider it a behind-the-scenes look, or a more direct line to the personalities of our writers. The purpose of ponderings is to provide an avenue for our writers to casually address some of the games and comics they’re playing, deliver opinions on recent industry news, and maybe even get a little off-topic here and there. We’ll be taking turns writing them, and it’s a chance for the readers to get to know the staff a little better, and maybe even strike up some conversation. We hope you’ll enjoy it and join in the discussion.

The last few weeks have been interesting to say the least. John, our former deputy editor, is no longer with the site. Don’t ask me why. I’m not sure. At the same time, we’ve got a new guy named Jason King, who I think really knows his stuff when it comes to comics and games, so I’m excited about that. I think he’ll also be great for helping to bring back our board game presence, which is the thing I still want to see our site do more and more of, because we’re all into gaming, be it video or otherwise, and I want to see that other side get bigger. (more…)

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And the fun goes on out in Los Angeles with the 2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo. We’ve wrapped up what will probably be the final E3 news post, with information on Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, Telltale and more. If anything else comes to light in the next day or so, look to the Twitter posts for quick news blurbs. John and Bill will also be weighing in tomorrow with some commentary on this year’s announcements.

Telltale Games

Telltale announced with LucasArts that it will be making making a new series of Monkey Island games set to launch July 7 on PC. It is also slated to come to WiiWare. The publisher is already offering a pre-order special. Those pre-ordering are eligible to received a Collector’s DVD at the end of the series with a limited-edition cover painted by Steve Purcell, as well as a free Telltale game upon checkout and access to the “Private Pirates Club.” (more…)

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