Back to the Inferno

When it comes to Dante’s Inferno, EA developer Visceral Games can’t seem to catch a break. First its ridiculous, blood-soaked adaptation of Alighieri’s epic poem is released to fair-to-middlin’ reviews, only to be completely overshadowed a month later (and rightly so) by the colossus that was Sony’s God of War III.

Yet Visceral kept right on putting out downloadable content for Inferno—giving Dante silly new costumes, adding additional levels and other mostly forgettable things that made gamers wonder (if they even cared) why they were even being forced to pay for this stuff instead of just, say, unlocking it by beating the game.

Now it’s come to a head, so to speak, with EA’s biggest batch of DLC yet—The Trials of St. Lucia. Visceral makes sure we’re aware of who St. Lucia is before we get to play this new content that’s more or less starring her—she became the patron saint of the blind after refusing to marry a pagan suitor, which resulted in her untimely death and the eventual removal of her eyes.

She also had a bit part in the Inferno. It doesn’t really matter, though, because The Trials of St. Lucia isn’t story-based. It’s just a combat arena that throws wave after wave of enemies to you. To the developer’s credit, Lucia herself does have some different moves (like the ability to fly) and plays slightly differently than Dante.

There are 12 different levels where the bloodletting of enemies can take place. It adds two-player functionality (within the mode) so you and a friend can team up as Dante and Lucia and kick ass for the righteous, or something. The modes vary, so sometimes you may have to kill enemies quickly or while your health is being depleted.

EA even included some challenges from the team at Visceral themselves, although these can’t be played single-player. But the main draw of the Trials is that you can create your own with an included level editor. All these features may sound like a good deal for $10, but, well, it’s easy for things to sound good on paper.

The thing is, the level editor is really, really basic. There are a lot of options to choose from in terms of difficulty, setting, characters to play as (single or two-player), numbers of enemy waves and parameters to beat each wave, but when you actually get down to creating the level, you’ll find your options are pretty limited.

There’s a range of enemies to choose from, as well as traps and restorative items to place, but you’ve got a strict budget of points to spend—the developers didn’t want you to put so much stuff in that it crashes the game—and the cheapest enemy cost isn’t really that cheap. You can throw up to five in a single designated space, but if you do so, don’t expect to have the budget for much more than a couple of straggler enemies on the side.

It would be one thing if you could program sub-waves in a single set (to spawn after defeating some of the initial ones), giving the illusion that there are more enemies attacking you at once, but that’s not the case. As it stands, even the most potentially interesting challenges are severely limited by enemy numbers, and when you’re dealing exclusively with combat, that’s a major letdown.

Unless you’re a diehard fan of the game and want to nerd out by making your own combat challenges (which you can share online) I would suggest saving your $10. At least, though, you can play through challenges that other people have made.

But honestly, Visceral should just stick to Dead Space. They’re much better at it.