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#kotakutalkradio Dante's Inferno senior producer Hans ten Cate joined our hosts, Brian Crecente and Stephen Totilo, in today's episode of Kotaku Talk Radio to discuss everything you need to know about descending into the darkest depths of hell. More »

#podcastpodcast Kotaku Talk Radio starts now with special guest Hans ten Cate, senior producer of Dante's Inferno. Call in! Ask questions! Listen Up! More »

#podcast It's hump day, it's also St. Patrick's Day, but much more importantly, it's Kotaku Talk Radio day. Today we've got Hans ten Cate, senior producer, for Dante's Inferno. More »

#clips Few trailers in recent memory have polarised gamers as much as EA's Dante's Inferno clip for the Super Bowl. Would you have liked it more if, say, Dante was not Dante, but Mario? More »

#preview In April, you can re-shape hell, or fly through it as a lady. And you can play through it with a friend, as co-op comes to this year's biggest God of War competitor. More »

If there's one thing Dante's Inferno lacked, it was originality. Lacking the "holy sh-" impact of God of War III, Visceral Games' hack-n-slash felt incredibly pedestrian. That changes with "The Trials of St. Lucia," an upcoming premium DLC pack that introduces the game's first bit of originality.

The DLC add-on is made up of three new features: online co-op, user generated trials, and St. Lucia, a new playable character inspired by Christianity's Saint Lucy. Like Dante, Visceral's reimagining of her character is rather far-off from biblical canon. The playable martyr looks like an angel, and dons a move set that's completely unique from Dante's. (The differences between the two characters are comparable to those between Dante and Nero from Devil May Cry 4.)

The basics of her offensive powers are familiar: light and heavy attacks, and grabs. However, St. Lucia also has the ability to fly. Flight enables a brand new move set for players. I was able to quickly fly to the other side of a comabt arena, sweep multiple enemies, and then slam one of the larger enemies with a quick combo. The new flight dynamic is a lot of fun and, because St. Lucia's controls are so similar to those of Dante, it's easy to pick up and play.

#gdc Ever wonder what video game composers have to work with when creating those big sounds for big games? More »

#screengrab During their Scoring Hell talk at the Game Developers Conference, the folks behind the sounds and music of Dante's Inferno boiled down their game to its essence: Donkey Kong upside down. More »

#gdc As I mentioned in my review of Dante's Hell, I loved the scoring and sound of Visceral's take on hell. More »

Wayne Barlow's 'Cerberus' ... gross
Held in conjunction with the Into the Pixel and Video Game Art Show exhibitions, San Francisco's Hotel des Arts is dedicating its entire fourth floor to "The Making of Dante's Inferno" through April 2010. We've got a sneak peek at the art on display in the gallery below, but if you want to see the real deal we'd suggest you make your way to the opening night reception being held at the Hotel des Arts on Thursday night, from 6pm to 10pm, smack dab in the middle of GDC week.

#gdc Video game art folks will be taking over San Francisco's Hotel Des Arts, on Thursday, packing the five-floor boutique hotel with art from Dante's Inferno and inspired by other video games. More »

Wayne Barlow's 'Cerberus' ... gross
Held in conjunction with the Into the Pixel and Video Game Art Show exhibitions, San Francisco's Hotel des Arts is dedicating its entire fourth floor to "The Making of Dante's Inferno" through April 2010. We've got a sneak peek at the art on display in the gallery below, but if you want to see the real deal we'd suggest you make your way to the opening night reception being held at the Hotel des Arts on Thursday night, from 6pm to 10pm, smack dab in the middle of GDC week.

#screens This new batch of screenshots, concept art, and enemy renders for Castlevania: Lords of Shadow are lovely and all, but I can't help but think the game could use a tie-in with a revered work of religious fiction. More »

AdFreak's chronicle of the Dante's Inferno guerrilla marketing campaign is one hell of a good read. The piece covers ad agency Wieden + Kennedy's almost year-long viral and guerrilla campaign for the game, which allegedly cost $200,000 and "yielded 47 million impressions of coverage." The ad agency had a $20,000-a-month budget according to EA, but AdFreak tells Joystiq that W + K likely spent more (of its own money) in the pursuit of industry awards.

Although the final months of the campaign didn't really pop up on our radar, loyal readers will likely recall a few of the earlier ones: the misguided fake E3 protest, the apology-inducing "Sin to Win" contest and Mass: We Pray. Interestingly, the $200 check we at Joystiq decided to donate apparently caused the ad agency to come up with a third resolution to its "Greed" stunt. It's always fun when we're the ones to keep marketing on its toes. Whether it's bound for heaven or damnation, the Dante's Inferno campaign is certainly an interesting case study in modern marketing.

Mega64's latest lampooning is a bit more historical than the troupe's other videos. Posted just after the jump is a video reenaction of the moment of Dante's Inferno's inception. We'd thought that a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Classic Literature major had planted the idea-seed in an EA executive's mind -- apparently, said gardening was actually performed by Ba'al Zebûb himself.

Check out the video after the jump -- though, if you're employed at a place which frowns upon the use of the word "boners," you can consider said video NSFW.

Dante's trek through the levels of Hell have attracted some attention.

*SPOILER* The beautiful wife of Dante's suffers in the Inferno for the sins he committed in life.

The home of Lucifer, Treachery, is quite literally Hell frozen over.

The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 clash in hellfire as Dante's Inferno strives to perform on both consoles.

Is Dante's adventure a pleasure cruise through Hell, or is it cursed to endless suffering?

Dante decides the ultimate fate of his enemies in hell, but will he decide to punish them or absolve them of sin?

The monsters of hell taste the wrath of Dante's revenge.

Dante tackles the mythological three-headed beast Cerberus on his quest for redemption and revenge.

One of 2010's most anticipated videogames launches with downloadable content that will keep players burning in the nine circles of hell.

Dante's Inferno isn't the best damn game out there, but it's not a hellish experience either. The game, which re-imagines ... is loosely based upon ... has some ephemeral connection to the literature, still delivers entertainment, according to reviews. Perhaps the sequel will be a more heavenly experience?

• Game Daily (80/100): "Rounding out this impressive package are a series of cut scenes (both 2-D animation and 3-D computer generated movies) ... Obviously, critics will obsessively compare Dante's Inferno to other games, or complain about the quick time events, but don't let those nitpicky issues prevent you from experiencing this imaginative and fun adventure. It's one Hell of a good time."
• IGN (75/100): "Dante's Inferno takes a bold, visually impressive take on a literary classic and adds in an intriguing action focus to create a different kind of action title. Unfortunately, some derivative combat sequences and a shallow combo system prevent the title from becoming a truly great experience."
• Eurogamer (60/100): "But you can't ignore the fact this is a God of War clone at its core, and many of the ideas here feel tired, familiar and dated. Nor can you ignore the fact that God of War III is nearly here. If it's a toss-up between that game and this one, as it probably will be for PS3 fans, you're best off waiting to see how Kratos' next adventure turns out."
• 1UP (C+): "The game is filled with lots of good and well-executed ideas, but they all seem to exist independently of one another. It's a popcorn movie that clearly took a good deal of talent to pull together, but comes up short of creating the grand adventure that it seems to be trying for."

One of 2010's most anticipated videogames launches with downloadable content that will keep players burning in the nine circles of hell.

Dante descends through nine stories of hell in order to save his love.

It seems the marketing team behind Dante's Inferno hasn't burnt out yet, with several ASCII art campaigns popping up in the source code for several popular websites. All direct to the same Dante's Inferno site. The first image (above) appeared in digg's code, as noted by brentcsutoras, and other sites like IGN, GameSpot and Kotaku also had their source code altered to display Dante-relatedl images. It's one of the cuter, somewhat classier approaches to this title's marketing, and that makes it oddly noteworthy. If you're wondering why there's nothing in our source code (we're checking now just to make sure) ... we don't let anyone touch that. We consider it to be at least third base and you really have to get to know Joystiq before it's prepared to take the relationship to that level.

EA explains why you should buy this game over God Of War III and Bayonetta.

EA explains why you should buy this game over God Of War III and Bayonetta.