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Dante’s Inferno and the Lit-Based Game

The announcements at Spike’s Videogame Awards weren’t exactly shockers. Gears of War 2 downloadable content? That’s like telling someone they’re going to get a pickle with their burger. Then again, a game based on Dante’s Inferno developed by EA Redwood (Dead Space) is a little out of leftfield. Games based on literature are not common. Better examples, like Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy text adventure, are even rarer. (It’s actually debatable whether or not Hitchhiker’s should even count as an adaptation considering it was more of cross-medium narrative Adams retold for a decade in the first place.) More often than not, when a work of literature crosses into games, it either becomes something else entirely like the Call of Cthulu games or it’s a tragic mess like Universal Interactive’s Fellowship of the Ring. The linearity of fiction – and epic poetry for that matter – does not suit even the most linear game types. Yes, Signor Alighieri’s poetry is outwardly suited for game adaptation. The man’s vision of Hell is broken into levels, each one filled with, as Cole pointed out, plenty of enemy types. But sociopolitical commentary isn’t something you can convey through bludgeoning demons with blunt crucifixes.

I’m a strong believer, as I’ve mentioned here on 61FPS before, that most everything doesn’t need to be turned into something else.

Unknowable Horrors and Spiraling Madness: H.P. Lovecraft and Videogames

My fingers tremble as I type this, rendered useless from fear of seeing the words before me. Were there names for the ancient, snaking madness I have come to know from plumbing too far into the recesses of digital entertainment’s forgotten depths, it would be too much for my mind to give them form here. I can still hear their torrid song ringing in my ears when I wake in the middle of the night, alarmed by the sound of my own screams. I pray that you receive this in time. Do not blow on the cartridge, lest you unleash these torpid, starborn evils, and they consume this world slowly and deliberately!

*ahem*

Right. When we stare down the past three decades of gaming, it is repulsive to see just how many motifs are repeated again and again. Yeah, you see some novel premises here and there. But psychic summer camps plagued by traumatized mad scientists are far less common than Tolkien/Albionic fantasy (elves, swords, goblins, etc,) militaristic science fiction (let’s be honest and just call them Aliens games,) supernatural horror (vampires, spooky little girls,) Disney-esque anthropomorphic romps (Sonic and, yes, even Mario,) or even good ol’ fashioned zombie apocalypse. More interesting than the extremes of cliché and originality, however, are those creative modes that only certain game developers are irregularly drawn to.

Infinite Lives’ latest feature, looking at the truly obscure Virtual Boy horror-FPS Insmouse no Yakata (Innsmouth Manson,) spotlighted the curious, dare I say sinister, influence H.P. Lovecraft has had on gaming. The infamous “weird fiction” writer’s fingerprints are on a number of games made since the early ‘80s, some explicit and others less so. Most popular is Lovecraft’s Cthulu mythos, popping up in Dave Lebing and Infocom’s beloved The Lurking Horror and in two separate series named Call of Cthulu, the first being Infogrames’ early-‘90s PC adventures. The second series, first-person shooters starting with Dark Corners of the Earth, came from the now-defunct Headfirst Productions. (Dark Corners of the Earth had two proposed sequels, Destiny’s End and Beyond the Mountains of Madness. Both died along with Headfirst in 2006.) But others ape Lovecraft’s style while avoiding direct allusion, none more famously than Silicon Knights’ Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem. Say what you will about Silicon Knights’ other games, but Eternal Darkness is truly an accomplishment: a modern Lovecraft story. Its arching narrative, spanning millennia and focusing on a specific lineage’s relation to an ancient, evil book penned by even more ancient, evil gods mimics Lovecraft’s idiosyncratic style quite well, but more impressive is the game’s take on Lovecraft’s constant theme of descent-into-madness.

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.