I think this says all that needs to be said about the subject;
[url=]http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/12/15/[/url]

This will not be the first remake of Dantes Inferno. It will not be the last. I wonder if anyone had similiar feelings the first time this book was made into a movie?
Who gets to decide which remakes are artistically worthy of the originals and which are not? How does anything cheapen the original? Who will no longer consider The Divine Comedy a classic after this game comes out?

No no, the two things were unrelated. I didn't mean that that version was literary rape, quite the contrary. It's an homage, and from what I can tell without ever having read the original, quite a good one.

I personally never thought that Inferno was all that great, although I'll admit I never read either Purgatorio or Paradiso, so perhaps it comes across better when put in the context of the rest of the Divine Comedy. The work's cultural and literary impact certainly can't be denied, but I've just never considered the work on its own to be all that remarkable (with parts of it downright juvenile).
Regardless of one's opinion on the work itself, though, I'm of the opinion that pretty much all literature and culture is fair game for derivative works, regardless of their type and quality. It doesn't matter what bad movies or games are based off a classic work, the work itself is not impacted at all, and no one is even required to take notice of the new work. So what's the issue?

Why get in a knot about it? Worst case scenario: the game sucks hard. How does that impact the works of Dante? It doesn't. Best case scenario: it gets some players interested enough in the original work to actually take a look at it and read it.

My (Italian) standpoint on the matter: with this disgusting shit, Electronic Arts confirms to be, if the Spore, PR, DRM and John "Fack ye all videogamers piraters!" utter failure wouldn't be enough, one of the worst driving force of modern videogaming.
Dante Alighieri's works, and "La Divina Commedia" in particular, is studied in the schools here as the foundation of the Italian language, to see it as a background for the shitware I've seen in the trailer of this "game" can only be considered (by an Italian) as a pathetic attempt to look at new ideas for a company that lost them years ago.

I flat out do not understand this whole game even existing. Who the Hell is the target audience...the fifteen year old kids who've been clamoring for great literary works to be translated in to 'lone space marine'-style run and gun action titles, or the readers of such works, who simply cannot wait a second longer to blast 'em some demons???

Movies have been taking literary works and making ridiculous stuff with them, why should videogames be any different? I don't see it as ruining the original since they are clearly different. And then if you say that it will give people a wrong opinion of what The Divine Comedy is, if they have never heard of it before they have other issues with their education that they should be worrying about.

Ao paesan! ;)
i completely agree, i've watched the trailer, and i honestly cannot believe, who had the insane idea to turn Dante's work in a mindless action game, i mean why not Don Quixote as RTS or Faust as horror survival? if we've reached the point were companies start raping the literary treasure of a country (in this case Italy), well it ain't pretty at all.

As others have mentioned, we reached that point a long time ago. This is not a new development. It is simply the continuation of a trend that's been going on a loooong time.

Shadow of Destiny had various Faust-based working titles and includes quite a few elements from Faust. So yes, we're past that (and I loved the game and I love Goethe's Faust)

There has been at least one Don Quixote videogame, it was an adventure and free online, while I'm pretty sure there have been others as well. And I also think that there has been a Faust adventure game done previously as well?

The Faust theme has been used in countless books, movies and games. It's a popular setup for interesting stories.

I wouldn't completely dismiss the game, especially since we haven't seen a lick of gameplay footage. Who knows? It could be an absolutely amazing game. After all, it's the Dead Space team we're talking about! Dead Space took a genre that has been around for a while (alien space horror) and still managed to create a fun experience that renewed my interest in it! Frankly, I couldn't see a team more suited for the job. Good luck to them, and to Dead Space 2.