Electronic Arts, in the wisdom of its executives, has chosen to fund the conversion of Dante's Inferno, an epic allegorical poem concerning the search for divine love in an impure world, into a God-of-War-like slasher game.
At first I thought this was completely nuts, being both derivative as a game and artistically rude. But no; clearly I Just Don't Get It. What's wrong with strip-mining the classics for some completely irrelevant element that seems roughly similar to a mindless hack-'em-up game someone else has already made money from?
Following the lead of some very highly paid executives at a game publishing corporation, I have been inspired to look for similar development opportunities. Here are some ideas off the top of my head for giving a few more pieces of Classical and Western verse the chainsaws and blood and Adrenaline-Pumping Action! their authors no doubt always intended them to have.
- The Road Not Taken: Fire and Ice Edition
- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: Albatross Hunter 3D
- Metamorphoses: Titan vs. Titan Brawling
- The Raven: Lenore's Revenge
- The Song of Hiawatha: Extreme Canoeing
- Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard: Zombie Apocalypse 2
More to come on this subject, no doubt....
