I happened to bump into some news about Finnish start-up everyplay’s new virtual world inside Facebook in Inside Social Games [great sentence isn't it?]. I didn’t have time to try it out yet, but if you are interested, check it out here: http://apps.facebook.com/kamuworld/

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_comedy

http://www.dantesinferno.com

I found this trailer to the new upcoming game Dante’s Inferno from EA. After the game trailer, what are you gonna say? Nothing much.

Unfortunately the game’s imagery looks the same like in most of the games out there. If this is really how the game will eventually look like – we all know how worthless early released trailers are in showing the real outcome of a game to be. But still, I would’ve expected something more different.

In my mind Dante’s Divina Commedia and Gustave Doré’s illustrations are entwined together. In my books they are united. Why don’t you game designer feel the same? Why not create game graphics like the works of Doré? That would be cool. You could maybe even call that remotely as ‘art’.

Using something else than the basic looking graphics in games have come a long way. Look at games like Viewtiful Joe, Crackdown or the new ultra violent Wii game Mad World. Even the movies are trying to play with the overall appearance (Sin City, A Scanner Dark). And these are just the most obvious examples.

Please game designers, do it more often. Play with the imagery. I beg thee. I don’t believe that your game would sell less if the looks were a bit more inventive.