Last week I reviewed Dante's Inferno for Wired.com and pointed out the fairly obvious fact that the game cribs more than a little from the God of War playbook. In a response to my review called "Slamming Games For Being Derivative is Like So Totally Derivative" writer and colleague Jason Killingsworth from Paste called my assertion that Dante's Inferno was derivative a "flimsy premise." 

But in both cases the best kinds of stealing are the kind that transform the original work. They flip the old in fresh and exciting ways, simultaneously adding relevance to often forgotten works and creating something new that can stand on its own. I don't think Dante's Inferno did either. And that's fine. I didn't hate the game. I just found its lack of ambition and the notion that Visceral Games has nothing to say about God of War a little disappointing.

The many open world games that have cropped up since Grand Theft Auto III speak to my point. Rockstar's hugely successful gamechanger for the PlayStation 2 inspired tons of clones -- many of them boring and broken. But a few of these rip-offs spun the Grand Theft Auto formula in interesting ways. Crackdown pared down the plot, focusing on the fun of climbing, jumping, driving and fighting in a living, breathing city. It was a direct rebuttal to the increasing importance of plot in the Grand Theft Auto series. Saints Row and Saints Row 2 took umbrage at the way the Grand Theft Auto was pulling back from mayhem and delivered that kind of destruction in spades. The Assassin's Creed series transformed the original work by a mere change of setting, but the execution is so strong -- especially in the lively second game -- that Ubisoft manages to make the open world game feel new again.

All the aformentioned games are bites of Grand Theft Auto (though one could argue that David Jones of Realtime Worlds lays as much claim to the genre as anyone) but there's intent and even commentary behind their theft. My gripe with Dante's Inferno isn't that it stole from God of War. Its that the game didn't take the opportunity to say anything about God of War. 

The game spent so much time extolling the virtues of God of War through imitation that it never once stopped to question its source material. I feel like Dante's Inferno is a missed opportunity -- a chance for Visceral games to say, "dragging boxes around to solve puzzles doesn't suit characters who would challenge the Gods." Any commentary, diversion or position beside, "God of War was pretty awesome, wasn't it" would have made Dante's Inferno infinitely more interesting. But right now the game riffs like a sound-alike tune -- the videogame equivalent of that copycat song in the Air Force commercial that the White Stripes were so ticked about.

"I agree wholeheartedly with Killingsworth that Dante's Inferno is "perfectly entitled to share DNA with God of War." But if you're not going to mutate that DNA even just a little then what's the point?