The young Van Gogh quickly realised he would need to send away for more blue and white paint.

Video games are getting mighty serious with their sources of inspiration. Earlier this year, we had Dante’s Inferno now we have El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, a third person action game loosely based on passages from the Old Testament. You’ll play Enoch, a man asked to save humanity from fallen angels. Fortunately, you have an archangel to guide you and some rather heavenly weapons to aide you in your task.

Takeyasu Sawaki and Masato Kimura head the development team. Although renowned for their work on Devil May Cry, they appear to have gone in a very different direction with El Shaddai. The game can be rather sparse looking at times, especially when combat is involved. This may be designed to give El Shaddai an otherworldly feel. The game also appears to feature a significant amount of platforming.

Already available in Japan, this Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 adventure should land in English speaking territories in 2011.   Publisher UTV Ignition Entertainment is yet to confirm an Australian release.