henke on 5/6/2009 at 18:34
In Infernal you play Ryan, a guy who used to be an angel but has since been demoted to human. Pretty soon Satan(who is some kind of Samuel L Jackson wannabe) shows up and offers to give Ryan all kinds supernatural powers in exchange for Ryan working for him. Ryan doesn't really seem to have any good reason for selling his soul except "being human is boring" but he goes through with it anyway. Later on in the game it turns out that - Spoiler alert! - Satan is a bad guy. After you've told ol' Belzebub to take this job and shove it, your angel ladyfriend gets in trouble and you call Satan up and ask to get your job back. At this point, it kind of makes sense for the player to sell his soul. You've played the first few missions with these kick ass powers and then they get taken away and you do feel kind of naked without them. The story of Faust hasn't been done much in videogames(that I know of) but it could've been implemented a lot better than it is in this game. Maybe by having the player play the first few levels as an angel, then get kicked out and have to ask Lucifer for help to save a loved one.
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The gameplay is... decent. When everything works as it should it's an alright 3rd person shooter in the same vein as Psi-Ops, or Second Sight. Shooting from cover + a few special moves and powers(teleportation, supershot, ...eh... invisible actionroll). The wallhugging is rather buggy, there's no separate button for it, you just walk towards a wall and you lean up against it. Hopefully. In some undefined spots you can't wallhug. This leads to often wallhugging when you don't want to wallhug and not wallhugging when you do want to wallhug. You can also tap twice in any direction to do an actionroll but it doesn't always work. It seems like it especially doesn't work when you're taking heavy fire and desperately need to roll out of the way. Using different keyboard buttons for different functions really wouldn't have hurt. The grenadethrow, binocular and lift-superpower are all on the same button with a separate button to cycle through these. WHY? Just one more button and you wouldn't HAVE to cycle throught them but always have all of them handy at all times. As it is the game doesn't require more buttons than are available on a gamepad so consolitis doesn't explain this. It's just plain bad gamedesign. Removing controls in some misguided attempt to streamline.
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Another couple of fuckups from the developers are unskippable cutscenes(sometimes) and the player taking damage during mid-level cutscenes. Combined these add up to the biggest fuckup in the game. One of the bossfights is against a guy that can kill you with one punch if he gets close enough. Only problem is that you need to activate a number of mechanisms to kill him. When a mechanism is activated an unskippable cutscene showing that is HAS been activated comes on during which time it is highly fucking likely that this bossmotherfucker will waltz up to you and kill you while you are stuck, unable to defend yourself, watching the fucking cutscene. Just typing this shit out and all the memories coming back to me is raising my blood pressure. SERIOUSLY FUCK THIS GAME DONT PLAY IT
Ok...
No.
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No it's alright. This game does have a few shining moments that makes it worthwhile. The combat is mostly fun albeit a bit limited. There is promise of stealthgameplay early on. In fact the first guy you kill, after the prologue-mission, is a stealthkill, but after that it's all shooting again. At one of the later missions I did manage to invisible actionroll my way past a guard who had me pinned down behind some crates, then I snuck up behind him and stealthkilled him. For a second there I started thinking that maybe the gameplay has hidden depths I have yet to discover but after further experimentation it turned out that nope. It doesn't. The AI does seem rather advanced, they will even try to flank you and search for you if you stay out of sight, then give up after a short while and go back to their patrol routes. Only problem is that all the badguys have Superman-like vision and will spot you if your foot is sticking out from behind a crate from across a football field*.
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What else can I say about this game? The character animations are nice. It's very pretty, especially if you like bloom. There are invisible walls everywhere you want to go and none where you need them the most. There are invisisble walls that keep you from jumping over a small fences to take cover behind nearby rocks. There are NO invisible walls that keep you from falling over edges to your death or walking into fires. A 15 foot fall won't hurt you but a 16 foot fall is lethal. It is linear as fuuuuck. New gameplay mechanics are introduced randomly, for instance in one place you need to climb over a chainlink fence to proceed. Never mind that every chainlink fence up until then has been completely unclimbable. I had to watch a youtube walkthrough video to figure out that one. Also, in the first level you need to use your supershot to blow up a gate to proceed but every gate after that is indestructible and flimsy looking padlocks hanging of chains hinder your progress like Fort Knox.
score: 5/10
verdict: after re-reading what I've just written 5/10 seems very generous but the game did keep me coming back until I'd finished it.
Here is a gameplay video I put together from the prologue and the first mission: (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SzcPc9Fd0o) Infernal Bongo Band (not being able to capture any audio I did what any resonable man would do and set the whole thing to an Incredible Bongo Band song)
(
http://www.gametap.com/video-games/Infernal-20000342-40.html) GameTap entry for Infernal
* a European football field, not an American**
** not that there are any football fields, European nor American, in this game
Sulphur on 5/6/2009 at 19:09
It's also very, very oldschool. With the amount of locked areas and red/blue/whatever keyhunting crammed into the first few levels I played, I'm quite sure they were trying to channel Doom. The wrong parts of Doom.
The game has gun-toting monks that sound oddly like computer geeks doing impromptu voiceovers in a basement, which lands the voice acting squarely on the wrong side of 'cheesy'. Its 'puzzles' are almost entirely bereft of intelligence.
There's this bit where - OBVIOUS SPOILER WARNING BUT DO YOU REALLY CARE - you're locked in this glass room that's slowly filling up with poisonous gas. At this point, you'd probably try using your shiny new teleportation ability to rematerialise outside the room and walk away with a devillish smirk.
That, of course, is exactly the wrong answer.
Instead, what you have to do is activate four terminals in the right order to unlock the door that leads out of the chamber. What's the order? Well, can you count to 4?
Yeah.
Deus Ex, this ain't. I quit playing shortly after that.
june gloom on 5/6/2009 at 19:28
There is no wrong part of Doom.
(waiting for BlackCapedManX to come in and scream DOOM SUCKS IT'S NOT RAINBOW 6)
Sulphur on 5/6/2009 at 19:37
Doom was great by itself. That was just a dash of hyperbole for emphasis. Keycard hunting as a mechanic, however, is terribly outdated and quite irritating, especially when a modern day shooter has entire levels built around it.
Taffer36 on 5/6/2009 at 21:19
I only played the demo, so maybe the setpiece moments could make up for the utter piss gunplay. But even then when I'm not having fun doing the most basic and integral part of the game I can't see myself playing it without jabbing a fork thru my eye.
Yakoob on 6/6/2009 at 08:55
From the screens it looks so utterly... generic.
gunsmoke on 6/6/2009 at 10:45
Damn henke, that video killed it for me. You and the enemy literally walking up to each other face to face, and trading gunshots until one drops. Ugh.
He is a snazzy dresser, however...
belboz on 8/6/2009 at 04:25
I got this when it first came out got stuck in the warehouse as I couldn't work out where to go next, the only walkthrough I could find was written in german. And the babel translater on the net translated about 30% of the german words but the translation didn't make any sense so I gave up. Not much of a loss as it was canned by the reviewers and it was in a bargin bin for 2 quid, a month after its release in bargin bin cos shop couldn't sell it.
henke on 8/6/2009 at 05:31
Yeah you'll defenitely need a walkthrough a few times throughout this game. And not because of the puzzles, they're all obvious and simple as hell. But because of the terrible level design. And the way you often have to interact with some seemingly random piece of scenery to proceed.
EvaUnit02 on 18/6/2009 at 05:31
Apparently there's a 360 port due out this month. *groan*
