Infernal: Hell's Vengeance Review [360]

Sometimes game developers do themselves no favours. If you’re going to call your game “Infernal” – and it turns out to be rubbish – then you’re leaving yourself open to some wordplay abuse in the reviews. It’s like a band called The Unbelievably Shits releasing an album called “Ran Out Of Ideas.” Of course, if the game is up to scratch, then this isn’t a problem. Unfortunately, Infernal: Hell’s Vengeance is not. It is, in fact, diabolically bad (see, I told you). Originally a PC game, this port to the 360 has been two years in the making – two years apparently spent plumbing new depths of tedium.

And yet, the central premise of the game isn’t that bad. You play Ryan Lennox, an ex-hitman for God’s Etherlight agency who, stripped of his powers, is recruited by Hell’s rival agency, The Abyss. Lennox is offered a deal by the evil Lucius Black; stop Etherlight from deploying a worldwide mind control device and he’ll get some pretty swanky supernatural powers to mess about with.  Unfortunately, any interest you have in the narrative rapidly drains away as soon as the dialogue starts.

Sporting some of the worst voice acting we’ve heard since Secret Files 2, Infernal’s cutscenes are laughably bad.The voice talent (and the word ‘talent’ is used generously here) is interesting to say the least, the script is hammier than a pig farm and it stinks just as bad. It’s riddled with clichés – from Lennox’s irreverent wise-ass attitude (ripped directly from every single bad action film of the last 30 years) to the wacky mad scientist and haughty British b***, every character in the game is utterly predictable and completely unlikeable. It also doesn’t help that the actors occasionally mispronounce words or that the dialogue frequently makes very little sense. We particularly enjoyed the enemy grunt who starts a radio conversation with the word “over.” It’s indicative of the level of polish in Infernal and, unfortunately, this applies to the gameplay as well.

Somehow, developer Metropolis Software has managed to make the gameplay basics in Infernal so amazingly awkward that the game begins to feel like a chore almost immediately.  Firstly, for a game which sells itself as a shooter, the shooting mechanics are woefully bad.  The aiming reticule seems to play a purely decorative role and bears little relation to the placement of your bullets. There is also no zoom/precision aim (at least until you find the sniper rifle later in the game) which, to be fair, is probably a good move as it would serve only to highlight the criminally shonky hit detection. 

Player movement is, sadly, just as bad and this is due to some very dodgy control decisions. For instance, Lennox can dive out of the way of enemy bullets but Metropolis has mapped this move to a double tap on the left stick. Yes, the stick you use for regular movement. This means you’ll frequently find yourself diving and rolling when you don’t want to which can get a little troublesome when facing multiple enemies. And, you’ll be glad to know, the clunky movement is complemented perfectly by a, frankly, demented cover system.