[Mechanical R]

When a new Third Person Shooter pops its head into the world of retail, I accept with open arms, not sure what it quite is really, the more intense feel you get in gunfights over an FPS, the more open ended game play you can have with just one part of a level, with Infernal this was not the case….

Enter ‘Ryan Lennox’, main protagonist/Ryan Reynolds impersonator. After a little meeting with a friend, it seems your Angel status is revoked and you take the side of…it’s not quite the devil but someone representing him. Anyway, you go to the dark side *ooooooh* to exact revenge on something your not entirely told about to begin with, either way, lets proceed.

The story’s set, its not the most solid of stories but then neither is the way the game handles. The games a typical shooter but with a lot of the luxuries stripped piled with clunky controls. Lennox’ movements are very unnatural and he doesn’t react well with objects within the levels. Taking cover is a case of pushing yourself against a wall which isn’t easy when under fire, even after that its often a lot more easier to just run like an idiot shooting what you can whenever.

Now, my biggest thing about this game is the saves. These days, Autosave features, whether being able to be turned on or off is pretty much a necessity in gaming. Infernal, features no auto save. I found this out, PAINFULLY after dying at a certain point in a level only to restart at the beginning of the level. Ouch. I recently also was painfully remembered this, as I completed a level and died about a quarter of the way through the next. Having forgotten Infernal doesn’t have something that ALL games have these days, I was slightly annoyed to say the least when I was back in the labs of the previous level.

Sadly, the game boasts no great looking visuals, rather a Playstation 2 game with a few tweaks and more shadows, whilst this is disappointing, it’s still a good attempt from a fairly new developer and probably a little better on PC.

Sound wise, well, the voice acting is cringe worthy. It’s very badly acted out and it just kind of adds to the lack of everything going towards the game itself.

Luckily the games quite short, but you’ll be replaying so much of it from forgetting to manually save the game it’ll feel like your playing a Final Fantasy.

Whilst the idea is good, the presentation is just barely on the level of other games around, and the controls are very badly mapped out, which has clearly been given little to no thought when this game was ported over from the PC.

5.0