In 2007, Playlogic produced Infernal for the PC. This third person action title had gamers in the midst of a battle between Heaven and Hell, but a variety of problems and design decisions kept it a mediocre experience at best. Recently, Playlogic re-released the game for the Xbox 360. Priced at $40, you might expect that not much was done in bringing this to the 360 -- and you'd be right.

The More Things Change...

So, in Infernal, there is a concept that every one thousand years planets align in such a way that Earth becomes invisible to the "Boss of Bosses." During this period, agents of EtherLight and Abyss fight for human souls. Normally, EtherLight agents play within the rules, but when they don't, the leader of Abyss becomes upset and has to take measure into his own hands to restore the balance between good and evil.

Okay, decent enough story, it's a little goofy but I'm fine with that. That said, gamers play Ryan Lennox, an EtherLight top agent who was recently terminated from his position. The game begins inside a bar where Ryan is having a drink when suddenly a bunch of EtherLight agents bust in from the windows and rooftop, armed with machine guns and pistols. You're required to run to the back of the bar to escape, and in doing so, you already notice several of the game's big problems...

For one, the AI is weak. They do take cover, but they're also very slow to react as you run right by them, maybe even bumping into them on the way. You can also sustain an enormous amount of damage so there isn't a whole lot of reason at this point to even worry about using the cover system, which takes getting used to. I also didn't enjoy the duck and roll technique; to do this, you double tap the left stick. As you might guess, you'll often roll when you really don't intend to. While that doesn't matter much at this point in the game, it certainly does later on when you face more difficult circumstances.

Another nag lies in what you have to do to get more ammo and health. Whenever you kill an enemy, players must stand over the body, point the crosshair on them, and hold down X for about two seconds. This mechanic isn't horrible, but it does get old, and fast. One problem with this is that the bodies disappear within seconds of hitting the floor. When you're in the middle of a firefight, it can be difficult to even reach the body by the time it's safe enough to search it and harvest its soul for health. It's a bit of a catch 22.

As someone who plays quite a few third person action titles, I also found the aiming to be awkward and it never felt spot on. Generally, you get the feel for a game within minutes of playing, but that never quite happened with Infernal and the action was never that enjoyable because the control was a nuisance -- not just in aiming, but in movement (like cover and rolling), too. A constant problem like that does not help the experience.

Speaking of annoying issues, I got extremely tired of how every single time I encountered an enemy -- just one, even -- this incredibly generic rock guitar riff would open up. Normally, I would have the enemy dispatched in seconds, so the riff would have to fade out again. Then, just seconds later, it fires up again as I encounter another enemy or two. I just don't see the sense in that; you had to know during development that most encounters are only going to last a few seconds, there is no need to start up this generic guitar riff only to have it fade out a moment later. It's another jarring and annoying part of the game.

The guitar riff is not the only audio problem with Infernal, though. The dialogue and voiceovers are as generic and cheesy as they come. Ryan Lennox has a typical quiet, too-cool-for-anything type of British accent, whose lines are the source of much eye-rolling. The head of the Abyss faction has a very dark deep voice, but it's hard to take him at all seriously when he's saying things like "I'll update you via the Communicator..." and other cheesy lines.

To complete his various missions, Lennox will employ a variety of typical weapons like pistols and sniper rifles, but players also use Shurikens and mana powered abilities, too. The Mana abilities include things like being able to add an extra umph to a shot, so you inflict more damage or blow down a crumbling wall. You can also use it to teleport short distances, most often used outside of combat when you're solving a basic puzzle. See, even though the agents of EtherLight operate in places that look like old monasteries and dress like monks, they also have sophisticated security systems with cameras, force fields, and gas traps.

That save spots and checkpoints are pretty far apart doesn't help an already difficult game to play. Infernal is difficult to play in the sense that it's such a powerfully mediocre game, and you can't help but feel like there is something better to do. Restarting any sequence over in a game adds up and becomes annoying, but with Infernal I dreaded having to redo any part over again simply because it just wasn't fun.

Inferal also suffers from some severe framerate problems. While the graphics do look like they are from 2007, which isn't to say they are really bad, they're still the source of some heavy slowdown at times during action sequences. This is surprising given that there were two years in between the PC release and this 360 release. Outside of those slowdowns, the visuals are pretty good, but they don't hold much of a candle to more recently developed third person titles.

Overall, Infernal on the 360 is eerily similar to what I remember playing on the PC back in 2007. I don't think any changes were made, none that I can tell. The bottomline is that the experience is still a strictly mediocre one that you can safely avoid, even at the $40 price point.