So i'm moving on to the 2007
releases. I've skipped 2006's Gears Of War and
Rainbow Six: Vegas - I'll play them on my new
computer. So, starting at the bottom of 2007's
shooters was Hour Of Victory. Installed okay,
but upon loading there's no menu. Probably a
good thing anyway as the game got awful reviews.
So next on my list is Infernal
from Metropolis Software, a game developer i've
never heard of and who was bought out by CD
Projekt (The Witcher) a year later. So I guess
this is their one and only title.
Now Infernal received fairly
average to harsh reviews with an aggregate of
60% on GameRankings.com. However, it was actually
a pretty decent game so if this is an indication
of the 'worst' of 2007, with 19 other action
games on my list that ranked higher, then 2007
is shaping up to the best year for PC action
games ever.
Where Infernal received flak
was it's short length, repetitive gameplay and
not pushing the boundaries. Honestly, those
19 shooters that ranked higher - did they all
push the boundaries of gaming? I seriously doubt
it. I'll quite happily take a solid, good looking
game with fun gameplay that does nothing to
evolve gaming. I might have played this type
of game a dozen times already, but that's the
kind of game I enjoy.
Infernal's level design is
good, but often it just feels like you're in
a huge room with a maze of small walls and walkways
to navigate through. Sure it's better than the
corridor-room-corridor of F.E.A.R., but there's
still massive room for improvement. We do get
a bit a variety in the levels; there five missions
going through a monastery, refinery, steelworks,
a massive ship and the mountain-based satellite
centre.
Now what hides the lacking
level design is the great looking engine. Everything
has a glossed over feeling and the lighting
in particular is very well done.
The gameplay is a little weaker
and took some criticism from critics, but it
was still fun all the way through. Infernal
leans more towards the higher difficulty rather
than being an easy game. You can tap your movement
keys twice to do an invisible roll to avoid
fire, and without this the game would be very
difficult. It's an addition that sped up gameplay
a lot and is well done.
What slows the game down to
a halt is the way you have to hold Enter to
strip your dead enemies of health and ammo.
It takes a few seconds each time, which you
need to do on probably 75% of the dead bodies
in this game. It ends up being a strategy of
killing everything, then slowly raping the dead
bodies of health/ammo for a couple of minutes
before moving to the next section. It absolutely
kills the flow of action in the game.
On top of that, the game is
perhaps in the 5-7 hour zone. It's NOT a long
game. I won't go into the story as it's the
typical cliched rubbish with a hot chick teaming
up with you. Same of the one liners were good
though.
Overall Infernal is a good
game and certainly worth playing. It won't be
the best of 2007, but certainly deserves better
than a 6 out of 10.
