Infernal

The Good
Infernal: Hell's Vengeance is a basic shooting game that offers a simple premise of a good guy gone bad who now wants to kill everyone he used to work for. After the introduction players are dropped right into the middle of a gun battle and fight their way out. This stage introduces most of the controls and will get you far enough to figure out most of the rest on your own.

The Bad
Infernal can best be described as clunky in the gameplay department. In a normal game, players can switch between holding a weapon or not holding a weapon; Infernal offers no such option. This is a problem because most enemies get too close to shoot at, and even though a melee attack can happen if they get too close, most of the time you just waste bullets trying to kill these guys (there's also no button to aim your gun when firing, making it near impossible to accurately aim). The mana based powers as well as the jump button are rarely useful to you as well.

Infernal also doesn't feature automated saving. While this wasn't a problem several years ago, most players have rightfully become accustomed to automatic saves and check points. However, should you die in Infernal, you will be required to start all over again from the beginning of the game if you didn't save (you don't even have the option to continue after you die).

Infernal's graphics will have you wondering if you popped in an original Xbox game on accident. While nothing is overly buggy or even broken, with its blocky character models, jerky animations, lips that don't even come close to matching words, and poor environments, Infernal is just a hard game to look at (and considering its 2009 release, that's pretty bad).

The story is equally forgettable. Players take control of a fallen angel named Lennox (perhaps named after the manufacturer of office chairs or the computer systems) who gets fired from EtherLight (some angel bounty hunter club) and then strikes a deal with the Lord of the Abyss. With all the grace and compellingness of a straight to DVD knock off film (the kind that come in the thin cases that Walmart sells at 4 for $1), players will find themselves skipping cutscenes whenever possible.

The Bottom Line
Infernal is a game with an old school feel, but rather than a nostalgic trip to the past, the game is more like that guy who wears his high school football jersey while trying to pick up women by telling them how he won the big game in 1987: It just feels way too past it's prime and is uncomfortable to be around.

Overall, Infernal just feels like a game that was made for Play Station 2 back in 2004, and its outdated graphics, poor story, and bad controls would have made it a forgettable game even back then. And while its flaws can be excused on their own, combined they cripple the entire experience.

Players maybe tempted to buy Infernal (some copies can sell for as low as $2.99 at video game stores) but before doing so should keep in mind that there are far better games on the Xbox 360 and much better games on their old game systems gathering dust on the shelf.