Late last year, Eidos released a game called Just Cause. It was a blatant ripoff of at least half a dozen games in the genre, but due to its over the top atmosphere and broken-to-the-point-of-hilarious gameplay, Just Cause was a game that was virtually impossible to hate. Not so is the case with Infernal, which marries equal parts Resident Evil 4 and Psi-Ops with just a dash of kill.switch to top it off. Like Just Cause, it's amazingly broken—but this time, that's not a good thing.

Resident Evil 4

Admittedly, it's hard not to think of Resident Evil 4 when playing the game. The character's look, actions, and even the environment feel as if Infernal's developer Metropolis Software had played through Capcom's magnum opus and decided it'd be a great base for a new game. Our hero, who looks like circa 1991 George Michael but plays like Leon Kennedy, starts off in a prologue that lasts all of five minutes before it leaps into a bit of plot and a big old monastery with hi-tech weaponry and defense systems.

At this point, the player knows that our leading fellow is an angry ex-angel fighting against a group of heavenly operatives whose goal is mind control. So, with his trusty pistol in hand, the character starts into the monastery to start his quest. Before long, his codec rings and a demonic voice chimes in to play the part of deus ex machina. A few minutes later, and the game sees Las Plagas cult members Etherlight members fall by the use of such weapons as aforementioned pistol, a submachine gun, and ninja stars.

Thankfully, the plot doesn't introduce a scientist, a refinery, or anything molten. Oh wait.

Psi-Ops

Throughout the campaign, a voice will call in to announce new powers. The powers are pretty standard, including the ability to throw fire, move objects via telekinesis, view and interact with things from a distance, and the demonic equivalent of infrared vision. To recharge your health and ammo, the protagonist can suck the energy out of enemies with an outstretched hand.

Now, out of these, the only really notable ones are the last three. Teleportation, as it is called in Infernal is nothing more than an extremely limited remote viewing power with the ability to flip a switch here and there. It's completely useless in a conventional situation, and rather hit and miss when puzzles require it. Whereas teleportation has proven itself useful in combat in the newly released Shadowrun, teleportation in Infernal is merely a puzzle-solving technique that lets you stand where-ever you put the buggy cursor on the map for a couple of seconds. Amazingly, the countdown timer that sends you back to your body is disabled when activating a switch.

Infernal Vision is another doozy. Although the voice on the codec notes it is part of one of history's most horrible weapons, it only serves to be a way to detect auras in the environment. Strangely, even though the vision was designed to find auras, it can also discern invisible writing that is inexplicably almost always somewhere near a door. I guess the Etherlight ran out of Post-Its and decided to instead use protoplasm. As an added bonus, Infernal Vision disallows you to use weapons while activated, making it equally as infuriating as Aura View was in Psi-Ops.

And finally, to gain health and weapons from corpses... Our hero steals souls.. Well, technically he does. He reaches out a stiff hand into thin air to raise the enemy corpses up and suck out energy. However, instead of using the sensible approach of having the head be the part of the wireframe that acts as the top in this situation, Infernal throws the center of levitation right into their pelvis. Because of this, it seems as if the souls are being ripped from the rear ends of corpses—which is oddly appropriate given the game it's in.

kill.switch

And where would gaming be without kill.switch? While not the first game to use a cover system, kill.switch was the one that popularized the Time Crisis style of duck-and cover fire which has been co-opted by a few games—most notably Gears of War. In Infernal, the system is broken to the point of uselessness. When against a wall or other object, ALT is the key bound to firing around a corner. After a few hours, I could only get this mechanic to work twice Most points of cover completely ignored the mechanic, just having you jump completely from behind cover, while one or two actually let you take advantage of the ability to shoot around corners.

In the end, Infernal could be an above average game, if it were properly made. The story is silly and inconsequential, the action has the potential to be amazing, but cobbling together game concepts from the most popular titles on the market and releasing it with an amazing lack of polish just doesn't cut it in this day and age.