Infernal

Ryan lennox s world has just gone to hell. One minute he's part of god's army of peacekeepers on earth (EtherLight), the next he's hooking up with El Diablo himself to thwart the uncharacteristically evil plans of his former employers, who've just sacked him with zero severance pay and not even a fake gold clock to show for his years of service.

Despite appearances suggesting the contrary, Infernal - a third-person shooter with adventure pretensions (find key, open door) - does contain some unexpected merits. Armed with a varied arsenal and an excellent collection of demonic powers -including teleportation and a devastating weapon augmentation - you're thrown into battles in which you can utilise cover and blind fire. A bit like Rainbow Six: Vegas really, only nowhere near as good.

Enemies, while half-decent opponents, are capable of pulling off ridiculously pointless rolls and flips with the fluidity of frozen concrete, while the massively forgiving damage model means that mowing your way through each level is often about as taxing as mowing the lawn.

Boss battles prove the exact opposite and for the most part are hideously irritating trial-and-error affairs, where finding the right (and only) way to defeat each one is the very definition of tedium.

Sum Of Its Parts

Whatever you do, though, don't write Infernal off, because somehow it manages to be far more entertaining than you'd expect While no part can be called exceptional, the whole experience does keep you fairly entertained, albeit in a mindless sort of way. There are plenty of flickers of originality throughout that colour it with patches of uniqueness, most notably the inclusion of a Mana bar that increases as you sin and dwindles whenever you approach holy places or heavenly lights.

What's more, the physics are solid, the plot's fairly intriguing, Ryan and the devil are well acted (shame about the other characters though) and the action, despite some balancing issues, is always frenetic and extremely well paced. Infernal is hardly essential, but if you do decide to part with your cash, it'll hardly be a sin.