Infernal
Preview
The name changed, but what about the game itself?
by William Thompson
previewed on PC
Changing name for the better?
Some time not so long ago, we at Hooked Gamers did a First-Look preview of a game titled Diabolique: License to Sin. Well, since then, the game has had some changes made to it, including an updated title. The game is now known as Infernal. We thought that would give us a chance to take another look at the game and see how it had progressed.
For those of you who haven't read the previous Diabolique article, Infernal is a third person shooter/action game along the lines of Tomb Raider, Resident Evil and Splinter Cell. The first change we noticed from our first-look was that the main character had changed his name (maybe he's using an alias) and it is now Ryan Lennox. Lennox originally worked for the Heavens Etherlight organisation. He has been banished from the 'Good' side because of his unconventional problem solving skills and has been hired by the Abyss agency who do all the dirty work for the Prince of Darkness.
The Devil works in mysterious ways...
Ryan's special abilities are given to him by the Dark Lord and they are quite handy. The most important of the acquired skills is the ability to feed off the defeated souls of his slain enemies, which in most cases are futuristic looking monks. The monks look like monks in the Friar Tuck (Robin Hood's friend) mould, with their partly shaved heads, albeit a touch skinnier, but with awesome weapons. After killing one of the said monks, Lennox just walks up to them and, for the lack of a better word, sucks up their souls. Doing so increases Lennox's health and equips him with ammunition to further his quest and even gives objects such as ID cards needed to enter through doors. Aside from gaining ammunition from the dead monks, ammunition can also be found hidden in crates and boxes in the usual FPS/TPS way.
Another ability that takes a little getting used to is teleportation. Teleportation gives Lennox the ability to move from one place to another while time stand still. This ability, whilst it takes some getting used to, can be valuable... and indeed some of the game's puzzles will require the use of the teleportation ability to advance further into the game. Another function that helps Lennox is the roll function. Whenever Lennox does a roll, he becomes temporarily invisible. This helps get Lennox to get past some awkward situations.
You don't know the power of the dark side...
The final and main evil gift that Lennox has as an agent of Abyss, involves the use of Mana. Mana is gained in the same way that health and ammunition is gained from the defeated souls. With his mana, Lennox can perform various 'tricks'. Teleportation is one of the uses of mana, but he can also use the mana to improve the firepower of his weapons. Firing his pistol whilst using the mana, makes the pistol seem like a rocket launcher, making a great explosion in the process.
