Infernal (2007) – Playing at 8K resolution in 2023

Infernal PC 2007

INTRODUCTION

Infernal is a little known third person shooter that came out in 2007. It received generally poor ratings with an average Metacritic score of 61. I had actually played the game back in 2007 but never really got into it, going as far as the first boss battle before being distracted by some of the bigger gaming titles of the time (Crysis!).

I remember that the gunplay seemed clumsy, the story cliched, and the voice acting mediocre. However, running at 1920 X 1200 resolution on an NVIDIA 8800 Ultra GPU, I do recall being impressed by the graphics. The lighting in the game especially stood out.

Now after all these years, I thought of giving the title another try. I was mainly interested in seeing how it looks and plays on modern hardware (AMD 5600X, NVIDIA RTX 3090) and at high resolutions. I was hoping to run it at 8K (3840 X 2160 @ 2.0 DSR).

Note that this title is now “abandonware” meaning that it can no longer be purchased (The original developers and publishers are now defunct).

GAMEPLAY IMPRESSIONS

This is not a full fledged review. I am just listening some of my quick impressions after beating the game:

  • Short Game: Should take 4-6 hours to complete
  • Bad Story: The story is so bad that it is actually amusing and somewhat enjoyable
  • Mildly enjoyable gunplay: The gunplay is not terrible but does not do anything particularly exciting
  • Useless cover system: There is a cover system which is not implemented well. The guy steps out of cover entirely when shooting “from cover” (What’s the point of cover?). Though the game is easy enough for it to not be a necessity.
  • Some interesting but under / poorly utilized special abilities: There is teleportation, telekinesis, powered gunshots, and demon vision. None of these are utilized to their full potential.
  • Nearly a complete lack of enemy variety: You fight human enemies the whole time. Most of them even look the same
  • Frustrating boss battles: Like the special powers, the developers had some good ideas for the boss battles but they didn’t do enough to make them genuinely enjoyable. Some of the fights are frustrating because it takes several tries to know if you are doing what you are supposed to do (No enemy health bar, or clear indication of damage).
  • Good Graphics: The game can look pretty running at 8K. The graphics hold up well

    I would give this title a 6/10

Graphics and Performance

I did not run a graphics benchmark but had my fps displayed the whole time I played the game. Running at 8192 X 4320 resolution, the fps generally hovered around the 135 mark, ranging from 110 – 185.

Here are some 8K screenshots!

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