Friday, December 16, 2005
Guest Review - Infected
The premise of Infected is pretty common fare: Zombies infected with an unknown virus have started wreaking havoc all over New York City during the Christmas season. You play officer Stevens, discovered to have a special blood type that is not only resistant to the infection but also deadly to those already infected. The idea is simple - use you gun to shoot the infected until they become weak enough for you to blast with your specialized "blood gun", thereby splattering them. Basically, kill the zombies.
Her's where Planet Moon takes over. For those of you unfamiliar with the developer of Armed and Dangerous or Giants: Citizen Kabuto, put them on your map now. Infected follows suit with its predecessors as a tremendously gratifying third person shooter with simple controls and concepts that can be milked for hours. And it's hysterically funny. Throughout the game Dr. Schaeffer, the scientist working on the infection, and the Commisioner, give you audio updates as to where the infection has spread; the Commissioner's breakdown alone had me rolling. The whole game is infused with this wicked sense of humor, from the twisted and bloody Santa Zombies to the far-too-happy news anchor.
The basic mechanic of the game is the aforementioned combination of standard weapons (pistol, shotgun, machine gun, RPG, and BMFG) and your blood gun. Shoot the Infected until they turn red, then hit them with your blood to splat them. Planet Moon then adds another layer of depth by letting you chain as many bad guys as possible to provide the maximum amount of splat. Get two or more red infected close to each other, splat one, and they all go pop in a spectacularly gory explosion. Any infected that aren't red yet turn that way if another is splattered close to them. Passing a level requires you to obtain a medal by meeting requirements like a certain number of combos, clearing all zones in a specific amount of time, rescuing a certain number of civilians, or a combination of these. Getting the medals allow you to earn money to buy new weapons or upgrades. To keep things balanced you always start out each mission with only the pistol - the more you splat the bigger the gun you get to use, and let me tell you, the BMFG is a blast, pun intended.
This is a great example of what a mobile game should be - most zones can be cleared in a matter of minutes, but to get that elusive gold medal will usually require you to play some sections more than once. The difficulty ramps up nicely from easy to all out mayhem and the action never get old. I found myself on several occasions trying to chain up as many zombies as I could just to create the biggest splat possible. The controls are well laid out with the lock-on feature only occasionally not locking onto the target I wanted. The music, although fitting, took some getting used to. Made up of Slipknot, Fear Factory, and the like, it usually ends up sounding like a lot a screaming, which is oddly perfect when the action heats up.
As for your character, you can customize any of thirteen avatars, or use any of the twelve unlockables (including another famous Majesco heroine) in either the single player or multiplayer. Winning multiplayer matches (either Ad Hoc or Infrastructure) infects the loser's game with the winner's avatar. That avatar will then show up during certain "infected" single player missions. You can then track how far your infection has spread throughout the world. Unfortunately, the one weak link is sadly the coolest idea the game has. The multiplayer usually boils down to who sees who first, which lead to a lot of frustration and a lot of that schoolyard moment of, "No way, I totally shot you first!!!" On top of that I had some difficulty finding infrastructure games.
Having said that the single player is well worth playing though if only to hear the closing song "In the Heart of Every Zombie There's a Man". The pace is fast and furious, the weapons power up properly, and the bloody explosions (especially the really big chains) are tremendously gratifying. Got five minutes? Go back and get the Gold on an older mission. Mobile games need to be like this - quick, rewarding, and replayable. The funny helps a lot, too. And like I said earlier, if you missed Armed and Dangerous on Xbox, you can pick it up at bargain prices theses days and laugh at home as well as on the go.
Written by Greg. Thanks Greg!
Her's where Planet Moon takes over. For those of you unfamiliar with the developer of Armed and Dangerous or Giants: Citizen Kabuto, put them on your map now. Infected follows suit with its predecessors as a tremendously gratifying third person shooter with simple controls and concepts that can be milked for hours. And it's hysterically funny. Throughout the game Dr. Schaeffer, the scientist working on the infection, and the Commisioner, give you audio updates as to where the infection has spread; the Commissioner's breakdown alone had me rolling. The whole game is infused with this wicked sense of humor, from the twisted and bloody Santa Zombies to the far-too-happy news anchor.
The basic mechanic of the game is the aforementioned combination of standard weapons (pistol, shotgun, machine gun, RPG, and BMFG) and your blood gun. Shoot the Infected until they turn red, then hit them with your blood to splat them. Planet Moon then adds another layer of depth by letting you chain as many bad guys as possible to provide the maximum amount of splat. Get two or more red infected close to each other, splat one, and they all go pop in a spectacularly gory explosion. Any infected that aren't red yet turn that way if another is splattered close to them. Passing a level requires you to obtain a medal by meeting requirements like a certain number of combos, clearing all zones in a specific amount of time, rescuing a certain number of civilians, or a combination of these. Getting the medals allow you to earn money to buy new weapons or upgrades. To keep things balanced you always start out each mission with only the pistol - the more you splat the bigger the gun you get to use, and let me tell you, the BMFG is a blast, pun intended.
This is a great example of what a mobile game should be - most zones can be cleared in a matter of minutes, but to get that elusive gold medal will usually require you to play some sections more than once. The difficulty ramps up nicely from easy to all out mayhem and the action never get old. I found myself on several occasions trying to chain up as many zombies as I could just to create the biggest splat possible. The controls are well laid out with the lock-on feature only occasionally not locking onto the target I wanted. The music, although fitting, took some getting used to. Made up of Slipknot, Fear Factory, and the like, it usually ends up sounding like a lot a screaming, which is oddly perfect when the action heats up.
As for your character, you can customize any of thirteen avatars, or use any of the twelve unlockables (including another famous Majesco heroine) in either the single player or multiplayer. Winning multiplayer matches (either Ad Hoc or Infrastructure) infects the loser's game with the winner's avatar. That avatar will then show up during certain "infected" single player missions. You can then track how far your infection has spread throughout the world. Unfortunately, the one weak link is sadly the coolest idea the game has. The multiplayer usually boils down to who sees who first, which lead to a lot of frustration and a lot of that schoolyard moment of, "No way, I totally shot you first!!!" On top of that I had some difficulty finding infrastructure games.
Having said that the single player is well worth playing though if only to hear the closing song "In the Heart of Every Zombie There's a Man". The pace is fast and furious, the weapons power up properly, and the bloody explosions (especially the really big chains) are tremendously gratifying. Got five minutes? Go back and get the Gold on an older mission. Mobile games need to be like this - quick, rewarding, and replayable. The funny helps a lot, too. And like I said earlier, if you missed Armed and Dangerous on Xbox, you can pick it up at bargain prices theses days and laugh at home as well as on the go.
Written by Greg. Thanks Greg!
// posted by Nick @ 9:00 PM 
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