The handheld video game for horror fans.
Infected takes place in New York City a few mere weeks before Christmas when the city is brought upon a plague of zombies that begins to tear the city (and world) apart. You play as a rookie cop named Officer Stevens who somehow is unaffected by the zombie virus. You come to find out your blood is pretty lethal toward the zombies and start to use it to your advantage. Your character has no main look as you can change your appearance to your heart’s desire, there are limitless possibilities. Watching the beginning cut-scene you will notice this game has a dark, sick, and sometimes cruel comedic tone to it, which can either be hysterical or not funny at all. The single player game works though missions with a couple variations between each other, but the main point of this game is just one thing; kill every single damn zombie on the screen.
The gameplay works surprisingly well and is very easy to pick up and play, exactly what you want for this type of game. The game features a lock on targeting system by using your right shoulder button, and by holding this down you can also strafe around to dodge enemies’ attacks which range from biting and hitting you, to throwing pus and feces, to actually shooting weaponry. You fight back by using conventional guns of course, but this is when the game gets interesting. The zombies don’t die from the bullets you’re firing, it only weakens them. Remember the blood of yours that’s quite lethal? It’s put into a weapon called the viral gun that you carry around at all times. When your opponent is weakened you will see red outlining their body, this is when you use the viral gun by pressing the square button (you fire your regular guns with “x”). The zombie will explode in a mix of blood and body parts. By upgrading after missions you can pick up more weapons so you can weaken the dead even faster, and then by killing more and more you can go from a pistol to a machine gun to a rocket launcher in a matter of seconds.
When the zombies start to bunch up you can quickly fight back by using the combo system that’s implemented quite nicely here. The closer zombies are to the zombies you pop the more the damage they will take from your viral gun. This makes it easy to kill multiple zombies at once with only one shot of your viral gun. The higher combos you get the more points, upgrades, and unlockables you gain. If you do really well in a mission you can even get the best weapon in the game, a viral chainsaw and pretend your Bruce Campbell. The single player game last 35 missions and though you might think that’s much, the levels don’t last any longer then 5 minutes. The missions have 3 different types to them, which range from defending civilians, to helicopter evacuating hostages, to just good old zombie killing. Around the end of the game these 3 mission types tend to become boring and tedious, but luckily this game is short and sweet enough to not become a real burden.
The multiplayer seems like a great feature on paper, but the single player gameplay just doesn’t work with a bunch of other players. Multiplayer works with in both ad hoc and infrastructure mode but playing online only has deathmatch while ad hoc has a variety of multiplayer modes. I was never able to play in ad hoc so I won’t comment on it but online wasn’t the most exciting thing in the world. Online when you win a game your “avatar” infects that other user[s] who played with you, and then they will carry that around at all times in other games spreading your image all around the world. Too bad in the end it seems extraneous. Using the single player gameplay in multiplayer doesn’t work in the sense that when you fight somebody who can do the exact same thing you can do (targeting feature) it feels more like your just trading punches with each other then doing anything that pertains to skill. It just goes back and forth to killing one another; there is no fun in that.
For what it’s worth the graphics are about as good as what you would expect from a game of this size on something this small. Your character looks nice up close and your enemies look great far away. The environments are pretty confined to one place, though they do look like a zombie virus has spread through them while still having dark comedic tone. The zombie models are few and far between but as fast-paced as this game is you won’t really notice. The gore and explosions that happen when you are killing zombies makes it all the more enjoyable and the frame rate is damn impressive considering everything on screen.
The voice acting is mediocre, but ends up doing what it’s suppose to. Make you laugh. The zombies groan and the civilians scream adding what it should, while the game’s background has a consist dose of heavy metal from today’s top metal bands, the likes of Slipknot or El Nino. Though this music really isn’t my bag it does come together well enough to help give the game the right feel.
When you play this game for the first time it gives off a great first impression. But sadly it wears off after time. With more single player mission types and a better multiplayer this game could have been a masterpiece. But with the fast and easy to use gameplay, the quick level lengths, and the down right hilarious attitude Infected is still a game worth playing.