Infected

"Good story and graphics can't trump the dull and repetitive gameplay."

The story goes that New York City has been infected with a virus causing ordinary people to change in to zombies. This has resulted in people fleeing from hoards of zombies in the hope of not getting passed the virus via bites. But Officer Stevens is unaffected by the virus thanks to his unique blood – in fact his blood even hurts the zombies.

GAMEPLAY = 5/10
You play as Officer Stevens and you kill zombies by shooting them with handguns, machine guns and rocket launchers before finally killing them with sprays of your blood…as stupid as this idea sounds the story is moderately entertaining thanks mainly to the occasional humour.

Speed is important as your weapons will get weaker if you don't kill enemies fast enough, meanwhile they'll power up if you do kill enemies quickly. If several enemies are close enough you can gain power ups (extra health, grenades, points &c.) and extra points by setting off a chain reaction. Unfortunately neither of these aspects really come in to mind mid play…they just aren't really significant.

You gain money by getting medals and you can spend money on upgrades such as permanent health increases and increases in weapon power, but this system is entirely pointless as you'll be given so much money and so few upgrades that you'll very quickly reach the point where you can buy any and all upgrades the moment the hit the store.

There is a major problem with this game though, and that is that it is both very simple and moderately repetitive. I was only a third of the way through the short 5 hour campaign mode in this game and I was already bored stiff because winning can be simplified in to press x four times in the general direction of an enemy and then press square…the game never get much deeper than that, it's just running around pressing that simple 5 button combo. It's mindless fun for a while, but it very quickly becomes mindless boredom.

GRAPHICS = 8/10
The graphics look very nice, especially considering there's often a lot of stuff going on on screen. The amount of character creation options is very nice and it all looks well polished. The levels aren't as impressive as the character models, but they're still good.

SOUND = 8.5/10
The music in this game is very appropriate to the mood, theme and style of the game and it all sounds pretty good. The voice acting is fantastic and the sound effects are very good.

FINALE
This definitely isn't a terrible game, in fact it's alright, but I would definitely advise against going out and buying it. If you can borrow it off a friend then you'll have a couple hours of fun, but you can do far better.

Gameplay = 5/10
Graphics = 8/10
Sound = 8.5/10
Final Score = 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 05/05/08

Game Release: Infected (EU, 09/29/06)