"A fun, mindless game but it's too short for the price"

Infected had interested me when it was announced but a few things had held me back from buying it. Reviews had stated it was short and it was made by the people who did Bloodrayne which I really didn't like. However, I then read it had Slipknot music and then I found it for dirt cheap used at Blockbuster. I do feel like I was slightly ripped off after I beat the game...

New York City has been infected with a virus. You're Officer Stevens and you are immune. No one knows why or how but your blood can't be infected and your blood hurts these zombies. So cause mass damage to them and then spray them with your own blood to destroy them. I know it sounds silly but the plot is entertaining. The cut scenes are often humorous but the plot never advances far from what I said. Think Resident Evil light when it comes to the plot.

The graphics in the game are actually rather good. Not a wide variation in the enemy models but there is a nice selection of playable character models. The levels look good, a lot like NYC but missing something that makes it not feel like NYC. Blood splatters in a super cheesy way, some of the enemies look bad, like the yellow glowing things. It was never explained why some random enemies appear that way. I had no slow down or anything like that, even when the blood was flying and around 10 or more enemies were on the screen at a time.

The sound in the game is surprisingly good. The voice acting is good; I had no problems with it. One problem I had with the voices is that not all of the stuff is subbed which kind of sucks because I play the game were I get interrupted with stupid comments which means I can't give 100% to what's being said. The sound effects in the game are nice all around. Chainsaw sounds great, guns sounds pretty good, not realistic but they all sound different. The music in the game is from Junkie XL, Chimaira, Illnino and Slipknot. I like Slipknot but I didn't care for the other stuff in the game. It was decent but not great. The Slipknot songs aren't even the best available ones.

The control in the game is good but there are a few problems. X shoots your damage weapon. Be it a chainsaw, shotgun, whatever. The square button shoots your blood gun or whatever the game calls it. So the game goes something like X, X, X, X, square. Really simple. Lock on is the R trigger. L brings the map up and you can move around on it by using the analog nub. I found this the best for getting through cleared zones. Circle is used for running. I don't know what triangle does but I think it changes weapons. Left and right on the d-pad switches weapons and up and down is used for the 180 spin. It works well but I wish there was a button used just for your throwable power ups like grenades and stuff.

The game play in Infected is so simple that it just might hurt your brain. The game is made up of 35 missions. Each mission has an objective. Let's run through those real quick. One has you protecting X amount of people. This tends to be simple except the final mission which has the idiot running into your gun blasts and into enemies hands and seems to be the only person you can kill. Next up is the rescue stages. These have you running around collecting people and getting them to a helipad and sending them away. Now, by gather people I mean touch them and they join into you so you don't have to worry about a stray getting slaughtered because he got caught on something instead of following you. The third and probably my favorite is the always fun kill everything.

Now the catch to these missions? Well they have three ranks. Gold, Silver, Bronze. You MUST get a medal to advance in the game. The game always gives you four missions to play in any order you want, four more are unlocked when you complete those four. This is until the final 3 stages which come as singles. Now, each medal has specific conditions. Some might be kill everything in a minute and a half. Others might be save 15 people. It gets more complicated later on like save 15 people in 3 and half minutes. And by save them it means you can collect them and put them on choppers or just hold onto them. However, if you die then you lose everyone for good so pick your fights. On another side note, I never had to use a life in the game. You get 2 for each level but I never died by zombies. I usually lost by time or not getting enough people or whatever.

The levels tend to be of average size. Not impressive by any means but enough places to play around in. The locations hardly look different though and you revisit Time Square a lot. The different types of missions keep it all alive and each stage has its own odd little story tidbit. Not a real story but a few funny sentences about it. Game play is very simple and arcade like though... It even has power ups in the level. You start with a hand gun and as you do combos and stuff you get items that have been dropped like chainsaw and stuff.

The game does feature a character creator. It's limited but it does offer a decent variety for you to pick and match from. This is also used for online play which is cool. You infect others players games with your character. If you beat them in an online match, which are all one on one, then your character has infected their game until they either beat you or until they beat three levels in the game.

Replay value can be high in this game I guess but it all depends on if you can play online. The game took me a just over 2 hours to beta. That is not a typo. Two hours just isn't long enough. The game does offer extra characters to unlock but why? I hear online play is hit or miss. Being only one on one takes a lot away and the fact that it's so easy to uninfect yourself it kind of ruins the point. I've also heard that the game has its fair share of people who skip out as the timer runs down which isn't fair.

Overall I have to say that Infected is not worth picking up. Perhaps if it has more of a story mode and less of an arcade feel it could have been better. You also can't expect people to pay $40 for a two hour long game when games are much longer by today's standards. If you can rent this game then rent it because it's good enough for a quick rental but not worth buying due to its length. Despite that though it is a decent game, above average if you ignore the length. It is a 3rd person shooter so if you're trying to decide between Infected and Coded Arms? I say go with Infected even though it's a lot shorter but does offer the online factor.

Story - 7/10
Graphics - 8/10
Sound - 9/10
Control - 9/10
Game Play - 8/10
Replay Value - 3/10

Final Score - 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/09/06