Infestation Review

You were afraid of bugs when you were a kid, weren't you? Well, in Infestation, you can kill bugs to your heart's content... And I don't mean you get to kill those small, measly ones; no, you get the opportunity to slay monster bugs. Don't be afraid, they aren't as bad as the creatures in Starship Troopers movie or disgusting as a potential product of H.R.Giger's mind, they're more like metallic spiders and centipedes; If the bugs scare you, and you are a winer, you can always hightail it out of there and forget about saving humanity against the general alien invasion.

Basic storyline pursues traditional Science Fiction clichés. In the distant colonies, aliens are attacking several planets, stealing goods and killing colonists. To make things worse, cheeky aliens have a tendency to spread to other planets and endangering more colonies. Instead of a complete star fleet, humans have sent a single hero to put those aliens in their place and introduce them to his plasma cannon. The hero has, at his disposal, an all-terrain super-vehicle.

A giant robotic monkey!

Time to upgrade...

In Infestation, the player drives an upgradeable buggy. These add-ons are supposed to help negotiate different types of terrain (water, severe mountain terrain, molten lava, etc...), and confront the alien onslaught. It is an experimental vehicle, named ACAM. It can be transformed into different shapes (six of them, to be precise); you can turn it into an aircraft, or even a hovercraft.

This game gives you the opportunity to kill hordes of aliens with your flashy weapons, and at the same time collect chief resources: Crystals, Energy Spheres, and occasionally some lost scientist wandering the map, that hasn't yet become a snack for a wandering alien. When it collects enough crystal resources, ACAM can stop at a nearby base and improve its arsenal. That's not all, because you can choose new weapons, improve current ones, and install auxiliaries (mines, proximity detonators, radars, etc...) witch will help you to dispose of those rotten intruders with more ease. Energy Spheres are the chief boost for the vehicles energy. The energy regeneration can also be achieved by picking up Medi-Packs that are left over after you waste an alien pest. It is not enough to shoot a vile alien to get a medi-pack out of him; you have to blast him into pieces. The scientists are used to maintain the base and open the Warp gates. In the beginning of the mission, you should definitely collect a few scientists, (simply run over them, you wont kill them). When you come to an interested object, or if the mission requires you to drop them off at a specific compound, you simply kick them out of the buggy. But careful, because once you kick them out, you wont catch them so easy as the first time. They will run away from you as if you were the devil himself! Or was it my driving...

Driving the ACAM, and shooting with the vehicle is fun, because the controls are simple. Any rookie can concentrate on destroying the enemy, instead of having to fight the vehicle controls. There are even strategic elements of the game, which the player has to explore in order to succeed in some of the 30 missions. For instance, you have to plan the assault and capture of an enemy base in one of the missions. You wont succeed if you come in blazing; you have to draw the enemy out of the base one by one, retreating tactically, diminishing their number, and then attacking the compound center.

Judging by gameplay, Infestation resembles the old Zipper Interactive's (developed Mechwarrior 2) ReCoil. The game features a pleasant 3D engine, which smoothly textures the weird alien terrain. It simultaneously shows masses of strange creatures, huge explosions, and man made creations on the same screen. Many 3D engines can barely cope with objects in air and shooting-like when the character is in the air shooting down at his opponents. The buggy can, on the other hand, fly, bounce off rocks, and roll firing at the enemy all the time thanks to good target acquisition and lock-up system. Unlike other games where physical laws and character motion is often unrealistic, Frontier Developments programmers have used these 3D flaws and turned them into a plus. If you, for example, speed the buggy toward a boulder, press turbo, the vehicle will bounce, turn 360° degrees and land on its wheels. It wont be damaged, either... Such "special effects" increase the pleasure of the arcade ride. After all, you are on an unknown planet...

The engine takes the distance and level detail into consideration based on the speed of the computer (and the 3D card, of course) on which you are playing. This unfortunately means that the game quality depends on the computer configuration.

The little details in the game deserve special attention, like detailed levels, which are connected with a series of non-linear Warp teleport routes. Using them, the player can enter new levels, or return to finished ones. You are probably wondering why would anybody want to go back to a completed level? Well, on some parts of the planet, the car power-ups are scarce, and since they respawn on the same places all the time, it's easier just to go back and get them. There are also some secret passages on the planet, making the game non-linear and less than easy. It is often necessary to solve puzzles in order to reach a secret alien base, or pass to the next level. Infestation didn't get a lot of publicity when it was released, but it definitely deserves attention of every action/racing fan. It is well designed and has a certain amount of challenge in battle as well as some serious driving; it also has a fine atmosphere because of relatively good graphics. Infestation has enthralling gameplay, especially since it requires some brainwork, unlike other shooter games we have on the market. A small vehicle tumbling around cannot be compared to Quake or Unreal games, though. But do we need another FPS clone race-like game? I think it would be much better to consider Infestation as something new, fun and cute; a game with insects and power-ups for a funny car.