Review: Zombie Infection

Wholly unoriginal, entirely enjoyable.

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8.8

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If Resident Evil 5 were to be on iPhone, it’d be Zombie Infection. As it stands, Zombie Infection is very much similar to its console brethren in almost every aspect, including visuals, plot, controls and gameplay. There’s little in the way of originality or innovation here, but it makes up for what it lacks by being a surprisingly enjoyable survival horror entry on the App Store. Very few games can manage to be so derivative of its source material, yet be so impeccable in the way it pieces together its inspirations. The result is a game that manages to maintain thorough interest despite its familiar trappings.

You play as Damien Sharpe, a special agent who just lost his brother under mysterious circumstances. His investigative senses lead him to land in Brazil with curious reporter Alex Rayne. In typical videogame fashion, a bigger conspiracy soon unfolds, and Damien and Alex find themselves sandwiched between a zombie apocalypse and an all-powerful corporation whose motivations seem all too suspicious. The team must now uncover the culprits behind the zombie outbreak, as well as find out where Damien’s brother has disappeared to.

While there aren’t going to be many surprises as the plot unfolds progressively throughout the 12 missions, what you find here is still a very decent story that does a fine job of setting up the action. The game takes you through a variety of locales, including a village, a zoo, a mine, a wharf, the interior of a ship, as well as a laboratory. The mix of indoor and outdoor, rural and urban areas allow the game to remain fresh throughout, but more than that, they showcase the amount of stunning visual work that has gone into making this game such an outstanding piece of art. The outdoor-urban wharf levels are the most impressive, with smart lighting effects bringing an entire environment of intricately crafted details to life. And while the levels are largely linear, the environments are constructed huge, with architectures well beyond the boundaries of the playing area receiving the same amount of attention on details as the structures which the players get to interact with. These factors really lend the game a sense of scale and it’s because of this that you’ll always feel that you’re part of a bigger picture.

Unfortunately, the scope of the game is as limiting as it is expansive. There’s great promise in the introduction of a secondary character in Alex but the intrigue quickly fizzles out when you realize that there’s really only one mission in the entire game where Alex is playable. By the end of Zombie Infection, the tale of the femme fatale has already gotten so lost under the plot of main action man Damien that you’re left wondering if the game could have been more epic and better had it dedicated more time to the development of its secondary character.

Gripes aside, the action offered here is a mix of different concepts which have been tirelessly explored and successfully executed in other survival horror titles. The lack of creativity here shows but there’s so much skill and effort put into making all these varying ideas work together effectively that you’d hard-pressed not to at least applaud what Zombie Infection has accomplished. One of the more noteworthy features which I would like to bring out is how the game really tries to involve the player on a number of levels by implementing the extensive use of touch-screen gestures. Twirling and swiping at the touch-screen to wheel open a valve or lift a barrier to the next passageway may not sound like selling points but it shows how much iPhone games have evolved to resemble critically and commercially successful games on fellow touch-screen gaming platform DS. If anything, this feature represents a stepping stone for greater touch-screen innovation in future iPhone games.

As you’d expect, controls in Zombie Infection work very much like the way they do in Resident Evil 5. The game sports the same stop-and-shoot control scheme pioneered by the Resident Evil series though there’s some leeway given. You move your character using the virtual left analog stick but in order to fire, you must first upholster your weapon before entering into aiming mode to shoot. Unlike Resident Evil 5 where you would become immobile after entering aiming mode, Zombie Infection still permits some movement while in said mode. However, your movement is seriously impaired, with the game allowing you to move only very slowly. This measured generosity came in significantly useful in several scenarios, especially when fighting human enemies wielding sub-machine guns as it allowed me to dodge stray bullets while still firing at them. It’s annoying then that you still can’t move while reloading. Some may bemoan the slower-paced nature of Zombie Infection, but survival horror shooters have always been about building precision and tension in gunplay rather than adopting the fleeting run-and-gun experience.

While most levels are indeed about mowing down any zombie in sight, a handful of quick time event set-ups do well to provide a refreshing change of pace. Quick time events aren’t anything new but Zombie Infection combines touch-screen gestures and button presses with such great panache that these set-ups are as intense as they are elaborate. Additionally, there’s the occasional puzzle to solve, but these challenges aren't going to faze anyone with a decent experience in action games. Another feature I like about the game is how you can go in for a splendid kill animation when a zombie is near (re)death. When you have dealt enough damage to a zombie, a red fist fatality icon shows up on the screen. Hit the button and the game briefly switches to a scene where Damien tears off both arms from a zombie or snatches a head off. Granted, this has been done before but it’s still a nice touch nonetheless.

As you progress through the missions, you’ll find an increasing variety of zombies. While you will encounter the common slow-moving versions for the most part, there’re various models of them from those deformed villagers to butchers who will hurl knives at you to construction workers who will not hesitate to assault you with their spades. Later varieties even have the ability to fire at you with their hunting rifles. And every once in a while, the game offers a stronger challenge in mini-bosses – fast-moving zombies with deadlier weapons like chainsaws and increased health. The zombie virus, having been spread to the local zoo as well, means that you’ll see zombie lions, crocodiles and bats. All in all, the game maintains a great arsenal of zombie types, introducing new ones every level so there’s always something unique around the next corner.

Despite the wide variety of enemies, there aren’t as many weapons to dispose of these zombies as I’d like to have. You only have a few offensive options, including your basic pistol, a sub-machine gun, a shotgun and a grenade launcher, as well as your fist. As a result, the gunplay becomes stale really fast and you’re left wondering if there ought to be more ways to put down a zombie. Perhaps the biggest gripe I have of Zombie Infection is how it’s still a very linear experience despite the implementation of so many well-worked features. The option to turn off directional arrows do mitigate the plight but it isn’t so much of a challenge to figure out where the next objective is when there’s only a door which is unlocked in a room.

Beyond the considerably short 3.5 hours single-player story, there’s a survival mode where you’ll be assaulted by endless hordes of zombies. While there’s only one map available for survival mode, the massive multi-level arena adds a much welcomed layer of complexity. Additionally, players can post their high scores onto the Zombie Infection leaderboards.

Final comments
Zombie Infection is a wholly unoriginal, but entirely enjoyable game. There’s a very typical but decent plot here, and the game, while largely linear, consists of visually stunning environments which lend the game a sense of scale. Unfortunately, the undeveloped secondary character is a lost opportunity. The gameplay is an effective mix of different concepts which have worked well in other games and to top it off, there’s a great variety of zombies so there’s always something unique. However, the enemy variety isn’t matched by the severely limited number of weapons and linear structure of the game. The multi-level arena in survival mode makes for a nice distraction from the main single-player story.