Infection Rate Demo

Survival games are on the rise for a few years now, especially after the modern engines have made it so easy for the developers to incorporate procedurally-generated environments. Hence, it’s a lot more fun when you can play through the game multiple times without seeing the same maps twice. On the other hand, the gameplay mechanics are still the most important elements in the genre.

Infection Rate is a third-person survival game with shooter mechanics, in which your goal is to get out alive from every level by any means necessary. You get to use a variety of guns in order to achieve your goal, as well as tackle many enemies that block your path. Unfortunately, the game has severe issues in almost every department, but especially when it comes to controls and mechanics.

To begin with, the third-person perspective is not horrible, but it has serious shortcomings in this case, mainly because the controls make it extremely difficult to rotate your character and make him face the desired direction. The shooting is very inaccurate, since the crosshair is rarely moving according to your input. Thus, frustration takes over from the first minutes of gameplay.

The zombies are very badly coded as well, given the fact that all they can do is charge at you whenever they make eye contact. It’s very easy to avoid their attacks, on the other hand, since a single step backward is enough to dodge their claws. On the other hand, it’s just as difficult for you to hit them, so the whole thing is a mess in this regard. There’s even a co-op mode promised for the full version, but many other components must be fixed before that can become a reality.

As far as the graphics are concerned, they are usually not that important if the rest of the gameplay is fun, but that is obviously not the case here. The game looks like a 2001 title, especially in terms of lighting and animations. Granted, this is an indie game, but even so, a bit more work in the level design department is definitely required.

In the end, it’s difficult to recommend Infection Rate to anyone in its current state, but then again this is not the final version. Hence, we can only hope that the developer is going to make tremendous improvements in the following months, otherwise the full game won’t be worth the bother either.