Infectonator: World Dominator and Infectinator! are both recognizable names to the many who find themselves on flash game sites in their free time. Starting and urging on a zombie outbreak is appealing to almost any gamer, and the simple yet addictive method of outbreak control in these games is appealing enough to make it one of the more popular browser-based flash series.
Infectonator 2 is the newest in the series, but does it stand out from the rest?
The basic gameplay of the previous games (pay no mind to the ‘2’ in the title) has been carried over with very little change. You send out a wave of the zombie virus to spread infection to passerby, and spawn special zombies or support items (grenades, explosive virus canisters, etc.) to further along your conquest of an area. Once you’ve used all you have available, you watch to see how many you’ve infected or if your attempts have been stamped out by roaming soldiers.
All the stuff you loved before
Nothing has really changed from the main gameplay aside from the addition of a few new zombies to spawn and some support items to aid in your eradication of the human race. With that said, Infectonator 2 does improve over its predecessors with a fast forward button, the ability to zoom in or out, and more varied city maps to take on. There are also some human units (such as Ranbo) who are packing loads of HP and heat that will make taking some areas difficult.
The world map from Infectonator: World Dominator is back. You choose a country, you choose a city, and you set your zombies loose just as in WD. There is much less detail in the map than its predecessor, and the overall size seems to be smaller as well. It feels like there are less stages available, and while I can’t comment on that, they do feel more cohesive to the locations they are representing.
One thing that I do like is that the people running around and being torn to bits have text bubbles with speech in their local language. People in countries like China, Russia, Mexico are more than willing to blab in their language while their peers are being eaten alive. It’s just a nice touch that gives every locale their own personality.
The upgrade system is back from the previous game and there are even more parameters for you to upgrade as you see fit. Upgrading your zombies’ stats is necessary to progress through the game, and you may find that you spend more time grinding for money to spend on upgrades than actually progressing. This might sound bad, but it’s very satisfying to get the money you need to finally max out a stat and watch as your zombies’ new improvements help them rip through those tasty tasty brains.
But way better looking
While everything else feels kind of same-y, Infectonator 2 completely blows the rest of the series out of the water graphically. The sprites are now colorful and detailed as opposed to the 16-bit style sprites used in the previous Infectonator games. I can’t really say they “bring the game to life” because it is after all a 2D flash game about bringing about the zombie apocalypse, but they do go a long way to giving the game a style all its own. It’s just a shame they didn’t put the same detail into the world or country maps.
Those who enjoyed the first three games and new players can find something to love in Infectonator 2, even if it doesn’t stray very far from what the series is most comfortable with. With the new upgrades and huge graphical improvements it can be hard to go back to Infectonator: World Dominator. But, hey. It only takes about two hours to complete your first run (then onto New Game+!). You don’t really have anything to lose.
Published: Nov 6, 2012 05:10 pm