If there's one thing that's likely to get
gamers riled up, it's a tie-in product.
When you have a successful franchise, you
need only slap a name on to a product with
a marked-up price and wallow in the profits.
Given that the third title in the Mass Effect
series has just hit it's no surprise to see
EA and Bioware giving the green-light to an
iOS title, but IronMonkey Studios have gone
above and beyond to make Mass Effect Infiltrator
a game worthy of play all on its own.
Somewhere along the storyline, the mysterious
agency known as Cerberus went from being a
vicious human-first organization with no moral
oversight in its research, to almost being
de-fanged by the series' main hero, Commander
Shepherd.
In Infiltrator you play as Randall, a cybernetically
enhanced soldier produced by Cerberus' research
facilities and predictably things go very,
very wrong, so it's up to you and your trusty
arsenal of weapons and 'mass effect' powers
to alert the Alliance of what has happened.
In a way you can think of Infiltrator as a
pocket-sized version of the full game in that
combat takes less of a direct action approach
and more of a tactical one.
As you run through the game's detailed environments
you'll engage in tactical scrims where the
player is rewarded for quickly dispatching
enemies and mixing up their abilities to earn
'style' points.
This is easier said than done though as the
controls waver between gloriously efficient
to horrifically frustrating.
Randall is ostensibly controlled via a simple
twin-stick system of moving with one side
of the screen and looking around / aiming
with the other.
However, firing your weapons requires you
to be static, placing you in harm's way unless
you've mastered an area and know where to
stand to avoid incoming fire.
Whether you attack with mass effect powers
or your weapons you'll need to select enemies
directly.
Occasionally this is impossible to do with
precision as their target boxes often overlap
and even when you do get the right person
you'll sometimes be provided with a firing
line that intersects with the environment.
Thankfully these are largely avoidable given
correct positioning and judicious use of abilities
like Pull to change the angle of attack.
However, none of this prevents Infiltrator
from feeling like a solid action title in
its own right.
Direct tie-in features for Mass Effect 3 give
you a reason to keep coming back for more
(such as earning research for 'galactic readiness'),
but unlocking new powers; upgrading those
that are already available; and pummeling
your way through a series of challenging tactical
encounters means Infiltrator can be enough
without further incentives.
Mass Effect Infiltrator may not be as polished
as it could be - the story is weak, the controls
occasionally wig-out and the incentives for
replay are entirely personal, but there's
still a solid action title buried underneath.
