Infestation (Amiga) - A Playguide and Review - by LemonAmiga.com
78Infestation is a 1st person real-time 3D RPG in space, heavily inspired by Aliens, which was released by Psygnosis in 1990. Of the 73 games in the Psygnosis back catalogue, this seems one of the boldest, as an early free-roaming real 3D adventure, two years before the 2.5D Wolf 3D, or Doom came along.
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Production Notes:
Recorded: December 17th 2021
Narrated: September 7th 2022
This was another one of those games which passed me by back in the day, and I'd never really heard of it. I get this confused with Exterminator by Audiogenic, although the two games are not similar. Last year we covered Warhead, which was a 3D space shooter, and I thought it would be fun to try something in the same theme. After searching the Lemon Amiga database, this game popped up. There was only one video of this game online, by WOT Games, so I watched his video and then booted up the game. I also stated the recorder at that time; so that what you see is my first encounter with it; although I cut out some bits inside the base where I was trying to get used to the controls. Having to restart the whole game several times was not intentional, but it shows how difficult it is to get into the base. After leaving the first deck, this is where the WOT Games video ended; so I was just wandering around blindly. Finding the computer room was fortunate, and I made sure to savestate the game inside the elevator so as not to have to do at all again. The last bit of the video is just exploration.
Editing was started as soon as it was narrated, as this is a long video, and it took some time to edit down the footage. The keys controls panel is on the screen for a while, but it doesn't appear in the rest of the video, and these were pasted in from the Lemon Instruction page. I notice today that there is also a hints page on Lemon, which gives instructions on how to active the cooling system in the control room. (It says press F2 in the video, but the cooling switch is actually behind a vent, where you can freeze to death).
Danscore:
If you've played Mercenary 2 or 3 on the Amiga, or even Robocop 3, then this type of filled -n vector landscape will be familiar. This is true 3D, and as such, crawls along on a basic Amiga, and really needs a fast 020 or 030 to get this running smoothly. Back in 1990, first-person free-roaming games were uncommon; Castle Master and Carrier Command along with Indy 500 were perhaps the most well known, and this was still years ahead of Doom. Given a decent machine, the game suffers from a confusing introduction, which means not many players who had the cracks got anywhere with it. Once inside the base, things are not helped by the enemy graphics, a rotating cube thing, the rather stone-like sentinel heads, and the robots look more like Johnny 5. Health depletes quickly, and so does food and oxygen. Luckily we can breath the air inside the helmet even without oxygen, as long as we open the helmet occasionally.
This is not a dive-in arcade SEU, and the shooting feels third class behind the exploring and staying alive aspects. The few puzzles seem unnecessary in a game like this, and I imagine there is a perfect route to completing the game, which can only be found after much trial and error. As such, if players are prepared to hand-map all of the levels, and learn them all, I'm sure Infestation will provide weeks of entertainment. For those who enjoyed Castle Master and just want to romp around and 'do' stuff, this isn't really that sort of game. Like Carthage, you must think way ahead and have an action strategy, all while playing the slow game as quickly as possible in order to save health and resources. For atmosphere, and scope, I give this high marks, but it is overwhelming to play at times and not for those who just want to go in all guns blazing. I give this 7.5 out of 10. It really needed a better intro, and a tutorial, with maybe some info about each deck to give it some narrative.
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