Infinity Runner Review

I can pretty much envisage the board room meeting that led to the creation of Infinity Runner:
“So people love space and sci-fi, right?”
“They do, boss.”
“And they love Werewolves.”
“Well, I guess. Twilight was kind of popular, but I’m not sure where you’re going with this…”
“Oh, and people really like endless runners.”
“I mean, five years ago they did I suppose but…”
“Oh, and quick time events, people really love quick time events!”
“Um. How much did you say I’m getting paid to make this? Right, whatever you say then...”

Infinity Runner is pretty much Temple Run in space but with werewolves and quick time events added. Now don’t get me wrong, I quite like Temple Run, but that was a three quid mobile app, not a ten quid release for a home console, and here is where the game falls at the first hurdle (no pun intended). Can it pick itself back up though?

You are “The Prisoner”; an unnamed protagonist who is essentially an Animorph if you recall the ‘90s TV show of the same name. You wake up on The Infinity, a research habitation vessel. You’ve been in cryogenic storage in embryonic fluid for 30 years (eww) and you get awoken by a computer named Riley, who gives you a very brief spiel that pretty much amounts to “no time to explain, just run” at the start of the game. As the game goes on, you learn more about the ship and how it came to be, and just how you ended up in a test tube, covered in amniotic fluid.

If you’re not familiar with the idea of infinite running games the principle is very simple; you run, usually collecting power ups as you go and avoiding obstacles. Infinity Runner sticks to this same principle but also adds a few additional features to the mix. There’s combat, however this is limited to quick time events and quite frankly, I don’t think anybody likes quick time events outside of a David Cage game, so the less said about that the better.

The werewolf mechanic doesn’t fare much better. It’s a nice idea that means you are supposed to be much stronger and faster when it is activated. In reality, all it really seems to mean is that some parts of the game are surrounded by fuzz as your vision is blurred, presumably to emulate a “red mist” type effect, and the game takes control away from you. It’s interesting, but if I wanted to watch someone else play the game I’d fire up YouTube and watch a Let’s Play.

There is a third new mechanic that I thought came out much better. In some sections of the game you are in a magnetic tunnel. In these tunnels, you’re still running and dodging obstacles but instead of sliding and jumping, you are moving left and right to dodge. You have full 360 degree movement and can stick to the walls and roof of the tunnel, much like the old arcade game Tempest. These bits were great, if a little lower on the frame rate due to the limitations of the hardware in the Wii U. If you’re one of those people that gets headaches when the frame rate drops under 60 then you might get annoyed by that. Personally, I didn’t have any issues and found these sections a welcome addition to a game that is otherwise quite repetitive by its nature.

That’s pretty much all there is to the game then. Run forwards through an admittedly quite pretty looking spaceship, collecting rectangles and occasionally getting a bit furry. All the while a chugging pseudo-dubstep number plays on loop. You can do this in an Arcade mode or a Story mode (the former being closer to the endless high-score chaser that is Temple Run). If those don’t take your fancy, there’s also a series of challenges instead. All the modes share the same core gameplay, but there’s enough variance to make them worthy additions to the mix.

Infinity Runner probably won’t win any awards for originality, but it did surpass my expectations a reasonable amount. Yes, it’s Temple Run in space, but Wales Interactive have put a lot of effort into making this game feel more accomplished than the game it draws inspiration from. With some quite nice voice acting, a nice aesthetic and some attempts at new mechanics that we haven’t seen before, some successful, some less successful. Overall though, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.