Infect Them All: Vampires (ITAV) is a game full of action, enemies, allies, and cartoony carnage. The gameplay is smooth, easy, and fun but it doesn’t just stop at thegame play, it continues on to the graphics and audio as well. With fun gameplay and multiple playable characters this game has a lot of replayability. The number of enemies and their special attacks really adds to the games abundance of fun and let’s not forget about the number of game modes this game has to offer.

If you’re a fan of blocky characters and anime, this game does a great job at mixing the two art styles, this means there is a bit of everything for everyone when it comes to art. If you aren’t a big fan of the art style at first glance, the smooth animations that play off of each character, really adds to the games atmosphere and experience. Getting the animations down pat is one thing, the other is getting the sound effects to line up with the animations and most games do a poor job of this. This game is not one of those games. With its sleek animations and its bang on sound effects, this games sound and video is nearly flawless.

Controls in a video game are extremely important; they can either make or break a game. Who wants to play a game that has horrible controls? Well the good news is, this isn’t one of those games. ITAV plays it pretty safe by using a fairly generic iPhone app control setup and the nice thing is you have 3 choices for game controls (i.e. Joystick, Tilt Fixed Calibration, Tilt Auto Calibration). The Joystick configuration is very generic; you have your move on the left and your ability on the right. While using the Joystick I ran into a few problems with it; first: being if you move your thumb just a smidge too far from the center, your character will stop moving (making them fair game). Second: the way they overlap your transform ability and special ability. If you tap just as you finish eating a person, you will misuse your special attack.

ITAV’s gameplay is repetitive, because the goal is always the same, but this is a good thing for this game. With each level they introduce new and harder enemies to infect/kill. By keeping the game play the same, it allows you to create a game plan that works for you. Each enemy’s difficulty is done by its class (every Special Force guy is the same), and the enemy classes they put into a level together changes your game plan every time. Even which vampire you play as affects your game plan. All three vampires have different abilities, i.e. Archie: Fatal Claw, an ability that allows you to lunge great distances and hurt every enemy you touch (very useful for boosting your combo chain). Elizabeth: Bat Swarm, a circle of bats shoot out from you and hit everyone standing nearby (also good for boosting your combo chain). Achieving a larger combo chain gets you more money when your combo ends. The more money you have, the more you can upgrade your character.

This games upgrading system at first glance seems very small, however, each category is very important for your survival in future levels. You first start playing the game the upgrade screen is unnecessary, because of how easy the enemies are. When you get to level 40+ the enemies are ridiculous, and making sure you have as many upgrades as you can, is important for your survival. The amount of money you get per level is solely based on your combos, if you do a good job at that, you will have no problem upgrading your characters stats.

ITAV is packed with re-playability; let it be the 3 playable characters, trying to purchase all of the upgrades, or 4 different game modes; Campaign Original, Campaign Infinity, Survival, and Blitz. Each game mode has its own unique game mechanics, even though they are similar (full of enemy carnage, and lots of infecting). This will make the gamer in you want to play more and more of the game. Having said that, what makes games even more fun other than mechanics, and story? Achievements! Yes this game uses OpenFeint and Game Center, and their achievements ability, so if you are an OpenFeint user or Game Center user, sign in and start racking up your achievement score.

With plenty of playable characters, and tons of enemies to devour/infect, this game is full of cartoony carnage the whole family can enjoy. With fun music, animations, and well-drawn art; this game scores high on a visual audio ranking chart. Even though the control layout works well for this game, there are some minor bugs that could use fixing (possibly in a future update?), on the flip side you definitely have a variety of gameplay controls. Other than a few control glitches, this game is a must play by any iPhone app lover and or casual gamer.

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