Andrew Newton reviews Infinity Runner…
Infinity Runner by Wales Interactive is a new endless running game for the Xbox One. The endless running genre has been used on mobile devices for quite some time now and it goes without saying that the most famous of these is Temple Run. Infinity Runner, on the other hand, is quite possibly the first of its genre on console and it certainly sets a high standard for anyone else wanting to do similar.
Once loading up Infinity Runner the first thing you will notice is that it has a storyline mode available. You start by being woken up from cryogenic sleep on a spaceship by a mysterious hologram that appears to you. As soon as you are out she tells you to run and you don’t stop until you’re at the end of the section. Things aren’t exactly how they should be on this spaceship and it is up to you to run through the ship and solve the mystery of what’s happening and why. The second thing you will notice is that it is all first person which works surprisingly well with the genre.
The first two or three stages are simple tuition style stages that introduce you to the perils you face and the controls to avoid them. The controls are pretty simple, LT and RT etc and there is absolutely no awkwardness in using these controls to move your character. My only problem with these tuition stages is that when it is time to learn a new control the information comes up on-screen telling you to press the button now but if you do, you die. What I found I had to do was press the button just AFTER the instruction had gone off the screen. This was especially obvious during the instruction where you have to slide under an obstacle.
Once the tuition stages are over then the difficulty begins to increase and some obstacles are put in with no hint on how to avoid them such as white side exploding panels that killed me several times before I figured out what to do. Often it is a case of trial and error but generally throughout all the different sections of the ship all hazards use the same methods to avoid them.
The different sections of the ship all look like what they are supposed to be although it is all very dark on many levels and I had to turn up the brightness to be able to see surroundings properly.
There are plenty of achievements available and for the most part are relatively easy to collect. Several are based on the data packs that you collect throughout your runs. It is a good little game for increasing your gamer score a bit.
The other mode of the game is Arcade mode. This mode involves non-stop running along randomly generated passages with a variety of hazards to test your reflexes. This mode is basically a high score mode that sees how what score you can gain and distance run using the few lives you have.
Infinity Runner is a nice little game to spend some time on and it does have the quality to make it one that you will revisit. Although it does have some flaws, the replay value, interesting storyline, non-complicated controls and (mostly) easy to gain achievements does make this a fun purchase.
Rating: 8/10
Andrew Newton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnc360pUDRI&feature=player_embedded&list=PL18yMRIfoszFLSgML6ddazw180SXMvMz5
Originally published April 28, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
