Infection Review

Infection is a simple puzzle game where you play as a virus. You start off in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, and you have to spread your contagion to the entire board. To do this, you've got to change colors to match the other viruses around you, thereby "infecting" them. It sounds simple, but you've only got a limited number of moves to infect the whole board, and it takes some thought to pull it off.

We were a bit put off when we started the game, as there were no instructions telling us how to play. Luckily, the game doesn't have a very steep learning curve, so you can pick up the rules quite quickly. The controls are dead simple--you just tap one of the 5 colored buttons at the bottom of the screen to switch hues.

At first, the life of a virus is easy enough. You start off with a board of 90 viruses, with only four colors to worry about. But it doesn't stay that easy for long; as you progress, more viruses come into the picture to vie for the title of top germ, the number of moves you get to infect the board are reduced, and more colors are added. It takes a good deal of strategy to progress past the later levels, where switching to the wrong color at the wrong time can cost you the game.You earn bonus points if you complete the game with moves left over, which in later levels can be very difficult.

Infection's graphics are crisp, simple, and not at all distracting. The music gets a bit old after a while, so it would be nice if there were more songs, or better yet, you could listen to your own music during the game.

All in all, Infection is a good game for 99 cents, and it's one of the more unique puzzle games we've played on the iPhone.