Infestation (2000)
Genres:Adventure, Shooter, Arcade, Racing
Themes:Action, Science fiction
Game modes:Single player, Multiplayer
Story:Drive (and fly) your upgradeable transformable ACAM buggy to save other humans and defeat the alien menace.
Vote to bring this game to GOG and help preserve it.63
This was one of my first PS1 Games and looking back I still am amazed by how much this game had to offer:
There's 22 unique, fully traversable(!) and sometimes blowupable planets. The missions did spike or dip heavily in difficulty here and there.
You can unlock 5 modes for your craft and 15 types of weapons and grenades total, most with multiple upgrades you can find while scouting during your missions. Finishing the game gives you a neat little extra for your next go.
A great variation of enemy types provides plenty of resistance to stop you in your tracks and ample canvas for target practice.
It also sports a banger soundtrack IMO (If anyone knows who made it, please add me and let me know!).
Emulating it or having the Windows 95/98 version run on modern systems is a bit of a hassle and I'd love to play it again smoothly as well as have other people experience its slightly wonky charme. I also think it has never been released outside of Europe back in the day.
Infestation is a hidden gem that combines sci-fi vehicle exploration with exciting combat. It has a vast universe, the ability to transform vehicles, hidden surprises, and planetary exploration. All of these things make it stand out, especially for its time.
As a kid, I spent countless hours playing it, sometimes I played with my dad, which created some great memories.
The game was fun because of its unique mechanics and the challenge of leaving a world with a high rank (achieved by not dying).
Multiplayer added another layer of enjoyment. Playing football with the brain bugs was a blast. Capture the flag was great too. The soundtrack is also fantastic, adding to the overall experience.
Unfortunately, running "Infestation" on modern Windows systems can be a bit annoying, with issues like the vehicle not moving properly. A GOG release would make it easier to play on current PCs and allow access to the music without needing to emulate the original disc. I'd happily buy it, even at a premium.
Pilot a form-transforming vehicle across a series of alien landscapes to repel aliens and rescue scientists in this technically accomplished game from Elite co-author David Braben's Frontier Developments published on PC and PlayStation by Ubisoft (as Ubi Soft) in 2000. It takes lineage from Braben's V2000, Virus and Zarch, themselves slightly borrowing some concepts from old school Planetoid. Loved this game and still keep a W98 P4 PC to run it on (into a CRT - proper retro!).
Back in 2009 Frontier's Michael Brookes said there were "no immediate plans for a new Infestation game" or to put the old one up for download as, "to make it suitable for release now we would have to update the game" and that their hands were full with "a number of projects".
The game used hardware CD key disc protection and 4:3 aspect so a bit of work to modernise and while GOG might be up for that, Ubi may retain some rights and Frontier tend to self-publish all their games anyway which could put a kibosh on a GOG release.
Frontier's Elite Dangerous contains Surface Reconnaissance Vehicles with uncanny similarities to Infestation's ACAM's buggy form and you can even rescue people in escape pods so at least part of this game lives on in modern form.
Digimon WorldDigimon world is a game that allows a player to raise their own Digimon and teach it to battle.Our Pick Top Trending Fantasy Science fiction
Silent Hill 2 (Classic)The second entry in the Silent Hill franchise, Silent Hill 2 is a narrative-focused third-person psychological survival horror game with emphasis on combat, exploration and puzzle-solving elements which follows James Sunderland, a man who receives a letter, seemingly sent by his three-years-deceased wife Mary, in which he is beckoned to the fog-ridden town of Silent Hill at the same time as numerous other people troubled by their past.Our Pick Top Trending Horror Survival Mystery Drama
Silent HillSilent Hill is the first installment in the Silent Hill series of psychological survival horror video games. Unlike earlier survival horror games that focused on protagonists with combat training, the main character Harry Mason is an average man. The gameplay consists of combat, exploration, and puzzle-solving. The controller vibration is used to indicate Harry's heartbeat and will vibrate on low health. The player must regularly enter an inventory screen to check Harry's health, use items, and equip different weapons.Our Pick Top Trending Action Horror Survival
FreelancerEight hundred years prior to the start of our story, bitter conflict divided all of mankind. A handful of colonists struck out on their own to begin anew - far away from the Earth and its turmoil. Several ships were launched with enough equipment and supplies to give the hundreds onboard a fighting chance - but since the area around far-off Sirius had never been surveyed, no one really knew what to expect. What they found was a new frontier of free-flowing natural resources, unexplored territories, great wonders and lurking dangers. Each ship, representing the clusters of people and their earthly place of origin, settled into different parts of the galaxy pre-selected by their ship-board computer to give them the best chance of survival.
Life was hard in the beginning, but over the 800 years the different colonies prospered and expanded their territories, claiming more and more systems for their own. Survival and propagation eventually led to growth and profit as each of the colonies developed specialties and fostered commerce. As the colonies grew and time passed their connections with their roots on Earth dwindled and they lost their memories of the conflicts of the past. Soon their attention was dominated by new, more immediate conflicts. Feelings of lost ancestral connection spurred anachronism in the look of the great cities, and created a somewhat distorted image of each colony's cultural heritage. In the ever-expanding outer edge of the territories, frontier lawlessness prevailed.
The Houses: Each shipboard colony that left Earth carried some memory of its origins in its name. The Liberty carried Americans, The Bretonia flew from The United Kingdom and surrounding territory, The Kusari from Asia, and the Rheinland launched with Germanic cargo.
As each ship settled and colonies began to expand, they knew little about each other and their advancing development. Finally, little by little, the individual colonies found each other and began to set up trade routes to link their systems for commerce and solidarity.
Today, with each colony firmly rooted in its respective corner of the galaxy, the colonies rely heavily on each other for trade and industry but also compete for resources and new territories in the Border Worlds. The colonies mandate member governments in "The New Alliance" within the Sirius sector. To control conflicts, each colony has forged alliances and treaties with others as they have grown. Competition remains fierce, however. Struggles rage for supremacy in business, commerce, resources, power and control. There can be tenuous peace between colonies' political agendas, but the grabs for holdings constantly unsettle the volatile frontier.Our Pick Top Trending Science fiction Sandbox
Black & White 2In the game, the player takes the role of a god called from the void (nothingness) to help those who invoked them. However, the player is not an omnipotent style god, but rather a god who rises and falls with his believers and the player must help develop their nature according to their good or evil desires. The player also has a creature, their physical representation in the world, which takes the form of an anthropomorphic ape, lion, wolf, turtle, cow, or tiger. Its physical manifestation can grow to an immense size, and adopt a good or evil persona separate of the player's. They develop their character as the player rewards or punishes their actions. In addition to the god simulation and city-building elements introduced in the original Black & White, Black & White 2 also features elements of real-time strategy gameplay, with the addition of controllable warfare and fighting units.Top Trending Action Fantasy Comedy Sandbox
Max PayneMax Payne is a man with nothing to lose in the violent, cold urban night. A fugitive undercover cop framed for murder, hunted by cops and the mob, Max is a man with his back against the wall, fighting a battle he cannot hope to win. Max Payne is a relentless story-driven game about a man on the edge, fighting to clear his name while struggling to uncover the truth about his slain family amongst a myriad of plot-twists and twisted thugs in the gritty bowels of New York during the century's worst blizzard.
The groundbreaking original cinematic action-shooter, Max Payne introduced the concept of Bullet Time in videogames. Through its stylish slow-motion gunplay combined with a dark and twisted story, Max Payne redefined the action-shooter genre.Top Trending Action Thriller
The Operative: No One Lives ForeverNo One Lives Forever is to be a fast-paced, story-driven first-person shooter that delivers over-the-top action, outrageous villains, and wry humor in the tradition of the great 1960's Bond films. You play Cate Archer an undercover operative for MI-Zero. Your mission is to arrange for the defection of a prominent East German biophysicist that goes by the name of Otto Dentz. However things go wrong when a terrorist group known as the HARM abducts Dentz during a flight to England.
Assume the role of Cate Archer, an operative working for UNITY, a secret organization fighting to free the world from the clutches of H.A.R.M.. From tense subterfuge to in-your-face combat, No One Lives Forever ups the ante with 1960's-influenced spy action, vivid international locates, and deadly arch villains.Top Action Comedy Stealth
Final Fantasy VIIFinal Fantasy VII is a role-playing game set in a post-modern, steampunk world where technology and fantasy elements coexist. Players control Cloud Strife, an ex-soldier who joins the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE to oppose Shinra Inc., a corporation draining the planet's life energy. The game features turn-based combat with an active time element, a customizable Materia system for abilities, and unique Limit Break attacks for each character. Players explore 3D environments, engage in various mini-games, and uncover a complex plot involving Cloud's mysterious past and a powerful threat to the world. As the story progresses, players gain access to different vehicles, allowing them to explore new areas and uncover additional content.Top Trending Fantasy Science fiction
American McGee's AliceShortly after her second adventure, Through the Looking-Glass, Alice's house is burnt down by an accidental fire, killing her family and leaving her as the only survivor. As time progresses Alice loses touch with reality. She is institutionalized in Rutledge Asylum, where she is observed and treated by Dr. Heironymous Wilson. Alice's only possession in Rutledge is a stuffed rabbit. Ten years after Alice was committed to Rutledge, she finds herself sucked back into a Wonderland that has been twisted by her own broken mind. The White Rabbit summons Alice to aid a radically altered Wonderland, which became a twisted version of itself as it came under the horrible rule of the Queen of Hearts. The Cheshire Cat serves as Alice's companion throughout the game, frequently appearing to guide her with cryptic comments.Top Trending Action Horror
No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s WayA year after the first No One Lives Forever, tensions are rising between United States and Soviet Union over the tiny, but strategic Isle of Khios. Jones, now the sole Commander of U.N.I.T.Y. (after Smithy was discovered to be a H.A.R.M. spy in the first No One Lives Forever), is taking a vacation and leaves Temporary Director Lawrie in charge.
The sequel to the award-winning No One Lives Forever returns you to a world of espionage, intrigue, and dry humor. In her second adventure, British UNITY operative Cate Archer must investigate a super-secret Soviet project that, if successful, could bring about the third world war.Top Action Fantasy Historical Comedy Stealth