Thanks to Ratalaika Games for the code for this game! Infestor is a science fiction game involving a plot of... well, infestors! This game is not set on Earth but on a space colony, 31-5B, which is an Earth-like planet. You, the player, maneuver around as a cute green alien that is on a mission. What is your mission? Gaining control over human inhabitants to take over tasks that are beyond the capacity of your alien body. Infestor contains seventy levels, so you naturally start on level one. The game opens with a shot on 31-5B and then catapults the player to the first level. You are shot down from a pipe and you then see the tiny alien body that you play as as Infestor guides you on how to maneuver the critter and the controls of the game. You enter and exit pipes to complete each level.

The control pad is what moves the alien left and right. B is the jump button. Y allows you to take control of the colonists in a form of possession of their bodies. Taking control of each colonist then shifts the ability from an alien to a human. Colonists, unlike aliens, can move fast and jump high. Unfortunately, sometimes it is very easy to revert from a human back to an alien, thus making it impossible to complete the level. However, Infestor is very gracious with mistakes, allowing you to restart the level if this mistake occurs. Since each level is very short and sweet, this thankfully does not lead to enormous backtracking. It is at times necessary to release yourself from your host; in fact, this is necessary to complete each level. Each human has different abilities as well. Workers are the ones that push boxes whereas ordinary humans simply are able to jump higher and move faster than the aliens. Workers are introduced at level 5. Lives can be lost by landing on spikes or in pits. If a life is lost, there is no penalty. The player is simply sent back to the start of the level and you restart that particular level from its inception. The music and sound effects in this game are trippy and intriguing; somewhat appropriate for a science fiction setting. The main track is an upbeat track with a lot of bleeps and blips and a melodic background. However, it gets repetitive, so I knocked a few points off the music score for that. The sound effects include a cool sound each time you jump, a swooshing sound each time you possess an inhabitant and a sound of a sort of swifting sound each time a life is lost.

The graphics are not spectacular, but neither are they bad. This is a 2D game, so we aren’t dealing with Call of Duty level graphics. But they are pleasant to the eye and appropriate to the setting of an imaginary space colony where the aliens get to possess the inhabitants. As for moral warnings? I cannot give this a completely clean pass morally. First and foremost, the main motive of the game; possessing the bodies of human inhabitants. This knocks off major points in the occult category by itself. Could I be being too worrisome since it is a fantasy setting? I suppose that is possible but to me, anything with possession in it raises huge red flags, even in a setting like this one. The ESRB has a moral warning for fantasy violence and blood and this red flag is warranted; although the blood is not super graphic. The fantasy violence I suppose is covered under the possession that I named. The E10 rating is aptly earned. In spite of the moral warnings, I still recommend Infestor. It’s a fun game that is pretty simple and the music is hard not to like. It brought a smile to my face and at $4.99, you’re not breaking the bank to try it either.