Players step into the shoes of Henry, a man who is desperately trying to make his way back to his family on foot, after crashing his truck and being overrun by the undead. For a mobile game, Into the Dead 2’s graphical presentation is rather impressive, and includes short but well-produced cutscenes and satisfactory voice acting. However, if something sounds too good to be true, it often is – the incredibly polished free version of this game is laden with microtransactions that are heavily encouraged, with frequent prompts to subscribe and pay for additional in-game resources. This significantly marred an otherwise great experience.[sc name=”quote” text=”Into the Dead 2’s graphical presentation is rather impressive, and includes short but well-produced cutscenes”]
An “infinite runner” is basically what it sounds like – the player constantly runs from the start of the level to its end, with the ability to move left and right to line up kill shots and avoid hostiles. You equip a main weapon as well as a backup weapon, and ammo for the two is acquired by running over supply crates that are clearly indicated by smoke and a green light. This setup is well-executed, and tensions rise when hordes of zombies begin to accumulate in front of you and your bullets are depleting.
The left side of the screen is for movement, and the touch controls work well most of the time. There were instances when I needed to quickly change direction, or tried to veer sharply, and my fingers slid out of the touch control zone, steering me right into a pile of zombies, or I’d miss the supply crate I was trying to loot. Other than those minor misgivings, the controls were intuitive, responsive, and carried out my inputs well. The right side of the touch screen is used to fire your equipped weapon and swap between the main and backup weapons. Firing at zombies is easy enough, and it’s indicated your shot will be accurate when your on-screen weapon jerks in the direction of the closest zombie. Sometimes when moving side-to-side these shots can miss, but they’re more accurate than not.
There are a plethora of weapons that can be obtained, and upgrades can be applied to increase a weapon’s various stats. Now, this is where the infamous microtransactions come in – often when a run is completed, you are prompted to either pay for a subscription to the game or spend your hard earned cash on buying in-game resources in an unfortunate pay-to-win fashion. The monthly subscription fee is $11.99, and the resource transactions range from $6.99, all the way up to $69.99 (BEST VALUE!). It also flaunts extremely powerful weapons for you to purchase at the cost of $6.99 to $13.99 as a shortcut, instead of grinding the levels day after day to slowly accumulate resources to purchase upgrades, which are basically mandatory on later levels as enemies become more powerful.
Not only does it dangle powerful weapons in front of you, or constantly prompt you to purchase resources, but it also rewards you with randomly generated loot boxes at the end of each completed level. That’s pretty decent, right? Once you open a loot box and collect your rewards, it will make you an offer that you’ll likely feel you can’t refuse – watch this video, and you’ll get ANOTHER loot box! The video, however, was an advertisement for another mobile game. I was left with a residual bad taste in my mouth, and my spirit violated. After the constant barrage of requests for microtransactions, that was enough. To top all this off, you also possess a resource known as stamina, which gives you the energy to complete “runs”. There is a limited amount of this, and if you fail a run too many times, you will not be able to attempt any more story levels for the day unless you purchase additional stamina with your precious resources.[sc name=”quote” text=”After the constant barrage of requests for microtransactions, that was enough.”]
When not completing levels through the main story mode, there are daily trials that change every day. The trial I played was simple – kill as many zombies as you can on an endless run with an extremely overpowered shotgun. This was actually more entertaining than the main story mode itself, and it rewards you depending on how many zombies are killed before you meet your own demise. But, in typical microtransaction-oriented fashion, the run concluded with an offer for me to buy the shotgun I’d been using in the trial – for ONLY $13.99. By that point, I was done.
Into the Dead 2 looks great on paper – a free, first-person shooter with excellent graphics for being on a mobile device, with tight and responsive gameplay. It’s evident that developer PikPok has put significant polish into bringing this title to fruition. However, I would’ve been happier to have paid a small amount of money for access to this game initially, instead of being constantly bombarded with offers to purchase in-game resources, weapons, and to subscribe to the game for a monthly fee. Into the Dead 2 is a good mobile game, but buyer beware – it is a pay-to-win model that will likely leave gamers who are unwilling to dole out their cash frustrated and insulted.
[review pros=”Well polished game with tight controls and great graphics” cons=”Pay-to-win model and rampant microtransactions.” score=6]
[appbox googleplay com.pikpok.dr2.play]
[appbox appstore id1151220243]
