Are you growing weary of all the excessive realistic immersion that Call of Duty provides? Do you find yourself stopping mid-match in a Halo session in awe of your teammates’ tall and lanky bone structures? Is the sheer size and scope of either games’ death match map simply too large and lacking of definite boundaries? If you’ve answered yes to one or more of the above questions, you may be a candidate for Call of Mini Infinity.
Call of Mini Infinity is the bastard child of a Team Fortress 2 and Halo death match, sporting stripped-down graphics and maps small enough for most agoraphobics to call home. You begin your career with scant supplies—basic armor and an automatic rifle—and over time unlock new talents, items, and game modes using gold and crystals.
A Crystal For Your Thoughts
The various game types in Call of Mini Infinity are standard fare for any gumshoe gamer: 4v4 Death Match, King of the Hill, 1v1 Duel, etc. The more you play, the more you kill, the more you level. Leveling unlocks the ability to learn new talents (passive and active abilities) as well as grants access to new weapons and armor. However, a level alone is not enough for true success… In addition to levels, you’ll need crystals—a type of currency that only seems to drop in onesies and twosies from your dead enemies’ corpses. It was obvious to me right from the get-go that saving enough crystal to buy a new weapon would take me a very long time. Conveniently, you can sidestep said artificial limitation by entering your credit card information at the prompt *scoff*. Yes, sadly this is still a mobile game that depends on micro-transactions for survival.
A Swipe-tastrophe
Like your avatar, every map is small and lacking of detail. You and your teammates are dumped into an arena where you’ll run about shooting each other until you can’t stand it any longer. The interface uses ye ‘ole d-pad to control movement (left side) and firing (right side). In order to look around while running, you have to awkwardly tap-swipe above the fire button while still holding the movement button in whichever direction you want to move. As soon as an enemy appears within site, you’ll need to summon ninja-like reflexes in order to switch to the fire button before you get shot all to hell. Fortunately, the fire button can also be swiped while held down, allowing you to aim and fire at the same time. It gets tempting to just use the fire button to aim, even when not shooting, but you quickly run out of ammo resulting in some disappointing first encounters. In addition to running, aiming, and firing, you also have access to a reload and jump button. Moving and firing is a precarious thing to be accomplished without a mouse or keyboard, let alone trying to jump in the midst of a fire fight.
Spawn, Run, Die
During the few games I played against online players, the game hitched and glitched numerous times resulting in temporarily stalled combat or enemies who lagged in place shooting a wall. It’s impossibly difficult to track all the different motions required to successfully hone in and fire on a target, but luckily it seems there’s a degree of auto-aim built in to help you along the way. If you should die, which you will quite often, you’ll respawn after a short time-out with temporary invincibility.
It should be noted here that, unlike Team Fortress 2, all players do not start on equal footing. Since each character gains levels and abilities independent of the actual match, you’ll encounter plenty of players with advanced skills and gear that make it nearly impossible to get ahead. Leveling and growing your character is a fun idea in concept, but quickly gets frustrating when you’re outclassed on the battlefield with no way to get ahead in the short-term.
The Verdict
Call of Mini Infinity is a decent attempt at a mobile arena style FPS, but just the nature of a tablet interface makes it a bit wonky to play. Add to that the online lag glitches and uber players, and Call of Mini can be a frustrating experience. The slow rate at which you’ll collect crystals and lack of map variety just kills it for me. Call me skeptical, but I just don’t think mobile is a workable platform for these types of games. Not yet at least, and not until we get some sort of newfangled external controller to circumvent all of this d-pad nonsense.
+ Team-based online FPS
+ Talent/leveling system
– Glitches and lag
– Tiny and dull maps
– Ability to level character makes for imbalanced matches
