Injection π23 ‘No name, no number’ Review

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This year, I have been choosing very carefully the games I have been reviewing, as quite frankly, I’m done with PSN cash grabs and amateur hour titles, as such have, in recent years, completely sucked the will to game out of me, pretty much completely. When I first came across Injection 23: ‘No Name, No Number’, I was incredibly sceptical, as such, at least from its screenshots and gameplays, fully resembles the latter. While ultimately, I decided to give it a chance, then I regretted it immensely, as this particular title is hands down the worst game I’ve played in 2019.

Injection 23, as we’ll call it for the sake of this review, doesn’t start off very well. The first thing that hits you in the face, is an image of two flags, which appear to have been stretched from 1×2 pixel count resolution, into 720p, as both the Spanish and the British flag, which correspond to two languages, are so incredibly pixelated that they are a literal pain to look at. While the British flag is not as bad, then the Spanish one is an absolute shambles and it only goes downhill from here, as the second you choose the British flag, to play Injection 23 in English, you get hit with line after line of poor translation.

Sure, not everyone, not even I, is a native English speaker, but if you are investing your time and money to create and release an entertainment product, maybe it is a good idea to invest few more Euros or Dollars into a professional translator, or at least an editor. As the abundance of grammatical errors which Injection features makes the title seem amateur-like and quite frankly cheap. Sure, unlike some games, Injection 23 is not retailing at the £40 mark, but a lowered price tag is not an excuse for lack of professionalism. In the past, I’ve played countless foreign-made games, which retailed for even less than Injection 23, but still manged to come across as immensely professional.

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Once you pull yourself through the subpar translation and the avalanche of visual artifacting, you will then be ready to jump into the gameplay – but not before you complete the tutorial and no, the tutorial is not gameplay based, as it is simply a slideshow, which you can only flick forward. So if you have skipped a page by an accident, then you are forced to keep on skipping, until you return to the page you have initially blasted through. However, once you get yourself accustomed with Injection’s controls, you can then proceed to actually play it and to be completely honest, the core gameplay of Injection is not completely catastrophic.

At its core, Injection is basically a copy of the Resident Evil franchise. You move the main protagonist around somewhat claustrophobic environments, while encountering locked sets of doors, which have to be unlocked using objects found within the world. However, where in Resident Evil all the required objects are quite apparent, as they usually standout from the environment. Then unfortunately, the same cannot be said about Injection, as in most cases, in order to find what you are looking for, you will either have to play using first person mode, or walk along edges while spamming the X button constantly. Personally, I have to say that the latter method works like a dream, as once I started hugging the edges, my progress rate through Injection skyrocketed.

Just like Resident Evil, Injection features some combat and puzzles, but as you might expect, such are all incredibly simplistic, and wonky – to say the least. The less that is said about those, the better, as I feel that it is more important to discuss Injection’s rather baffling graphical user interface, which the title is constantly bringing up to your attention. The first thing that has to be said about it, is that it is massively over-complicated. Instead of using two simple bars to represent the player’s health and stamina, Injection uses two tangled up wires and no, those wires don’t roll into a spool; when either is decreasing – they are simply getting smaller. If they are both an image in paint, that somebody is constantly decreasing and increasing in size and to be honest, watching this in action is quite comical, as you can’t stop but think that somebody is playing along with you and is dragging his/her mouse constantly to keep both your health and stamina the right size.

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The in-game status bar, or rather bars, are a great representation of Injection as whole. It is an overly complex and complicated release, which has been approached from an incorrect angle, by a studio which clearly didn’t have enough resources and experience. The visual façade, while fully three dimensional is disappointingly low-fi, the protagonist, same as all other characters, has strangle head-to-body proportions. Graphics overall are incredibly dated, especially in 2019, and to top it all off, all the in-game animations are simply inadequate. This results in the title’s scares being more comedic and scary, because well, a floating, t-poising zombie is just funny and a woman doing an anaemic front flip in a bathtub, as if she is nothing but a ragdoll being spun around, is downright hilarious.

Ultimately, it feels like the developer behind Injection had just the right ideas, it just jumped way over its head and the result is rather disappointing. Sure, some will find some enjoyment while playing Injection, but in comparison to other indies, even within its price range, it is rather undesirable.I’d love to say something positive about it, but I simply can’t, as in the end, Injection is nothing more than a half-hearted attempt and what was clearly meant to be a major experience and most, if not all, should stay away from this particular title as it is simply not worth your money, nor your time.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Sony Playstation 4 code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.

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Injection π23 'No name, no number' Review
  • Gameplay - 4/10
    4/10
  • Graphics - 4/10
    4/10
  • Sound - 4/10
    4/10
  • Replay Value - 4/10
    4/10
0/10
User Review
0/10 (0 votes)
0/10
Comments Rating 0/10 (0 reviews)
Overall
4/10

Summary

Injection 23, in the heads of the developers was clearly meant to be the next big horror hit, but ultimately it is nothing more than the next nightmare to forget.


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