Contagion

 PC
User Score
7.1

Mixed or average reviews- based on 114 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 66 out of 114
  2. Mixed: 23 out of 114
  3. Negative: 25 out of 114

Review this game

  1. Your Score
    0 out of 10
    Rate this:
    • 10
    • 9
    • 8
    • 7
    • 6
    • 5
    • 4
    • 3
    • 2
    • 1
    • 0
    • 0
  1. Submit
  2. Check Spelling
view
per page
  1. perlbuilder
    Sep 1, 2014
    6
    I just bought Contagion from Steam for only $5 and for the money, it's well worth it. So far though, I've yet to get past single player Roanoke set to Normal. I'll probably end up resetting to Easy and I never play FPS games on Easy!

    The Good. Contagion is fun to play and very addictive. The player is forced to plan ahead and to keep a clear escape route directly behind them.    I just bought Contagion from Steam for only $5 and for the money, it's well worth it. So far though, I've yet to get past single player Roanoke set to Normal. I'll probably end up resetting to Easy and I never play FPS games on Easy!

    The Good. Contagion is fun to play and very addictive. The player is forced to plan ahead and to keep a clear escape route directly behind them. Avoiding damage at all cost. For example, use a grenade or IED at the end of a long hallway after the Z's break through a door at the other end. Pretty cool.

    The Cons. A player takes way too much damage from a single zombie swing. A few swings and it's over. Not good. If you use melee weapons like an ax, there's a good chance you'll be disappointed. To be effective, the melee weapons require fine grained accuracy. Good luck using them without taking any significant damage. I got tagged repeatedly by a crawling Z because I kept missing him with a fire ax. Not good.    … Expand
  2. slumpy
    Aug 19, 2014
    7
    THE BAD

    Movement can sometimes feel clunky, for example, when running and stopping it almost feels like you're on ice, slipping around. There's just something that doesn't feel quite right. However, for the most part, the controls are as responsive as they need to be to make an enjoyable game. The animations are pretty rudimentary, not very detailed and generally look awkward. This    THE BAD

    Movement can sometimes feel clunky, for example, when running and stopping it almost feels like you're on ice, slipping around. There's just something that doesn't feel quite right. However, for the most part, the controls are as responsive as they need to be to make an enjoyable game.

    The animations are pretty rudimentary, not very detailed and generally look awkward. This is more forgiveable on the zombies, because, well, they're zombies. However, some of the animations on the player models could use more than a little work. I'm not sure where the Contagion devs stand on this and whether or not animations are at all on their "to do list", and to be perfectly honest, I can live with the animations as is, but some improvements would make for a more immersive experience. The worst offender in this case is trying to board up windows and doors where the animations will bug out almost every time and don't seem to play correctly, ever.. It doesn't stop you from actually boarding anything, however, so its not game breaking, just immersion breaking (I leave it to the reader to decide how egregious that is, I'm not necessarily looking for an immersive experience with games like Contagion - I recommend Day Z for that) .

    Some of the maps... to be perfectly frank, are just boring. Rananoke PD being (my opinion) the worst offender. It's just so bland and uninteresting, though I honestly couldn't suggest how to make a Police department interesting, and it is a location you would expect to find in this setting for any discerning zombie survivalist. I think, in an attempt to address to the "blandness" of this map, the Contagion devs decided to expand on its concept by making it a virtual prison, complete with tiers and mess halls. I'm not sure how accurate that is of real life as I understand most jails are actually independent of any police station. It also doesn't do much except add to the length of the map.

    Sound effects... Are just not that great. Especially the guns, with the possible exception of the m4 and AKM, are not what I would call stellar. Not much music to speak of, I think the only track is the menu music, though this game, arguably, doesn't really need much in the way of music anyway. It sort of adds to the deadness of the atmosphere and the idea that man's time on earth is potentially up. However, that could just be this authors bias presenting itself as I quite like this game.

    THE GOOD

    - game play. Besides the sometimes clunky movement is really, really good. It emphasizes teamwork and punishes lone wolves (usually with a horrible, bitey death). Even on lower difficulties, without care, you can find yourself in a sticky situation. The emphasis on headshots (a la Romero "head shots only" zombies) and primarily slow moving zombies and the necessity to conserve ammo make for a more interesting and deep cooperative experience than contemporaries, like, say L4D1/2. Attempts to take on the zombie horde lone hero will more than likely result in death. In fact, if you can avoid the zombies altogether, that's usually the better option, again, unlike L4D where you are essentially forced into killing every single zombie that gets in your path. In this way it makes somewhat of an attempt to make it more realistic, ammo is scarce, so don't waste it on a slow moving target across the map that will never catch up to you.

    - Taking ques from its predecessors. This game is, in no doubt, highly influenced by popular games such as Left For Dead. It not only takes into consideration that things it did right, but the things it did wrong as well. Contagion, while similar in many ways, has also carved out its own unique niche, making it a distinctly different game. "Special infected" are handled much like L4D's "uncommon-common infected" such as the riot gear wearing zombies in some campaigns. These make an appearance in Contagion as well, and for a disorganized team, can mean total disaster. In many ways when you see these types of zombies it's more of an "oh **** moment because they are actually hard to deal with. In L4D coop modes I (and most other people) can solo anything without so much as a second thought. Tank? Molotov and run the timer down. There's no such easy options in Contagion, however. Sure, you can run from it, leave it behind, but chances are you're back tracking through that same area meaning you'll have to deal with this fully armored zombie eventually.

    Annnnd I'm running out of space (stupid 5k word limit!), so I'll cut to chase: If you like L4D, you'll probably like this game, especially if you like a challenge and a more "realistic" environment. I would give this game a full 8/10 if it felt finished, but it doesn't... And that's probably because its still under active development with content coming at a fairly regular pace. Recommend it to any zombie fans!    … Expand
  3. Bishop7
    Apr 30, 2014
    7
    Played the game for quite some time now and while I can say it has good to it. It just doesn't have staying power. The only mode I have played, that really captures the zombie feeling, is the escape mode and there is only one map that even allows it, the prison. Honestly these 10 ratings are clearly biased, There is no way the game deserves a 10. If they could make every map have escapePlayed the game for quite some time now and while I can say it has good to it. It just doesn't have staying power. The only mode I have played, that really captures the zombie feeling, is the escape mode and there is only one map that even allows it, the prison. Honestly these 10 ratings are clearly biased, There is no way the game deserves a 10. If they could make every map have escape modes, elaborate on that design a bit. Then they would have something closer to a 10. Animations are rugged, graphics are nice but starting to show their age. Being that way before the game is even final, is an issue. Especially when the game it's self doesn't run very well. Being a dual gtx 680 system, most games should run well and yes I disabled sli to see if there was a difference, nope.. So imho the game is fun and it's a fair buy for 20 bucks. It has some solid ground work and some great potential with the escape mode. With improvements, the game has the potential to be a serious contender but currently it is just ok. That's not such a bad thing though, I have seen people do much worse with much more resources. The team should be proud of the work but should build apon it and try to flush out the dream they had, when initially creating this game. Stop living in the box.… Expand
  4. UberTurtle
    May 10, 2014
    7
    This game, in its current state, is very firmly a 7. It could easily have the potential to be a 9 very soon, but for now it still leaves something to be desired. There are 3 modes: Escape, Extraction, and Hunt. Escape is a very L4D-style run through the map and try to survive. Extraction is basically a take on Horde-style holding a point against waves of enemies combined with escortThis game, in its current state, is very firmly a 7. It could easily have the potential to be a 9 very soon, but for now it still leaves something to be desired. There are 3 modes: Escape, Extraction, and Hunt. Escape is a very L4D-style run through the map and try to survive. Extraction is basically a take on Horde-style holding a point against waves of enemies combined with escort quests. To me, both of these modes are pretty shallow and don't really have much that keeps me wanting to play them more than a couple times.

    The real fun to be had in this game is in the third mode: Hunt. Hunt is an up to 8 person free-for-all where the goal is to be the last person alive. There are zombies everywhere that you must deal with in addition to other humans, and when a person dies they become a zombie as well who tries to hunt the remaining humans. Everyone starts with essentially the same equipment: a random melee weapon and a pistol. A ton of random weapons and ammo are placed around the levels so you're supposed to want to try to fight through zombies in order to secure equipment and be better prepared to take down other players (as well as survive the zombies). In reality, that's not really what happens. The zombies are comically easy to avoid in the beginning of the game because there are usually very few bunched up, which will happen later due to gunfire, and there are no player zombies (the only zombies who really have a chance to catch you while you're running).

    So what happens is that everyone just sprints to the nearest location they know that spawns weapons and hopes for something good. Thus, your likelihood of winning the game is mostly determined by where you spawn and the RNG of the weapon-spawner (unless you do lame it up, which I'll get into later). If you get one of about five different weapons (2 SMGs, 2 assault rifles, or the best shotgun), it is impossible to ever lose a gunfight to someone with a pistol and thus you will simply dominate anyone you see early on who wasn't similarly lucky (which creates a very unfun mechanic of "oh look, the first person I ran into, 20 seconds into the game, had an AR15, I lose... awesome!) And speaking of the AR15, this gun is just brokenly stupid. The other assault rifle, the AK, has terrible recoil and thus is very difficult to kill at a distance with the ironsight. The MP5 is probably the second best gun, but is significantly far behind the AR simply because it has difficulty killing people at range. The AR dominates close and long range. An easy solution to the early gun lottery would be to make strong weapons start without ammo so that it takes longer before that amazing assault rifle you found comes online. It's still RNG, which sucks, but at least it wouldn't feel so punishing so soon into the match.

    There are also a lot of bugs in the game, not the least of which is hit detection and randomly invulnerable zombies. With your melee weapon you can one-shot zombies by using your power attack (right-click) and hitting them in the head. Except sometimes you can't. Sometimes you can hit the same zombie (AI zombie, not even a player zombie) in the head, seeing the blood indicating impact, with your power attack 10 times before it will die. This is a problem because typically you need to move quickly while clearing zombies, and when you melee one you need to keep running so the ones that are chasing you don't catch up. But when the zombie in front of you doesn't go down in 1-2 hits, not only is he hitting you, but the zombies behind are going to trap you, and you're basically dead. So this time you didn't lose because of the early RNG, you lost because randomly super zombie, which is no less annoying.

    Finally, equally a large problem, is that the actual easiest way to win at Hunt is simply to find a hiding spot and stay there the entire round (this is more of a problem on 2 of the 4 maps, but can be done to reasonable success on any of them). Other people who are going for weapons will end up running into other people and getting in gunfights, drawing zombies. Then people will die and those player zombies will hunt the people who are running around (because a: they have a better idea where they are due to gunfire sounds and b: given how long it takes to destroy a closed door as a zombie, it's an extremely unproductive and boring use of time to check hiding spots for players). Thus, you're rewarded for playing as boringly as possible. An easy fix to this problem would be to use a Battle Royale-type system for moving people out of sections of the map routinely. This could fit into the game by being a Walking Dead-esque zombie herd that swarms slowly through the map, bit-by-bit, checking every spot.

    In the end, the game has a lot of potential, and sometimes ends up being very fun, but currently due to a lot of bugs and a few mechanics which don't feel rewarding at all, it usually ends up being as much frustration as fun.    … Expand
  5. Scottixboy
    Apr 18, 2014
    5
    Contagion is just one of those games, you spend all year looking forward to it's release to only be disappointed by a lack of content and reward. Contagion isn't a bad game by any means, it actually surpassed my expectations in a few areas, The game is pretty, the guns feel weighty and responsive and the quality of the assets and map design is AAA quality. My problem comes with theContagion is just one of those games, you spend all year looking forward to it's release to only be disappointed by a lack of content and reward. Contagion isn't a bad game by any means, it actually surpassed my expectations in a few areas, The game is pretty, the guns feel weighty and responsive and the quality of the assets and map design is AAA quality. My problem comes with the gameplay itself, The idea behind Contagion is simple, it's a zombie survival that takes place in large open-ended maps. With a choice of 3 gamemodes, 2 of them being co-op and 1 PVP. On paper it sound promising.
    The game just fails to deliver the experience it promises. The Co-op, while fun the first time, gets boring extremely quickly, you can vary up the spawns and objectives, but it's still the same maps, with the same objectives. The maps are often large and frustrating to navigate, by all means, make large maps, but these maps and littered with blocked hallways, blocked doors and insta-death fire spawns. This becomes very tiresome after a while, the map seems big, but in reality it's very linear. The extraction gamemode I find a lot more fun, you essentially go to a random location and defend it until it's time to extract survivors, this is a lot of fun but also gets boring very fast. The PVP is probably the best part of Contagion, the competative aspect just makes the game so fun to play, yet I still feel unsatisfied after finishing a match, this game doesn't reward you for anything, there is only so much you can take before you just get bored. I will return to this game in the future when they add content, but for now, this game just isn't satisfying to play. I'd only recommend a purchase if you have friends to play with. Otherwise I recommend you avoid this game until it has more content.    … Expand
  6. dolphan
    Jul 22, 2015
    6
    I liked it when it came out, due to the feeling the game gives you, such as great graphics and maps, but nobody really plays the game much any more, and the admins have really left it alone, which is sad due to the promise it had.
  7. Mearehear
    Dec 27, 2014
    5
    An unoptimized, clunky Left 4 Dead that can't decide what it wants to be, with character dialogue that would feel shamefully bad in even a B grade horror movie. Its only plus point being that the zombies are much more like the slow stumbling type most of us associate with the genre, and that require a head shot to be taken down quickly.

    Also, despite your characters looking like fairly    An unoptimized, clunky Left 4 Dead that can't decide what it wants to be, with character dialogue that would feel shamefully bad in even a B grade horror movie. Its only plus point being that the zombies are much more like the slow stumbling type most of us associate with the genre, and that require a head shot to be taken down quickly.

    Also, despite your characters looking like fairly able bodied people, they cannot run from one room to the next without panting, grunting, swearing as though they are a 300kg behemoth that has never seen a days exercise in their life. Nor can they climb simple fences that somehow the stumbling zombies can climb over with relative ease.

    Game aims for realism, but makes an absolute mess of it, while delivering its terrible one liners. Peek-a-boo!    … Expand
  8. Shtern
    Jul 5, 2020
    5
    Помню был очень рад анонсу этой игры, это вроде (улучшенная) Zombie Panic! Source. Ждали ее с другом, но на выходе получили просто шок, а не игру, ну в принципе,то, что сейчас в основном выпускают все разработчики, так вот, после приобретения, с ее то лагами итд, нормально понятное дело поиграть не вышло и не удавалось еще длительное время, пока не обновил компьютер. Когда все таки этоПомню был очень рад анонсу этой игры, это вроде (улучшенная) Zombie Panic! Source. Ждали ее с другом, но на выходе получили просто шок, а не игру, ну в принципе,то, что сейчас в основном выпускают все разработчики, так вот, после приобретения, с ее то лагами итд, нормально понятное дело поиграть не вышло и не удавалось еще длительное время, пока не обновил компьютер. Когда все таки это произошло, там вышло много патчей и обновлений, я не могу сказать что это хоть как то исправило проблемы игры.
    - Игры :
    1.Серверы, типа, в той же ZPS на серверах играет до сих пор по 20+ человек, здесь максимум вроде 12, кайф. А с начала игры, воде 8 было доступно, очень скучно в таких реалиях играть.
    2. Физика игры, я понимаю что ZPS была своего рода развлекательной игрой по сравнению с этой, но блин, как же дубово все чувствуется от управления персонажем, до выстрелов, а про зомби я вообще молчу, даже если его человек контролирует это просто шок.
    3. 0 камуникации с сообществом, игра если хоть где-то и жива, то это точно не на территории СНГ, типа, в игру даже не играют, она просто есть, ее создали, что то добавили, забрали бабки и ♥♥♥♥♥♥ забили, типа, в то время пока люди с других стран хоть как то играли, для СНГ игрока это сплошной кошмар, если он захочет поиграть с людьми, это только дальний уголок света с пингом 200+, очень интересно, а главное честно.
    4.Дух той самой ZPS, его просто тут нет, из-за реалистичности или из-за дубовости, я так и не определился.
    Вообщем, игру я брал в самом начале, то есть, в ее БЕТА выходе, но даже сейчас по скидке, я бы врядли ее рекомендовал, разработчики все сами ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥и, а мы как игроки лишились еще одной классной игры.
    Игра должна была стать духовным наследником Zombie Panic Source, но этого не произошло потому что игра вышла супер сырой и самым большим ее минусом стали сервера, которые в ZPS были на 24+ человека, но здесь их решили сделать от 8 до 12, так тупо. Да круто что добавили зомби ботов, но изначально их должно быть мало или один супер сильный, который превращает одного человека в зомби, что бы было так же играбельно как в ZPS, но нет, мы получаем кучу зомби ботов с людьми, которые легко умирают, да это типа псевдо - реалистично, но до сих пор, в игре нет нормальных серверов и комьюнити которое бы их держало и настраивало, за зомби играть очень тяжело. Но вроде появилась надежда, разработчики не забили оказывается. Будем ждать и смотреть к чему это их и нас как игроков приведет.    … Expand

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
62

Mixed or average reviews - based on 4 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 4
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 4
  3. Negative: 0 out of 4
  1. Riot Pixels
    Jun 5, 2014
    50
    A mediocre commercial remake of 2007’s Zombie Panic: Source. Even 6 months in Steam Early Access did not make it better.
    Read full review
  2. Hooked Gamers
    May 20, 2014
    70
    Contagion is a game that with continued patch support and new maps, has a true potential to be a contender against more popular zombie games out there. However, with the current state of the game I would have to tell the curious buyer to enter into it at their own risk.
    Read full review
  3. GameStar
    May 17, 2014
    66
    It doesn't offer a lot of content, but it's a nice alternative to Left 4 Dead. Contagion won't start a new zombie hype, though.
    Read full review
See all critic reviews »