I'm currently awaiting my Collector's Edition of Mass Effect 3 to arrive so in the meantime I bought the iOS game Mass Effect: Infiltrator. I've played it a little bit and have a few comments on the game so far.
I'm playing the game on an iPod Touch 4th generation (8GB). I have not completed the game yet so I cannot comment on the length. What I can comment on are how the game looks, plays and feels.
First, this does feel like a Mass Effect game. The environments look right, the sounds are all there and the music is familiar to anyone who's played either Mass Effect game. You're playing as a Cerberus operative inside a Cerberus base which is reminiscent of the opening location in Mass Effect 2.
The game looks really good. I don't play games of this type on my iPod so I didn't know how it would look but it's pretty sharp. Everything I've seen so far looks correct. The various races I've encountered look right as do all the environmental clutter.
The controls work pretty good. I've tried a couple games like this before and I find touch controls to be pretty awkward but this game does a good job of minimizing some of that. I'm able to move around the environments pretty well although I still find it a bit awkward. Maybe more experience with the game will remove some of that but I consider it inherit to the device so I don't really mark this as a huge negative.
Combat is easy due to the controls. When an enemy is exposed and in range of your current weapon you can tap on them to target them. Your character automatically pops out of cover and begins to fire close to the target. It's your job then to make minor aim adjustments to go for headshots to inflict maximum damage. It works quite well. You start with an Assault Rifle and Shotgun and can purchase a Sniper Rifle and Beam weapon from the store (more on that later). You change weapons by using a button at the top right which causes a drop-out menu to appear where you can select your weapons. The same interface is present in the upper left to choose your biotic power. To use the biotic power just tap the button in the upper left and then tap a target. The bottom right features a button that activates cloaking (Something I forget to use). It all really works well and I find combat to be less awkward than general movement.
From what I've seen of the environments so far it's pretty standard Mass Effect stuff. The areas are largely linear with a few side rooms here and there where you can pick up some extra credits. As is typical with cover shooters you can identify when conflict is about to start by the sudden prevalence of cover.
The game features an in-game shop to purchase new biotics, abilities, weapons and armor. Credits can be purchased in-app with real money or earned in-game. Each fight rewards you with credits (based on how well you do I think) and you can find credits in the environment in wall safes and such. It's pretty limited but it's a small game so that's to be expected. You can upgrade most of the stuff, too, so there is incentive to visit the shop and try to find extra money.
During combat enemies also randomly drop intel items. These are just an item you pick up. You can trade these items for credits or upload them to Mass Effect 3 to improve your Galactic Readiness score. I don't know how useful this feature is due to my copy of Mass Effect 3 sitting in a UPS facility about 2 hours from my house. I suspect I won't do this as I'll likely end up playing enough of Mass Effect 3's multiplayer to boost my Galactic Readiness. However, I do fully support this tie-in meta-game stuff and I hope it's the start of more elaborate and interesting meta-game systems for the future.
I won't comment much on the story. It's pretty light but there is a plot. The game also includes various Paragon/Renegade choices but they seem largely tacked on. So far all I've seen are choices where you let somebody live or die (I presume the Renegade choice will result in NPC death, I haven't chosen any). It doesn't given the feeling these choices make any big of difference. I haven't encountered anybody I recognize (yet) although the Illusive Man was naturally mentioned a time or two since you are in a Cerberus facility. The tone of the facility director seems rather familiar for a Cerberus higher-up so that is at least consistent with past interactions with Cerberus in Mass Effect 2.
The game isn't perfect, though. I have a couple complaints. The first one is pretty major. It crashes quite a bit. The first time I tried to access the shop it crashed. I had it crash when trying to resume my game. I once had it go unresponsive (though not crash) on the Resume/Chapter Select screen which forced me to use the iOS kill app feature to close it. Worst of all, though, I've had it crash at least twice in the middle of gameplay. The reason I'm here now composing this post is because it crashed mid-game and my battery was low so I stopped playing to charge the device and compose this post. I don't know if it crashes due to bugs or because I'm using a less powerful device. iPod Touch 4th Generation models are supported, though (as are 3rd Generation models) so it really shouldn't crash. Crashes are bad.
The other complaint is relatively minor. The is a bit expensive for an iOS game. I'm used to the $0.99 - $2.99 iOS
games and this one was $6.99. At this point I do think the game is fun
but I'm not sure if it was worth the price. That will depend on how long it ends up being and how much I replay it. At some point in the future the game will be on sale and that would probably be the best time to
pick it up if you are interested at all in it. Most people who would care are likely already playing Mass Effect 3 anyway so I imagine waiting won't be too difficult.
My final very minor complaint is the game doesn't really have the usual class roles. I play an Adept in the main Mass Effect games but the biotics in this game are secondary abilities here. You will kill most enemies with guns. There's also the cloak ability but I don't think it's going to let people play as an infiltrator (despite the title of the game). Most glaringly missing are any sort of engineer abilities. The game is fun even without the clear roles but still I'd rather having biotics my primary method of damage and guns the secondary cleanup damage.