“Oh great! Another generic zombie game!” I hear you say.

Stop rolling your eyes a second and hear me out.

I was the same. As sarcastic and bitter as an indie gamer watching someone play Call of Duty. The constant bombardment of games that promise to deliver an original take on a zombie apocalypse, but only succeed on shooting the head off the genre, is getting on my metaphoric tits (I’m looking at you Infestation: Survivor Stories.)

My faith has been restored however, with my purchase of Contagion, which now has a slot in my daily gameplay alongside Left 4 Dead 2. It manages to offer challenging team oriented gameplay without Left 4 Dead's competitive and often aggressive social environment, allowing you enter and leave games at will without being labled a "rage quitter". While still a bit rough around the edges (due to it only recently coming out of beta) it offers an array of unique features that help exhume the genre and my love of zombie slaying.

Pressing G will make your character drop all of the ammo they are currently unable to use

Okay, so it isn't the most exciting feature to open with, but one I found it to be very nifty nevertheless (do people use that word anymore?) This is an example of a feature that adds to Contagions team based survival aspect. While it's easy to hoard all the ammo you find, the game is near impossible without working with your team, this allows you to easily make the most of any ammo you find.

Of course, it's always annoying to see a fellow survivor explode like a piñata of ammo when they die, oblivious to the fact that this feature exists. However, this vagueness feels like an intentional attempt by the designers to force players to communicate with each other to make the most out of their resources.

Ammo conservation is what usually decides whether you complete the mission or not. While melee weapons help, the risk of being hit and infected is too high to warrant using them all the time. As such, spreading out resources is paramount - lest you have a one man army who then gets infected and takes everything with him. I'm shy when it comes to using my mic with randomers, for fear they will judge my coarse Scottish accent. However, this feature has made me use my mic more times than I would be comfortable with and I'm thankful for it. Even if the people who have to listen to me aren't.

While nothing special on its own, combined with randomly generated maps and the explorative push of the game, progressing becomes something of a treasure hunt

Another example of a nifty little feature that I find myself using my mic to communicate for. An instance of it is action is in a mission in which you must escape a prison filled with zombificated vagabonds. During this, to get out of the the various cell blocks, you must hunt down guard control rooms and find the cell gate switches. Easier said than done with the map varying every play through and instructions sent through texts that are more vague than a teenage girls Facebook status update.

From the guards room you can the huge horde of zombies waiting on the other side. Similar to an event on Left 4 Dead, you and your chums better be ready to be knee deep in zombie gunge when you flick that switch.

The thing that separates Contagion from most other “survival” horror games is the fact that you are not immune from the zombie infection

This of course means survival is less about running through a bunch of zombies with a frying pan and more about awareness of your surroundings, teamwork and ammo conservation. Not only do the zombies hit hard, but medkits are extremely limited. You won’t be hearing “PILLS HERE!” upon every room you check. You can go through the whole game having been only hit once, only to find yourself zombificating as reach the finale. Instead of being frustrating however, it gives you the sadistic pleasure of being able to destroy your teams chances of escaping as well, which strangely enough never seems to induce any rage.

While often more humorous than scary with friends, playing on your own is more tense (although not enough to cause horror veterans to even flinch). The groans of zombies echo around you, and with no cover fire, you are forced to constantly keep an eye on your surroundings. Those of a nervous disposition*, such as myself, will find themselves running frantically from seemingly endless waves of zombies or shitting themselves when one of the buggers manages to creep up on you.

(*pussies)

Contagion basically says to players “Work together, or die.”

You're forced to care about the well being of your team mates - Having a stupid survivor team mate is better than having a stupid player zombie sneaking up on you. This is never so much as to cause frustation enough to quit if a teammate proves to be a complete n00b though, mainly due to satisfaction of being able to then infect said n00b as a zombie if they get you killed. There is just as much fun in purposefully getting infected to you can nom on your team mates as well.

Objectives sent through your phone are obscure and often require you to thoroughly search areas. This inevitably requires players to cover each others backs, escpecially with the player controlled zombies being like undead ninjas. As mentioned before, the game has subtle ways of forcing you to communicate in order to be a successful team. At the end of the day however, dying is just as much fun as living which takes a lot of the edge off.

In “Survivor” mode it is only a matter of time before you are bitten and turn on those you are trying to save

You and your team-mates begin spread around a map with a phone in hand. Very soon your phone conveniently rings and a sat nav directs you to an NPC survivors holdout. The action begins as soon as you enter the house with a frantic rush to find the survivors/weapons and bar up the windows with a nail gun/wood. Before long you will hear poundings and groaning all around the house and you and your teammates must organise yourselves in a way that all the main entry points are covered and that ammo is being used conservatively as possible.

As with all game modes on Contagion, being infected plays the central role in making it stand out from experiences in similar games and is what causes there to be a “rush game mode” aspect. With infection being inevitable, the difficulty of the game mounts as your team mates become zombificated (which is rather enjoyable).More so than any other game mode, keeping track on team mates well being is crucial - should you not do so, you will find yourself taken off guard when a team mate goes to “provide cover”, only to hear a loud grunting noise and the screams of the would-be survivor.

When you die on last man standing, you respawn as a controllable zombie

The main problem I've has with Last Man Standing in games has always been the mind numbing waiting for everyone else to die as you spectate. Not on Contagion!

So someone sniped your head off while you were picking up a shotgun. R.I.P ...

or not.

You respawn as a zombie, hungry for revenge/brains and you know exactly where to find it. This helps reduce the impact of those camping bastards.

Winning a game is decided on the delicate balance on finding good weapons and knowing when/when not to shoot them. Killing a player with a gun is all fine and well, but now everyone knows which area you are in, you have attracted a horde of mindless undead and now have a player zombie intent on revenge.

Contagion excels at throwing players into the unknown, even after multiple playthroughs of the same map

While the game keeps the basic layout of each map the same - through clever use of randomized locked doors, keys, switches and fires - as well as only being offered one vague objective at a time through texts to your phone- you never know exactly where you will end up.

This also provokes an exploration factor (something that I feel Left 4 Dead could do with utilising more) - With guns, ammo and medkits scattered haphazardly around the map, and a hell of a lot of zombies to kill, players are forced to check every nook and cranny, lest they miss the AK-47 that some fool decided to flush down the toilet.

You rely almost entirely on sound to find your next kill

The first time I became infected on Contagion I thought "How the f*ck am I supposed to find people?" True, there are footprints on the ground which will lead you to the general area of the survivors, but after that you are all ears. More so than any other game I have played, I truly feel like a "real" infected on Contagion.

As a survivor, shoot a gun in the wrong place and before you know it, you'll be up to your balls in mindless undead - Killing something with a shotgun may be easier, but by doing so you’re essentially pouring gravy all over your head and shouting “Dinner time!”

It isn’t just the zombies that rely on sound. In the last man standing game mode, survivors also rely on noises to find and eliminate each other. It is a tense affair and the hunter will soon become the hunted if not subtle about killing their prey.

Every hit you take has a chance of infecting you, eventually turning you into a controllable zombie with the goal of infecting your former companions

Here we are. The feature which influences every other feature and makes Contagion the joy it is. Being infected.

You will know when you are infected - Your heart will race, your screen will turn black and white and begin to blur - however, your teammates will not. At least until you claim to go check a room and come back a groaning infectious monstrosity.

Like a classic game of “who done it”, you cannot trust your team-mates, yet rely on them to overcome the challenging obstacles the game throws at you. It is this conflict of trust and distrust that creates the screams of death and laughter throughout the game and makes it such a joy to play. Just as you think you’re safe, your good friend Barry who was "watching your back", grabs you and starts chomping on your neck.

God damn it Barry.