Bright Memory Infinite – Spotlight
Bright Memory: Infinite’s Chinese developer Zeng “FYQD” Xiancheng is a solo developer, and he’s managed to conjure up something a little less visually impressive than a typical indie game. A first-person shooter made with Unreal Engine, the title looks stunning and could proudly stand up to a Call of Duty campaign that requires hundreds more people and costs hundreds of millions more to produce..
It’s hard to say how much of the game was made by Zeng himself, but it’s safe to say that things like voice acting and music were contracted out, and Playism is handling marketing and distribution. This is a great showcase for Unreal’s capabilities, from its Blueprint Visual Scripting system, which eliminates the need for coding knowledge, to the wealth of high-quality assets available on its UE Marketplace.
Those of you who are interested in a AAA-looking game at a budget price of £7.19 / $9.99 (that’s the price of its predecessor Bright Memory on Steam, whose owners can get Infinite as a free upgrade on PC) would just like to know if it’s too good to be true and if it’s actually any good. You get what you pay for, and that’s all there is to it.
That doesn’t mean that Infinite is a typical FPS, though. Indeed, it packs a lot into a short amount of time, incorporating both gunplay and melee combat, as well as an impressive array of abilities and upgrades. Visuals that look truly next-gen, with full support for ray-tracing and DLSS and environments that are largely inspired by real rural provinces in China make it distinct from the hellscapes of Doom or the browns and greys of a military shooter, keep up with the lightning-fast action.
The problem is that Infinite lacks a distinct identity, more like a collection of ideas that have been tossed against an extremely high-textured wall to see what sticks. The game has a few decent boss fights thanks to a plot that sees a storm creating a mysterious blackhole in the sky. Although the previous game is considered ‘Episode 1’ and ended in a way that you would expect this game to follow, it feels like this game is a re-tread of the previous one.
Although the two campaigns aren’t exactly the same, the protagonist, Shelia Tan, has had an upgraded character model but still looks like a dead-eyed Asian Lara Croft, even though she’s been given a new voice. It’s debatable whether Infinite’s combo scoring system, which was inspired by the Devil May Cry-inspired system, has been enhanced or expanded over the other, not least because Infinite has ditched it.
Instead, you’ll find some haphazard attempts at variety, such as a terrible stealth section, and a few other isolated insta-fail moments (a couple which turn out to be quicktime events but the unclear UI makes it look like a prompt). Although it’s a bit like a Bond movie, a later scene is a bit over-the-top like something from a Bond film.
If you can get back to the point of the gun, you’ll be fine. You’ll be able to use the guns you’ve come to know and love, including automatic rifles, shotguns, pistols, and sniper rifles, as well as more powerful secondary ammo, which can even grant new functions, like grenade launchers.
Your melee options, including the hack-and-slash Light Blade and the punchy Exo arm that can also grab enemies from a distance, are likely to become your go-to weapons. The only reason you don’t use them all the time is because they have a metre that needs time to recharge. The closer you can get to your opponents with melee, the more effective it seems, especially when paired with a well-timed parry and counter to get past spongier defences.
First-person melee, on the other hand, can be a double-edged sword. Although you can use other skills, such as charging up the blade to perform a move that juggles the enemy for an air combo, there are times when the attack causes you to become disoriented, sometimes facing the opposite direction or losing sight of your target. This can be frustrating. To make matters worse, Infinite’s excessive use of visual noise, such as blood splatters from slashing enemies, makes it difficult to tell where your enemies are firing from or where you are yourself. The most aggravating part of the game was getting blown up in front of me by an invisible grenade.
In the midst of mastering the mechanics, it all ends abruptly. It’s true that Infinite is longer than the original Bright Memory, which could be completed in under an hour, but it’s not by much. It’s true that most AAA FPS campaigns aren’t overly long, but Infinite’s conclusion feels like you’ve just awakened from a dream and have no idea what just happened, and the only reason you’d want to play it again is to get Shelia’s costumes, which aren’t worth replaying just to unlock (the more revealing fan-service options are paid DLC). This is a glorified tech demo at the end of the day, or perhaps the best calling card for its developer to move on to bigger things; at the very least, Zeng surely has an exciting future ahead of him with improved scope and direction.
