In the likely event you’re not like us and don’t have the time to invest hours (and we mean solid hours) of your life into killing as many aliens as you can muster in ‘Mass Effect 3’, you might want to take a gander at ‘Mass Effect Infiltrator.’

We know what you’re thinking – “There isn’t another ‘Mass Effect’ game. If there was, I’d have already beaten it.” Well, this one actually lives on your iPhone. (Oh yeah, almost forgot. If you don’t have an iPhone or iPad, or some contraption with iOS technology, stop reading and go out and get one, you Johnny-Come-Lately.)

It has many of the same features as its ‘Mass Effect’ big brother, except instead of Shepard, you’re portraying a rogue operative named Randall Ezno. Aside from the decent enough for an iPhone game story line that has you blasting your way through hordes of aliens to find your captured comrade, you have the awesome graphics and music soundtrack that puts you smack in the center of the game’s universe.

‘Mass Effect 3′ players will also recognize the “good vs. evil” side paths. Choose to be either a paragon and help out defenseless bystanders or be a badass renegade who’s incredibly lame to everybody. Not that it matters, though, ’cause it basically has no effect on the game’s outcome.

Your main objective in every level is pretty much the same thing: camp out behind a barrel or crate and shoot things. There will be an occasional moment or two when you’ll have to camp out at the top of stairs and shoot things, but that’s rare.

'Mass Effect: Infiltrator' iPhone game
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As far as iPhone games are concerned, though, ‘Mass Effect Infiltration’ is kind of hard. Rather than a laid back ‘Temple Run’ sort of scenario where there’s no qualms about restarting from the beginning after falling off a cliff, this game will have you screaming the Lord’s name every time you get shot in the face.

Yes, you can be sure you’ll get shot in the face and die lots of times. You know why? Because the controls are a… rhymes-with-witch. Most of the time it’s no issue at all, but in random instances when you’re swarmed by robots, guards and these hulking toad-lookin’ guys who charge at you, and you’ll be asking yourself, “How do you dodge on this thing?” The answer is, you can’t.

Ultimately, this shouldn’t throw you off from at least trying it out. It may not be everything you’re looking for in a ‘Mass Effect’ game, but then again, how much should you be expecting from an iPhone game in the first place? ‘Infiltrator’ is certainly more entertaining than ‘Angry Birds.’

However, the hands-down coolest feature — that’s also probably going to determine the future of iPhone vs. console versions of major video games — is that playing the app can actually help you out in the Xbox or Playstation version. In ‘Infiltrator,’ you’ll come across a lot of these hovering “intel” disks throughout your mission. Though they may seem like nothing, you can either turn them into points to exchange for better weapons or use them to raise your galactic readiness rating in ‘Mass Effect 3.’ How friggin awesome is that?

Rating: 7.5/10

‘Mass Effect Infiltrator’ is available for the iPhone, third and fourth generations of the iPod touch, and iPad ($6.99). The game was developed by Bioware and published by Electronic Arts.

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