What do you do when the city you love is overrun by a horrific virus that transforms the city's citizens from peace-loving folk into a teeming mass of flesh-craving zombies? If your answer is that you grab every weapon available to you and start turning the tops of their undead heads into canoes, then you're just the type of person Majesco Games' upcoming third-person shooter, Infected, is looking for. We count ourselves as members of this group and, as proof, we have spent the last few days blasting our way through the PSP game's single-player campaign to get a feel for just how hairy things can get in this high-impact (and very funny) action game.

They may have once been innocent civilians, but the only thing these bloodthirsty zombies deserve now is some good old fashioned bullet sandwiches.

Infected's opening scene places the character in a charming, picturesque setting: a ceremonial lighting of the Christmas tree at Rockerfeller Center in snowy downtown New York. As a city official welcomes the gathered crowd to the ceremony, a fresh-faced wheelchair-bound lad wheels himself up to the switch and throws it. The Christmas tree lights up in a rainbow of bright colors to the roar of an approving crowd. Unfortunately, that applause lasts only a handful of seconds before abruptly coming to an end. There's something under the tree; something that shouldn't be.

As if seeking to reset the ceremony and start all over again, the youngster switches off the lights and immediately turns them back on. The camera cuts to a close-up shot of the mangled face of a zombie. The lights go off and on again, and we see another undead former New Yorker. Once more the lights flicker--and this time we cut to a zombified Santa Claus, complete with a jingling elf hat. Something is amiss in Infected's New York, and before anyone can do anything about it, the zombies spread out and attack everyone in sight. Cut to a news report on the scene where the anchorwoman delivers a classic understatement: "Worst shopping season ever? Find out at 11…"

Enter Officer Stevens, the tough-as-nails cop you'll play as in the game and whose blood is somehow immune to the effects of the virus that has plagued the entire city and, as far as anyone else in the game knows, the entire world. In fact, Stevens' blood isn't just immune to the virus; it will also act as your number one weapon in the fight against the horde of zombies overrunning the city. As a result, you'll be armed with a handy blood gun that will instantaneously splat any zombie with which the gun's ammo comes in contact.

Infected will give you a lot of options for customizing your particular version of Officer Stevens, including choosing his or her name, gender, body type (from more than 20 different preset types), skin color, outfit type and color, as well as hairstyle and hair color. You'll have handful of body types to choose from the outset, but as you progress through the game and rack up cash rewards for your heroic deeds, you'll be able to unlock new types, including models designed after videogame vixen BloodRayne, and members of the hardcore metal act Slipknot. After all, there are few people better equipped to hold back an unending torrent of undead than skinny, makeup-clad whiny boys. You'll even be able to choose your region of origin, which includes continent, country, and city. Want to have your character originate from the city of Ouagadougou in the West African nation of Burkina Faso? Go for it. When it comes to character creation, you'll only be locked to your region of origin once the game begins. Everything else is fully customizable at any time, including your arsenal of weapons.

We knew the guys from Slipknot were angry, but this is ridiculous.

Speaking of weapons, you already know a bit about Officer Stevens' blood gun that can kill zombies with a single shot. There's one caveat to this ability, however. A zombie can only be splatted by the blood gun once he or she has been sufficiently weakened by a traditional ballistic weapon like a pistol, shotgun, or rocket launcher. Enemies are color coded in the game to give you a visual clue on how to defeat them. For example, yellow enemies require some softening up with the regular weaponry, while red foes are ripe for the splatting with the blood gun. If you play your cards right, you can chain multiple splats into combos that will help you earn new weapons in a particular level. So, as you fight through the missions in the game, you'll find yourself trying to blast as many zombies in a close proximity to one another as possible, and then setting off a huge chain-reaction combo with the blood gun to earn maximum points. If it sounds a bit underhanded and gory, trust us, it is. And that's a good thing.