Zombie Apocalypse!

Spread your viral likeness from one PSP to the next with Planet Moon's Infected.

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There's no doubt that the PSP is one impressive piece of hardware. Sony hit all the high notes in designing its first portable system, which is inarguably the most advanced handheld game machine to date. Yet all that power is sitting idle, as stellar releases for the PSP have been few since the system's launch back in March. Heck, all the releases have been few, because Sony and its third parties aren't exactly lighting up the PSP's release schedule. And much of what's coming has been done before. So what's a PSP devotee yearning for some variety to do?

Enter Planet Moon Studios, the quirky developer of such idiosyncratic games as Armed & Dangerous and Giants: Citizen Kabuto. The San Francisco-based team is now hard at work on its first PSP-exclusive action game, Infected, and what we've seen of its gory, tongue-in-cheek shooting so far promises quite an original and entertaining experience for PSP owners who just can't play one more round of Lumines. Infected drops you in the middle of one very chaotic Christmas season in New York City, when one of those pesky killer viruses has broken out and zombified much of the metropolitan population. Don't you hate it when that happens?

You'll play the role of a police officer named Stevens, who's pitching in to help fight the hordes of ravenous walking undead. As luck would have it, Stevens' blood happens to contain an antibody that has a violently adverse reaction when it comes into contact with the virus. Some smarty-pants scientists have rigged up a blood gun that will let Stevens fire rounds containing small amounts of his own blood at the monstrous former citizens of New York, destroying each one, in turn, in a shower of body parts and miscellaneous fluids. Of course, you'll have an ever-expanding arsenal of conventional weaponry to fall back on, too.

Infected is the front-runner in the 'bloodiest PSP game of 2005' competition.

Aside from the last name, there's really not much to know about Officer Stevens. That's because you'll have to create him (or her) for yourself when you start up a new game. You can pick a first name for your character and then choose from 16 different template body types, each of which has different clothing, hair and skin colors, and other features that can be tweaked. In all, Planet Moon says there will be about 2 million possible characters, so it's a safe bet you won't see anyone else using the same Stevens you are.

At its core, Infected plays like your typical third-person shooter. You'll roam the city streets, looking for the infected so you can smear them all over the pavement. You'll have a target-lock-on system that makes the gameplay pretty point-and-shoot, and you can also dash or use a 180 turnaround move for more-agile maneuvering. The process of purging a zombie is simple: Unload into it with your regular weapons--which include a pistol, a shotgun, a submachine gun, rocket-propelled grenades, and even the affectionately named BMFG--until it's susceptible to being splattered by your blood bullets. Once the enemy's health is low enough, one well-placed shot will splatter it all over the sidewalk. And the best part is, any nearby enemies caught in the spray will also be taken out, which means you'll be able to set up some gnarly combos in the more crowded areas.

But wait, there's more! Each level will have a real urgency to it, because at the outset, there are only a few infected citizens roaming the streets. But the longer you wait, the more innocent bystanders will be transformed into the slavering undead. So it certainly behooves you to get off your keister and get to slaying. The ratio of people to zombies is represented by a little meter at the top of the screen. If too many humans are infected, the mission will go into "viral overload," causing the entire level to be flooded with enemies that will actively come after you, making you work a hell of a lot harder to stay alive. So, obviously, you won't want to stand around twiddling your thumbs too much while the virus runs amok among the hapless populace.

Build your own Officer Stevens out of a system that will yield more than 2 million possible combinations.

Thankfully, Officer Stevens will continue to grow and become more powerful as you frag your way from Brooklyn to Staten Island. You'll start off with just a basic pistol and the blood gun, but the more zombies you kill--and the more points you accumulate, in turn--the better weapons you'll get access to. Weapon upgrades will happen automatically, so as soon as you hit the point marker for a shotgun...boom! You have a shotgun. But you'll always be able to switch down to previous weapons as the situation dictates. There will also be some tasty special weapons available, from several kinds of grenades to every zombie killer's best friend, the chain saw. You'll get these special weapons by setting up particularly bloody and complicated kill combos. Finally, you'll be able to increase your health and speed as you proceed through the game, which will carry over into the game's other modes as well.