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GameSpot editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Very good
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 11/16/2005
- Released on: 11/15/2005
- Originally published on GameSpot: Infected (PSP) Review
Forget ninjas, aliens, robots, Nazis, or any combination thereof--zombies are pretty much the ideal cannon fodder. There is no sympathizing with zombies. The very existence of the shambling undead flies in the face of fundamental natural law. The fact that they might have once been a loved one makes it all the more compelling to end their unnatural existence. That there is an inherent satisfaction to dispatching hordes and hordes of the living dead is the driving force behind Planet Moon's Infected for the PSP, but after a time the game's conceptual appeal and ambition are outstripped by a single-player game that's over much too quickly and a gameplay model that simply does not translate well to multiplayer. It still makes for some good fun for a while, though.
Apparently the zombies aren't feeling the holiday spirit.
Infected takes place in New York City, two weeks before Christmas. As the game opens, you watch as the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree is interrupted by a small band of zombies, who are quick to pluck everything from limbs to internal organs from the living, be they stately city officials or young boys in wheelchairs. You'll notice right away that the overall tone in Infected is darkly irreverent. There are some genuinely clever moments in the game--such as a one-sided conversation between your commissioner and the prime minister of Japan--and the regular lampooning of Christmas-driven consumerism and the nature of NYC tourism are a bit more insightful than you would expect from a zombie murder simulation. Often, though, the comic timing is off, or simply misguided, for instance turning a sequence where a developmentally challenged child is mistaken for a zombie from grimly humorous to just awkward.
Amid all this holiday shopping and zombie panic, you take on the role of Officer Stevens, a rookie cop who happens to be immune to the virus that is giving everyone the brain munchies and whose blood has a rather explosive effect when it comes in contact with one of the infected. Your identity as one Officer Stevens is implicit; however, the finer details of your in-game avatar are for you to decide on. You can choose Stevens' first name and pick from a number of different character models, each of which can have its appearance tweaked in a half-dozen or so different ways. You'll unlock additional avatars as you progress through the game, including members of the band Slipknot, who contribute a lot of high-pitched, angry squeals to the soundtrack, and the star of Majesco's other blood-fueled action franchise, BloodRayne, and you can tweak the appearance of Officer Stevens at any time.
Your main objective is quite clear-cut: kill zombies. The zombies in Infected are a cross between the classically slow-moving Romero zombies, the aggressively vicious zombies from 28 Days Later, and the more evolved, gun-toting zombies from Land of the Dead. While they'll start off just throwing handfuls of pus, vomit, and other nasty zombie excretions, they quickly learn how to use chainsaws and rocket launchers--at a point, save for their grisly appearances, the zombies hardly seem like zombies at all. To kill a zombie, you first need to wear it down with conventional weapons before you can plug it with your viral gun. The game uses lock-on targeting, activated with the right shoulder button, making it easy to run circles around your undead foe. You won't have to worry about running out of ammo for your regular weapons, as the game automatically upgrades your weapons based on your proficiency in killing zombies, and an expert exterminator can go from the stock pistol to the rocket launcher pretty quickly.
When you're faced with a half-dozen or so zombies coming at you at once, offing them one at a time is too slow, which is where the game's combo system kicks in. Popping zombies causes splash damage to other nearby zombies, making it possible to cause massive chain reactions with a single shot. Aside from being quite satisfying, pulling off these kill combos can net you armor upgrades, health pickups, and the coveted viral chainsaw.
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