Infected

Wall-to-wall zombie carnage, pure and perhaps a bit too simple.

Before dancing simulations took over, video arcades were home to innumerable action-packed quarter-eaters. Infected is something of a throwback to those days, and as such will seem like a frenetic breath of fresh air to some, and a forgettable one-trick pony to others.

Dreaming of a Red Christmas

The current trend in shooting titles is to bolt on stories, stealth missions, and sidekicks like so many bulletpoints in a marketing presentation. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as some games have become orders of magnitude more interesting as a result, but sometimes you want your carnage refined down to the glistening viscera.

Sure, Infected has some features you won't find elsewhere. You can weaken a bunch of baddies with your ballistic gun, saving up their weakened forms to cause a massive chain reaction with a viral gun powered by your own immune blood. A multiplayer virus gimmick lets you "infect" defeated opponents with your customized avatar. Infected is also the first game in years to feature a decent heavy metal soundtrack. These things only thinly veil the core experience, though, which boils down to just running around, blowing great quantities of corrupted flesh all over New York City's Christmas.

Commute of the Damned

The repetition of everything from the enemies to the wintry city streets sets in after only a few missions, but as constricted as the gameplay is, it can be exciting and fun in small doses. Infected won't get you through long solitary plane rides, but it seems the perfect "just a quick match" game to crack out with some buddies on the bus, train, or Internet.

Infected takes a risky step back to a simpler time, and can't really stand on its own two legs as a full-fledged modern game, but it's niche appeal may be worth a closer look if that's what you're looking for.

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