Slipknot's Shawn "Clown" Crahan had one demand for his band's upcoming video game debut: "We wanted to make sure we were badasses."

Gamers will get a chance to see how well that goal has been met on November 15 with the release of "Infected," a gun-crazy original action game for PlayStation Portable that features the first in-game appearance by the metal band.

Set in New York, "Infected" pits players against a horde of plague-infected city folk in over-the-top action that involves rampaging Santa Clauses and onscreen accolades like "bloody mess!" The Slipknot guys were each rendered as playable bonus characters who can join the clearly M-rated mayhem.

"It worked out well," Crahan said. "This game 'Infected' is one where it's just a blood bath."

Crahan said the band has been courted to appear in video games for years and even contributed a custom bike and character to the Activision's 2004 "MTX: Mototrax" game. But most requests never went anywhere, a disappointment for a band full of gamers.

"Everybody in the band in some way or another loves to play video games," Crahan said. He pegged sampler Craig Jones and guitarist Mick Thompson as Slipknot's masters of the first-person shooter. Percussionist Chris Fehn and drummer Joey Jordison rank as the band's best sports gamers.

The Slipknot gaming competition heats up on the tour bus, where lately the band's been using modded Xboxes to play old arcade games as well as more recent favorites.

"I can't get into it when it's too competitive," Crahan said. "I want to take it to the human level."

While hip-hop stars regularly pop up in video games, heavy bands haven't had much success going virtual. KISS starred in 2000's action game "KISS Psycho Circus," and hard-rockers Aerosmith played the Princess Peach role of captured victims in the 1994 arcade game "Revolution X." But it's musicians like Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent who cross into games most often these days.

"Infected" alone might not be enough to start a new trend, though the game has won advance praise for some innovative features. The game's developers, Planet Moon, have extended the idea of infection beyond the in-game running-and-gunning action. Players going head-to-head -- PSP vs. PSP in the same room or online -- will be able to "infect" each other's system. Before a battle ensues, each player will be able to customize the name and look of their main character. The player who loses a matchup will see their copy of the game infested with the copies of the character used by their conqueror.

The contaminated player can try to shake that infection by completing some solo objectives, but if they don't, they are liable to pass that infection on to still more players the next time they do a head-to-head match. Planet Moon wants players to be able to track the path of the infecting characters online.

Beyond "Infected," Crahan revealed that Slipknot might be able to make an even bigger impact in the video game world. He and a friend have begun developing what he hopes will be a full-fledged Slipknot game and says the band is full of ideas for the project. It will probably be a first-person shooter and wouldn't be produced any earlier than Slipknot's next album cycle -- which itself will follow "a year off to relax, get our heads straight and gear up to write a new album" (see [article id="1510831"]"Slipknot Cap A Year Of Destruction With 9.0: Live; More Stone Sour On Tap"[/article]). Crahan doesn't have a name for the game yet, but does promise that "it'll probably be the most disturbing game ever made."

For now, though, he said he's happy "Infected" is letting the band take its next step. "There's a lot of things I wanted to do when I got in this business," he said. "One, I wanted to perform in front of 10,000 people. I wanted to direct. I wanted to be on a record. I wanted to be in a video. I wanted to be on someone else's record." Now he's in a game. "Being a video game junkie, that's something I wanted to be a part of."

Besides featuring Slipknot as characters, "Infected" will include a metal and electronic-music soundtrack. The track list, according to "Infected" publisher Majecso: