inFamous is a third-person open-world action game in which players take control of Cole, an urban explorer / bike messenger changed by a mysterious blast that grants him electricity-based superpowers.
My interest level in Sucker Punch's next PS3 action game InFamous has been teetering between "looks sort of OK" and "looks completely awesome" since Sony began the game's marketing campaign. After getting to play a good bit of InFamous, though, I plan to reside firmly in the latter camp until the game comes out in June. InFamous impressed the hell out of me, but before I tell you why, check out this glut of footage that shows off most of the action I got to play myself.
So what did I take away from this demo that left me such a positive impression?
The feel of the controls. Note to whoever it is at Sucker Punch making the decisions about run speed, aiming sensitivity, and jumping controls: Don't change anything. Cole accelerates quickly, runs really fast, and turns on a dime. He doesn't lose speed or maneuverability when you zoom to the over-the-shoulder aiming view. From the basic movement and shooting to specialized moves like hovering to distant platforms and grinding on power lines, the basic gameplay has a really responsive, immediate feel to it that made me want to keep playing. This, and the next point, are really the biggest reasons I want to play more of the game.
Your moral alignment directly affects what your powers are like.Great superpowers and resulting destruction. The save game in my demo had a bunch of powers unlocked--electric grenades, a Force-like kinetic push, an electric hover ability, an aerial ground stomp--and it was really intuitive and easy to start chaining those powers into effective combos and wreaking stupid amounts of havoc. The bombastic physics system and highly explosive background elements made for some really satisfying explosions. I'd liken the big, open-ended feel of the combat and destruction to Crackdown, if you want a direct comparison. You get the same sort of chain-reaction car explosions and crazy stuff like that going on.
Moral choices with gameplay-relevant consequences. In the grand tradition of KOTOR and Fable, you can choose to be a good guy or a bad guy at scripted points in the story, and your appearance will get prettier or uglier based on your behavioral tendences. Your lightning even turns blue or red! But more importantly, the game's extensive list of powers (there must be at least a dozen) change significantly depending on your alignment. Good powers give you precision strikes that minimize collateral damage, while evil powers are more about, well, wantonly blowing shit up. The evil grenades, for instance, split into five smaller grenades on impact, giving you a much bigger blast radius.
Unique enemy encounters. In addition to that search-and-destroy-buses mission you can see in the video, I had to take on a couple of cool combat situations. One was a boss fight against a telekinetic lady who was screaming at Cole like a jilted ex-girlfriend. She could summon hallucinated enemies to confuse you during combat, and I had to get into these nifty Quick Time Events that required me to simultaneously button-mash and control Cole's hands to attack her. Another mission had me defending a prison yard from an attacking enemy force that was hurling fiery boulders over the wall. I had to use my shockwave move to literally send the projectiles flying back--until a bunch of enemy troops and giant monsters flooded the yard. One cool element was that I was fighting from an electrified grating, allowing me to constantly recharge my electrical special moves.
Gallery
I don't want to froth at the mouth here; It ain't all wine and roses for InFamous. The actual moral choice I saw (giving some food over to civilians, or killing them and keeping it) was pretty contrived; Cole's wisecracking sidekick grated on my nerves; the urban parkour took more than a little getting used to; and some of the environments are less detailed up-close than I would have liked. But those sorts of issues are easy to overlook when a game's core action is this inviting.
My interest level in Sucker Punch's next PS3 action game InFamous has been teetering between "looks sort of OK" and "looks completely awesome" since Sony began the game's marketing campaign. After getting to play a good bit of InFamous, though, I plan to reside firmly in the latter camp until the game comes out in June. InFamous impressed the hell out of me, but before I tell you why, check out this glut of footage that shows off most of the action I got to play myself.
So what did I take away from this demo that left me such a positive impression?
The feel of the controls. Note to whoever it is at Sucker Punch making the decisions about run speed, aiming sensitivity, and jumping controls: Don't change anything. Cole accelerates quickly, runs really fast, and turns on a dime. He doesn't lose speed or maneuverability when you zoom to the over-the-shoulder aiming view. From the basic movement and shooting to specialized moves like hovering to distant platforms and grinding on power lines, the basic gameplay has a really responsive, immediate feel to it that made me want to keep playing. This, and the next point, are really the biggest reasons I want to play more of the game.
Your moral alignment directly affects what your powers are like.Great superpowers and resulting destruction. The save game in my demo had a bunch of powers unlocked--electric grenades, a Force-like kinetic push, an electric hover ability, an aerial ground stomp--and it was really intuitive and easy to start chaining those powers into effective combos and wreaking stupid amounts of havoc. The bombastic physics system and highly explosive background elements made for some really satisfying explosions. I'd liken the big, open-ended feel of the combat and destruction to Crackdown, if you want a direct comparison. You get the same sort of chain-reaction car explosions and crazy stuff like that going on.
Moral choices with gameplay-relevant consequences. In the grand tradition of KOTOR and Fable, you can choose to be a good guy or a bad guy at scripted points in the story, and your appearance will get prettier or uglier based on your behavioral tendences. Your lightning even turns blue or red! But more importantly, the game's extensive list of powers (there must be at least a dozen) change significantly depending on your alignment. Good powers give you precision strikes that minimize collateral damage, while evil powers are more about, well, wantonly blowing shit up. The evil grenades, for instance, split into five smaller grenades on impact, giving you a much bigger blast radius.
Unique enemy encounters. In addition to that search-and-destroy-buses mission you can see in the video, I had to take on a couple of cool combat situations. One was a boss fight against a telekinetic lady who was screaming at Cole like a jilted ex-girlfriend. She could summon hallucinated enemies to confuse you during combat, and I had to get into these nifty Quick Time Events that required me to simultaneously button-mash and control Cole's hands to attack her. Another mission had me defending a prison yard from an attacking enemy force that was hurling fiery boulders over the wall. I had to use my shockwave move to literally send the projectiles flying back--until a bunch of enemy troops and giant monsters flooded the yard. One cool element was that I was fighting from an electrified grating, allowing me to constantly recharge my electrical special moves.
Gallery
I don't want to froth at the mouth here; It ain't all wine and roses for InFamous. The actual moral choice I saw (giving some food over to civilians, or killing them and keeping it) was pretty contrived; Cole's wisecracking sidekick grated on my nerves; the urban parkour took more than a little getting used to; and some of the environments are less detailed up-close than I would have liked. But those sorts of issues are easy to overlook when a game's core action is this inviting.
It looks really fun and packed with more arcadey action compared to more realistic gritty action of most games. Could be a great game, and definitely a nice change... almost like a PSI ops game...
Question Brad, regarding "Moral choices with gameplay-relevant consequences. "
Is it still a moral choice if it says THIS IS MORAL CHOICE!!!
Seems more like a "me-too" inclusion tacked on as a gameplay mechanic more than an exploration of moral choices in games. It would be far, far more interesting if you just made a decision at any point, using your own best judgement, without being prompted to make a yes/no selection, and then finding out if you, the player, made a correct moral choice (at which point the words correct moral choice are used relatively to the players own moral centre).
The same is with the HUD, I'd remove the blue/red indicator, have the colour of the electricity around your body determine it. IMO they should not include the indicator, as it removes any of the actual morality of determining 'do I want to move the slider towards blue or red.. hmm...'
I loved crackdown so if it's in the same style I'm in.... maybe.
Edit: After watching that video all I gotta say is I hope the game isn't that. The platforming looked great but the animations looked GTA3 and the dialogue was terrible and once I heard one Karma thing I could guess all the others before they even came. It looks like a cool game getting bogged down with unnessasary junk that is not done particulaly well.
Only a trailer though but it unsold me all the way.
Cole seems to have the same exact mannerisms as Sly Cooper in a cutscene that shows him talking to someone. It's just a little weird looking and I don't like it. But other than that, this looks like it could be a really fun game.
You know, I really do love the work these guys are doing. But I'm a little irked that Prototype is getting absolutely no coverage, and inFamous is soaking up the spotlight. =/
Edit: Perhaps Prototype coverage from GDC will be shown off this week. I might be jumping the gun...
Prototype doesn't have a chance against this, been saying it for a while now and everyone is finally starting to realize that Sucker Punch knows how to make a fun game.
I'm just gonna come out and say it. This game looks hella disorienting! It like the developers injected the game with every energy drink on the market and then sprinkled cocaine on top of it.
In all seriousness the game looks like a nice blend of Crackdown and Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. Having enjoyed both of those games immensely I'll be sure to pick this bad boy up and give it a whirl. With Sucker Punch at the helm I'm confident that this game will deliver. Their Sly games were fantastic.
however, i am not a fan of their animation. it is fluid so that is good, but I don't like the over exaggerated storyline animations. the way people talk with not only their hands, but their craning necks and swiveling heads is too far from reality for me; would be better if it served a purpose but this game seems to take itself somewhat seriously with the tone the karma moments set with their build-up.
The game looks really interesting but holy crap the voice acting in that trailer was really terrible. Still, my big beef with Crackdown was that your superpowers just didn't really feel all that spectacular, and I'm glad to see this game taking it further in that direction.
one thing that i know about Brad, is that whenever he is excited about a particular game before launch, that game turned out to be amazing (Bioshock, Dead Space, Mass Effect, etc.)....well, 98% of the time anyways : P (still thinks RE5 wasn't that good). so im really excited for inFamous now!
Lately I seem to keep discovering that games I thought were coming out in the fall are going to be here in early summer. Hopefully this awesome trend continues.
insanebear.com - A site about video games and video game culture.
I was expecting to like Prototype more than this since that one was first and is so similar, but after playing Prototype at Comic-Con and reading many glowing reviews of this inFamous build, the opposite may end up being true.
Oh wow, that video was awesome!! I was really skeptical about this game, when I first heard about it I thought that it would be really gimmicky and weird. But now I am very intrigued, and I might even dust off my PS3 just to play this game!
yep, looks as mind numbingly lame as when I first saw it. I don't get the hype behind this, especially when Prototype does something so similar but sooooooooooo much better. No way in hell am I buying this generic pile of electrified garbage
The experience point system showing the damage and exp earned reminds me of what you would see in an online game so that was cool, and the string of DNA looking meter bar was tight. I like the good and bad and how your powers and the way you look are different, which should lend to great replay value which says alot because its already open world and inherently has replay value. So, to be truely Infamous you have to be one evil mofo.
I think this game is a sleeper hit. Damnit May and June are going to be expensive because Bionic Commanado, InFamous, and Prototype are all scheduled within a months time.
Want so much to be excited for this game but, just can't get interested. Although, I have to admit, everytime someone writes about this game in the press it gets an absolutely glowing report so it must be good.
Apparently the game is finished now, so Sucker Punch have the next 2 months to spend just polishing and ironing out any kinks.
I think that this looks like a better game than Prototype, but to be honest, they both look entirely too "arcady" for me. The way you can jump around all over the place and continuously bast enemies from afar; it just doesn't do it for me. I think I'd like it more if the character had more weight to him.
With that said, I haven't played it, so maybe if the controls are well done, it might make the game much more enjoyable than it seems.
This edit will also create new pages on Giant Bomb for:
Beware, you are proposing to add brand new pages to the wiki along
with your edits. Make sure this is what you intended. This will likely
increase the time it takes for your changes to go live.
Comment and Save
Until you earn 1000 points all your submissions need to be vetted by other
Giant Bomb users. This process takes no more than a few hours and we'll
send you an email once approved.
Log in to comment