inFamous

 Infamous (stylized as InFamous or inFAMOUS or StUpIdTiTlE) can be summed up to the layman as Grand Theft Auto with electric superpowers. You play as Cole MacGrath, a bike messenger who finds himself in the epicenter of a massive explosion that tears the fictional Empire City apart. Buildings collapse, bridges crumble, all that good stuff. So this bomb goes off, yadda yadda yadda, he has lightning powers. It's deeper than that but basically, that's all you need to know.
 
The core mechanic of the game is an open world experience set in this dilapidated, semi-post-apocalyptic city that's been quarantined by the government. Initially you're trying to find your way out of the city (for obvious reasons) but soon it becomes more about unravelling the mystery behind the explosion and what brought it about. I thought the story was solid but underwhelming. Most key plot points are presented in a motion comic style (similar to Sucker Punch's Sly Cooper series), which are presented well, but I found it difficult to feel attached to them like I would in a fully rendered traditional cutscene. The comic style worked well in the Saturday morningesque Sly games, but here, in what's supposed to be a gritty, dirty vision of a mutilated metropolis, it just felt out of place. When the story isn't using still images to get its point across, most of it is portrayed in simple mid-game phone calls that work well without interrupting the flow of gameplay.
 
As I glanced over earlier, the story itself is entertaining and intriguing without ever being truly compelling. It has its share of plot twists and certainly never feels dull, but the ending in particular is just out of left field and confusing. Cole is about as basic as video game protagonists get; tough, gruff and gravelly, with a Vin Diesel "don't get in my way or I'll break your face" attitude that gets a little old. It can be forgiven a little though, because much of the game is centered around player decisions pertaining to Cole's good or evil status, and to give him too much personality would probably be counterproductive. Early in the game, some food is dropped from an aid organization to the empoverished citizens of Empire; sadly, it lands on a big tower and only Cole, whose powers prevent him from injury due to falling (an awesome element of the gameplay, incidentally) can go up and retrieve it. The player is given the choice of letting the people eat, or shooing them away and keeping all the food for himself, his girlfriend Trish, and his buddy Zeke to eat for weeks. The game is full of these moral decisions, and they're portrayed really well.
 
Besides the basic fun of being a colossal dick or a pretty cool guy, the more good or evil you become changes what sorts of powers and upgrades you can acquire. Cole's basic ability is a thin shot of lightning from his hand; if you're good, this shot will refill your energy bar to use on more powerful moves. If you're evil, enemies you defeat with this lightning bolt might explode, damaging all those around them. This system really adds another layer to the usual good-or-evil mechanic, and both sides have very distinct traits that make them equally worthwhile. The rewards in Infamous are immense; Cole is constantly learning new powers to play with, up until the last few missions of the game. And using the powers is even more fun than earning them.
 
The combat in this game (and there is a lot of it) is just superb. Blasting thugs with bolts of supercharged electricity is endless fun, and the constant stream of new powers means you'll be entertained for as long as you'll be playing the game. It can occasionally be cheap (like three rocket launcher-wielding enemies suddenly appearing on each side of you), but such is the way of the action game. Plus, if you do happen to die, the mid-mission checkpoints are all perfectly reasonable, so you'll hardly ever find yourself thinking "I have to do that AGAIN?!" (I'm looking at you, GTA). The health system in the game is Gears of War style, i.e. "take a certain amount of damage in a row" rather than "wittling away at your health bar until you die". This one's a little different though, because the natural health recharge is painfully slow, so the only way to reliably stay alive if you're having trouble is to sap electricity from nearby sources (lamp posts, car batteries, gas generators). It's a little irritating at times but not a gamebreaker.
 
The graphics in the game are solid. The electric effects are really neat and fun to look at, and while the city is rendered well, it all kind of felt the same to me. Games like GTA4 and Assassin's Creed II have landmarks or motifs in certain sections of the game world to make them feel unique, whereas this game just feels like one big grey blob of urbanism. That being said, getting around the city is pretty damn fun. It's enjoyable enough from the get go, but early on Cole learns the induction grind ability, allowing him to electrically slide across train rails and utility wires, making city travel a blast. Mostly anyway; there are frequent moments of minor annoyance when trying to jump around. Cole has too mighty a tendency to grab on to whatever's closest, making jumping down from high places pretty irksome.
 
The game isn't overly long but not too short either. You could probably go from start to finish in an afternoon if you so chose, but the game is so jam-packed with fun side missions that doing so would be foolish. There are 80+ of these missions to do, and each one conquers a certain territory of the city, forcing enemies out and giving you upgrade-buying XP to boot. While not all of them are winners, none of them are offensively bad, and enough are particularly fun to make the overall concept a good one. There are maybe a dozen different types of mission, each repeated a few times, but not done ad nauseum to the point of unnecessary repetition. There are also 30 missions that are exclusive to good or evil (15 each), adding yet another layer to the karma system and giving you even more reason to play through twice.
 
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the technical problems in this game. I mentioned that the graphics themselves are good when they work, but from time to time you'll have popup issues or weird little glitches. It's nothing too serious from my experience, but any glitch is a bad glitch. The music is very good and fits the setting; nothing grandiose or symphonic, mostly industrial/electronic style music with dirty sounding instruments. The end credits theme is particularly awesome and well worth checking out even if you don't play the game (just be aware that you'll probably be spoiled if you YouTube it).
 
Overall Infamous is a well above average open-world action game. The combat and maneuverability make it an extremely enjoyable experience, but the lack of real personality in the game world and characters, as well as the graphical glitches and platforming troubles keep it from being truly amazing. Still, if you're looking for great bad guy blasting fun, this is it right here. I'll give it an 8.5/10, or a 4/5.