It's absolutely electrifying......sorry.
I had never played a game from Sucker Punch before yesterday when I picked up inFamous, but I think I'm quite sure I will be buying all of their future products from now on because I ahd an absolute blast with this game.
inFamous is a free-roaming superhero action game, the type of which usually suck. This game is totally original though as you play as a bike messenger named Cole who drops of a package that turns out to be a bomb that destroys most of Empire City (the game's setting). Cole wakes up with super powers and then the carnage and fun ensues! One of the best elements of the story is that you can help shape it by making good or evil choices, from very small decisions such as killing a thug or capturing him all the way to murdering a whole group of innocents begging for food or giving it all to them. The story is very engaging and the moral choices make it worth a second play through.
Gameplay wise inFamous is also fantastic. It controls very well and Cole has a whole lot of really cool moves that he can use. The travel and exploration part of the game is very fun as you can climb pretty much everything ala Crackdown and Assassin's Creed, and it works just as well here as it does in those games (which is very well). Cole's super powers are also very cool as you can do stuff like throw electic grenades, shoot electricity at dudes, blow people away in a blast, glide through the air, surf on railway lines and a whole lot more. If you are evil the powers are far more out of control and destructive which is probably a more fun way of playing the game to be honest because if you're good you can't inflict as much carnage.
The mission structure of inFamous is as you'd expect from a sandbox game with story missions taking the game forward and plenty of side missions to get you extra XP and affect your moral good/evil standing. The side missions can get a little repetetive in terms of objectives but blasting dudes and jumping around the city is so fun that you probably won't care. Much of the story missions contain moral set pieces where you have to make quite a big decision and they great thing is that you actually peform these yourself unlike other games in which you select an option and the game carries it out for you. The story really is completely interactive and the missions on the whole are very fun and worth playing through again from a different side.
The presentation of the game is a little bit of a mixed bag and that's why this game hasn't quite got the 5 stars from me, some is great and some could do with some improving. The story comic book style cut scenes are awesome and it iis one of the few games where I have actually wanted to watch cut scenes like that because they are done so well. The in game cutscenes are also nicely done but are a little bit bland. The visuals themselves are pretty good for an open world game and no loading times is a huge plus. The colour palette is a little but dingy but we have kind of gotten used to that in this generation of gaming but the animation and lighting effects are absolutely stunning. The sore spots in my opinion is in the voice acting and al the number of bugs and glitches that have got into the game. The voice acting is a little bit wooden and Cole's Christian Bale esque voice from Batman really grates on the ears after a while. The other voices are also completely unremarkable. The glitches can be annoying and are also fairly frequent; people fall through floors, cars move with no drivers, people get stuch on the environment and there was some clipping as well.
Other than the few glitches and unremarkable voice acting there is little else wrong with inFamous. It's a very enjoyable experience with an intriguing story and fantastic platforming, exploration and combat elements that mix together into one hugely enjoyable game that PS3 owners should have no fears in picking up.
The Good:
-Intriguing original plot.
-Slick controls.
-Explosive action with fantastic combat and equally brilliant platforming exploration.
-Looks great with a flawless framerate.
-Lasting appeal with moral choices to make.
The Bad:
-Side missions can become repetitive.
-Unremarkable voice acting.
-A number of bugs and glitches.
Final Judgement: inFamous is an explosive action game with many different gameplay elements that are all pulled off incredibly well with a great story and presentation to go with it.
9/10
