inFamous

More times than not, when a company doesn't have a movie tie-in, or some famous license to follow they can create more inventive and all around better things than if they did have some license to follow. Thus how Sucker Punch has been able to make easily one of the best superhero games of all time.

Though I realize I'm in the minority here, I thought Infamous' story was very entertaining, cool, and pretty easy to follow as well, considering some one like me who usually has problems keeping up with what's happening in movies or games was never lost in what exactly was going on in the game's story. As long as you can accept the predictable ending plot twist, and a pretty lame ending boss fight I believe you should at least find some memorable moments in the game's plot.

You play as Cole McGrath (I had to look up his last name, you probably won't hear it or won't remember you heard it either), just a normal, average, and everyday delivery boy. But one day, his delivery isn't just a normal package. It's an advanced piece of technology used to concentrate energy from many citizens of the city into one human being. Than one human being is, obviously, as I'm sure you've guessed, the main protagonist, Cole. Other characters in the game include many antagonists, those of which I won't name for spoiler reasons, Zeke, Cole's best friend, and Cole's wife (also Zeke's sister) Trish. Trying to spoil as little as possible, but whenever these other important characters in the game become in danger, you'll be faced with some though choices on what to do.

So Cole gets all these amazing electrical powers, but not at the expense of many human lives. The blast of the Ray Sphere detonating (the object that gave Cole all of his powers) also caused a giant explosion, causing massive damage to the city, giving other groups of people, such as the Reapers, formally just a bunch of thugs, powers too. The city is put under quarantine by the government, insuring that nobody with the powers can leave Empire City.

When people realize the government is going to make any attempt to save what's left of the city, they turn to the "Voice of Survival", a teenage kid who shows up on the television from time to time telling the city how they should go about , hence the kid's nick name, surviving. The "Voice of Survival" tells the city that Cole is a terrorist, that he set off the bomb, that he is the one that made their lives take a huge turn for the worst, that he is the one who killing so many innocent people. Unfortunately for Cole, all of Empire City, including his wife, believe what the "Voice of Survival" told them.

So what happens to Cole? He flees, and eventually runs into an FBI Agent named Moya. Moya tells Cole she knows all about him, and she wants to find her husband. She tells him if she finds John, her husband, she'll let Zeke, Cole, and Trish out of the quarantine, allowing them to leave the city, to get away from all of the angry citizens. Cole agrees. But, he can go about finding John in one of two ways, he can make everyone love who he is, worship him like God, think of him as a Hero, or cause complete havoc around the city, showing no mercy to anyone who is at the wrong place at the wrong time, making everyone look down at him like the devil. In other words, the game has a moral choice system. Heh.

The moral choices in the game are basically Cole stopping and thinking, he plays out two situations in his head, one usually sick and twisted, the other usually taking one for the team, saving some lives but at the cost of a scratch or two on his body. Unfortunately, the story hardly changes. You may get a different graphic novel cutscene (which are beautiful by the way) than if you chose the other choice, but more or less, it'll be the same story. There lies the problem. At some point Cole will be filled with rage because (insert antagonist here) did (insert terrible disaster/event here) causing many people to die. But, why would Cole give a sh*t? He does the same thing when you play as evil. The storyline will make more sense if you play as good, because it sometimes contradicts Cole's action and personality if you play as evil, since if you play as an evil person you shouldn't mind if hundreds of people just got slaughtered.

The choices you make will also influence the powers you receive. The evil powers will be less forgiving, showing no attempt to save the people around you, while the good powers are less damaging to the environment and community, saving more lives. As an evil person you can revive people on the streets, and restrain enemies to the ground, and as an evil player you can suck the life out of them.

Keep in mind, in Infamous you can climb anywhere and everywhere you can possibly think of, it's an open world game at heart. Just like every open world game every created, the game isn't going to be bug free. It's far from it actually. You'll see pedestrians getting stuck on absolutely nothing, you'll see insane amounts of pop in, tons (I mean tons) of invisible walls. Sometimes the invisible walls won't even make sense, they'll just be in the middle of no where for no reason. Sucker Punch obviously either didn't have the time or the money to make the graphics as top notch as Rockstar could do with their next-gen open world game, Grand Theft Auto 4, but that's still okay. Other problems include bad hit detection, and the climbing mechanic still needs lots of work. When I said you could climb anywhere I didn't mean it literally. You'll still find that one edge here and there that you won't be able to grab onto. You'll won't grab onto a lot of things you should, but most of all you'll grab onto a lot of things you shouldn't grab onto. If you just wanna jump off a building to the ground you may grab onto three or four things on your way before you reach the bottom. The climbing is also overly simple, you can easily reach the top of a building by holding up and spamming the jump button, it's definitely more friendly than, say, Assassin's Creed's climbing mechanic.

The game brings to the table what most open world games do. Things like side missions, which will allow you to take over parts of the city, disabling enemies in that area, lots of easter eggs, and of course collectibles. The mission structure feels much like Grand Theft Auto, allowing you to do whatever you want after you finish a mission, never immediately forcing you to go to the next , allowing you activate the missions when you want. Also like GTA, the game has an incredible amount of stuff to do. If you play through both evil and good you should get roughly 40 hours out of the game.

Now, to the best part of the game, the powers: most of the attacks are electric forms of guns, more or less. You can just shoot the infinite electrical shot that requires no energy to use (pistol) zoom in and use precision (sniper), the giggawatt hammer (Rocket Launcher), shock grenades (grenades?), and there are some others such as the shockwave, basically a force push, and a thunder drop, which while in the air allows you to slam down to the ground, killing enemies and exploding vehicles, and a hover ability, allowing you to reach farther places easier. Oh, and also, you can also conjure a thunder storm. The game is balanced by making the more devastating attacks require more energy, making you find power sources around to suck the electricity out of them, recharging you.

Since Cole is infused with energy he can't sit in a car (or hold a gun), so to make up for transportation you are eventually given the power to grind on train tracks and electric wires, making it able for you to gain ground more quickly than just walking.

As to be expected, you don't have access to all the powers at the start of the game, and it doesn't pull a one of those "were gonna take all of your powers away after the first mission" kinda things either. Since Cole is completely electrical, he has hard time surviving in places where the power isn't on, so he must go down to the sewers and charge up the electricity, giving power back to that part of the town, and each time you do this you will receive a new power to use and have fun with.

Final Decision
Infamous is an electrifying (pun intended) new IP. It's one of the few games that I finish and I'm like, "I want a sequel, now!" I think Sucker Punch nailed almost every aspect of the game. The combat is incredible, the climbing is for the most part fun as hell, the open world is great, though it's hardly the size of Liberty City that doesn't really matter. You can easily tell Sucker Punch didn't have the kind of production values with Infamous and Rockstar did with GTA4, but they still managed to create an incredible game. I look forward to seeing "Infamous 2" being confirmed very soon. Yes, I want Infamous 2 more than Sly 4.