inFamous

Now I have to admit, I have played all four of Sucker Punch Productions Games and I found all of them to be fun, hilarious, filled with great action and controls. And the Sly Cooper series has probably the most memorable and charming cast of Characters I had ever seen. But suddenly, Sucker Punch drop’s their ‘Let’s make games that charm people and add a sort of light side to everything’ tagline to the now universal quote

“Gritty realism+Moral Choices=Sell sell sell”.

Infamous, or as it wants to be called ‘in-FAMOUS’ Is about Cole; A bike Messenger who apparently angered the Gods of fate for leaving the Resistance game series, has a electronic bomb exploded in his face and get’s the powers of a electronic Toaster which zaps at people, while the people around him get the power of dead or bitchyness. Cole now has to decide whether to help people by cuddling them and making them breakfast or shove electric Dildo’s up their asses and leave them crying in their pillows as you leave in the dark of night.

“Dab!” says the reader,” Why would you pick such a gross example? Shouldn’t their be a middle ground like having good honest sex and just leaving her a note in the middle of the night, or just simply not doing it?” Well first off, I picked this example because I honestly believe Cole would ask himself this if he were to ever get laid in the game. The Moral choices in this game are what I call ‘Of course I would pick that one!’

For instance, in the beginning of the game, you and your friend Zeke are in the town square where you had just fought off a bunch of enemies for the safety of the food. You are suddenly given the choice as Cole mumbles to himself in his laughable tough dilect:

“ Should I shoot one of these people with a bolt of lighting so me and Zeke could have all the food to ourselves, OR do I let these starving people have the food and just take some for ourselves?”

First off, Getting the food doesn’t do anything to gameplay. In fact, it seems rather retarded to say that a human lighting bolt and a fat tub of lard need crates full of food.

Even if you fight off the logic of just giving the food, you will be given more and more ridiculus and pointless moral Choices. The Following are actual ‘Cole Muttering Choices’:

“Hmmm…Do I save the man who’s about to get stoned, or just let him get what he deserved?”

“Hmmm…I could throw the gas tank back at him, but it would kill the people around hi-“(You get hit by the gas tank before you could even react)

And the most useless choice is, right after fighting off enemies to protect the Police station as is REQUIRED in the mission…you are told to choose between letting a bomb (right in front of you) explode or to zap it with some bolts to shut it down.

In fact, the evil choices here are especially cartoonish. There is no real point in choosing evil over good or Good over evil, as the only difference is the cutscenes are slightly different and the powers are either small weak lighting bolt that are meant to so you can capture the enemies that just never stay down, no matter how tall the building they fell off was, or lighting bolts that don’t give a shit about what you do and just spreads it across the street frying everyone in it.

Remember Zeke? As much as I hate him, he’s the only character that seems to have character development, as Cole and the other good guys seem to be either bitchy, stock characters, or they love to look at Cole for help rather then getting off their asses and doing it themselves.

But the two characters I enjoyed were the ‘voice of survival’, a Radio DJ that says that Cole is a terrorist, and Sasha, a scorned lover who is the leader of the first gang you deal with. Both ‘Bad guys’. I found that the cheekiness of Sucker Punch was buried under them, as the DJ is a sort of Parody of Fallout 3’s 3dog, and he was actually kind at heart as he encourages others early in the game to go and give blankets and food to the children. And Sasha was someone I honestly felt sorry for…or maybe it was that every once and awhile, you hear her sexy voice try and convince you to leave your girlfriend, which I would do in a heartbeat if Cole wasn’t such a pussy.

Despite the Characters, you will honestly be surprised at the shock’s and twists that the game will throw at you. Your arch Rival’s real identity was a big surprise to ME anyway. And the plot before hand really did try.

Now, to say I hate the Combat would be bullshit. In fact, there is a sort of childish glee to shoot a enemy off a rooftop and  watch him fall 50 feet then drop down their and finish him off. The Powers are a joy to control, especially the Lighting Storm, where you literally control the FREAKIN WEATHER by having lighting bolts get hurled down from the sky and while you move your Sixaxis/duel shock 3, you feel like a god! The sad fact however, is that this comes late in the game, and would have been much more helpful if I got all the powers earlier.

But the Combat has one huge disability…you drain rather fast. In fact, the lighting storm I mentioned above lasts at most 10 seconds with a full meter of energy. I think it would have been a great idea if their was a health meter and would drain faster if you had no energy left. Even sadder is that the enemies seem to have telescopic eyes and are wearing Rubber armor as they take cheap shots at you from far away buildings and when you shock them down, you have to keep shocking their asses until they understand that bolts to the head equals death!

Otherwise, the Game is a perfect sandbox game. It reflects why Sucker Punch managed to add Sandbox elements in a platform game so well. In Grand theft auto IV, you are either doing a mission, traveling to a mission, or waiting for a mission to come so you can have a good excuse to your friends to not go virtual bowling with them. While in Sucker Punch games, you can do the missions or the side missions, or you can simply just go around and practice your abilities and inflict harm on the masses or villains.

If you choose to be good in the game you will be rewarded in that people crowd around you cheering and taking picture while whispering ‘fantastic’. Suddenly a person screams help and you rush towards to see a woman pointing into a alley. You rush in and see a bunch of villains crowding around a man, and you quickly pull out your lighting and shoot the villains down. This game honestly made me feel like a super hero, which unlike crackdown where you are a cop who just does good things because ‘they’ order you too, is what Sucker Punch should have been selling instead of the bullshit Moral system.

Sucker Punch, in Conclusion, has made a great game and honestly deserves the praise as a good combat and sandbox game with a solid story.

Now if you need me, I shall be replaying all Sly Cooper games in my room and waiting for Prototype to come to my grubby hands so I can see if it has any good stuff inside.