inFamous

Review from http://bngames.basicallynothing.com

Infamous is a Playstation 3 exclusive game by Developer SuckerPunch who are known for the SlyCooper games on the Playstation 2.  Imfamous is one of those rare games that can really deliver the “Hero” and or “Villain” experience like no game before it.

Story: You are Cole McGrath, a delivery boy who is suckered into delivering a bomb that mysteriously grants you the ability to manipulate lightning and electricity.  You can be a Hero and be the good guy, or you can become extremely evil and destroy everyone and everything in your way.  Either Karma you decide to indulge will still pit you against the gangs that have taken over the three islands in lieu of a government coverup that has locked down Empire City and Cole with it.  Will he escape? that is the question.

Presentation: Sandbox games tend to suffer from lack of detail due to the fact the hardware is rendering a much larger environment and the time it would take to model everything in a similar fashion to something like lets say Final Fantasy XIII,  would triple both the production time and budget making it impossible to finish.  Infamous is by no means an ugly game but it does suffer from the scale the developers focus was to accomplish.  Character models don’t particularly animate well when speaking to each other, the faces seem sullen and stony and do not emote well.  Most of the non-story characters are low-res and repeat often.  Some wall textures look like that have been ripped from an N64 game.  That is the worst of it thought, as Cole and the rest of the city shine.  The lightning effects are superb, in combination with Cole’s movements.  He does animate like a robot from time to time particularly when he is jump-climbing up along buildings, but its hardly noticeable when your Death dropping from 20 stories up to a massive electrical explosion below.  All of the lightning and lighting effects are well polished and are believable in nearly every aspect.  The very last Power you obtain is particularly spectacular.

The city glows with an abundance of neon signs almost in excess that would put Las Vegas to shame. The game does have an impressive draw distance as well which is well observed when traveling by rooftop.

I will say that the voice acting was done particularly well.  All of the phone chatter is well executed while your running through the streets, hoping over buildings, and grinding railroad tracks.  The villain’s have veyr prominent parts that lay off the cheese but convey the message just right.  The dead drop’s, audio recordings you find all over the city, convey a good portion of back story, and should be found or you will miss a large part of the story.

Gameplay: Its a Sandbox third person shooter, with conventional weapons (Pistols, Grenades, Rocket Launchers, Sniper Rifle’s, etc.) that are tooled as special electrical powers within the game.  Your standard “Zap” resembles any standard pistol fire.  A few powers are unique to the power’s theme, but when boil down to the core elements they are really a set of the A-Typical standard arsenal with a styleistic flare.  This is by no means a bad thing either, as all of the powers work well.  It is a bit odd to see three Energy Bolts (Rocket Launcher) shoot from your palm, but you never think about it long enough to question it.  Each weapon is powerful in its own right, and the aiming scheme is for the most part fluid and quick.  I found that the standard zap had

some hit detection issues with certain enemy types which made rooftop kills painful at times, but this was rare and few between.  The Shockwave is by far the most useful power, allowing you to essentially “Force Push” enemies and obstacles out of the way, making it your best defensive weapon.

Running and climbing are core to the gameplay as you will continually be climbing up building, running, jumping, missing the rooftops, and falling.  You eventually gain what is a hover power, but you decent quickly which does not allow you to easily float from rooftop to rooftop, thats what the cables are for.  Power cables connect from building to building creating a highway that Cole can grind on Sonic Adventure 2 style.  Grinding these wires also refills your power meter that restores health and how many charges you have to use your special abilities with.  There will be a fair amount of running from fights as Cole cant take much fire, so these lines and routes become essential for survival for the first half of the game.  By the end you are a Super Powered Electric God ala Zesus that make you feel invincible, specifically if you are fond of Evil Karma.

Special: Sucker Punch has no intent on porting this over to any other console as they are huge fans of Sony’s platform.  No spoilers toward the ending but a sequel is inevitable.

Conclusion: Infamous has its flaws, but is a rollercoaster ride from start to finish.  The story is intriguing, and the ending twist is completely unexpected and makes complete sense (Confirming a Sequel).  Sony has a great new franchise on its hands.  This is a must buy, and will make some of the Best Game of the Year awards for many gamers and game reviewers.

Infamous is a **** out of 5