Some of you may remember that awhile back the PlayStation Network went down for a couple of months, due to some hackers and weak internal security. Well once PSN was back online, Playstation saw fit to buy their fans love back by giving away some games for download. This is how I acquired Infamous, developed by Sucker Punch Studios. You play as Cole McGrath a parkour mailman that inadvertently acquires the ability to manipulate electricity, the same blast that gives Cole his power also kills about 10,000 people and cripples and quarantines the city you reside in.

It’s a sandbox/super hero game but Cole is not limited to just running through the streets. Much better then Faith from Mirror’s Edge he can scale most buildings, unfortunately he can’t fly. But between most buildings are cables connecting them to other buildings so he can ski along these cables via his electrical powers.

His powers themselves let him fire a variation of Electrical blasts, all types of video game trope weapons like sniper rifle, rocket launcher and machine gun. His abilities develop as some progress offering him improvements on old abilities and new ones throughout.

Infamous is a game that doesn’t seem to push any boundaries or make any watershed moments. Just solid gameplay within a sandbox world. The world that you’re tossed into has tons of crime for you to clean up as the government seals the city off from the outside world and it’s up to you to either help or hinder the cities recovery. You see this game like so many others was built with moral choices. Some examples, there’s a giant garbage man that’s about to launch a gas tank at you. You can either A destroy the gas tank from a distance but kill all the innocent civilians nearby. Or B takes the gas tank head on and looses half your health.

Now usually I think most moral choice systems are internally busted because there’s no middle ground. Your either as Yahtzee put it Mother Teresa or a Baby eater. Infamous falls into this same trap also but does something not many other moral choice games do by making you suffer for doing the right thing. Most of the choices in the game that involve doing the right thing cause Cole pain in some way. This is a change from games like Star Wars KOTOR or Fallout 3 when doing good or evil you’re rewarded either way. While in Infamous all you get are points pushing you towards divinity. Sure they assist in good related abilities but they don’t offer a short term goal to sate you with immediately. One could say that good actions themselves are Coles only reward at times. Not since Fable 2 tattered Spire scene has a game offered negatives for doing the right thing.

Now I’m not saying Infamous is perfect in this regard. As it still is boiled down to a handful of choices that determine your outcome making your smaller good or bad actions meaningless. Also the good and bad ending could literally be palette swaps of each other with Cole sneering more. There are things done right and hopefully my bigger moral choice games can take a nod.

One other thing that stood out for me was the end game of Infamous. You’re drawn into a final battle with Kessler a mad man that has killed your love interest in the game, made your best friend Zeke betray you and as you find out gave you your powers and started the incident in the city. When you defeat Kessler he lies dying in your arms and he tells you that he is Cole that has come back through time, ok please keep reading it makes sense in the next paragraph well kind of.

You see Kessler/Cole got his Electrical powers later in life; he married and had a family. Then a monster called the beast shows up and begins destroying America. Instead of standing and fighting, Kessler runs with his family till the best catches up to him and kills his family. Spurned by grief Kessler some how goes back in time to accelerate present Cole’s abilities as well as kill the women he loves and turn his best friend against him. To Kessler the end justifies the means, his logic suggest that if he remove all the things that kept Cole from facing the beast to begin with he could save the U.S and the world. At the cost of everyone Kessler/Cole hold/held dear.

It’s a twisted but elegant logic that allows a man to forsake his own happiness for the greater good. It brought up a very interesting idea. Does the end justify the means or was Kessler so distraught that he saw this insane scenario as the only possible choice.

Some of you may remember that awhile back the PlayStation Network went down for a couple of months, due to some hackers and weak internal security. Well once PSN was back online, Playstation saw fit to buy their fans love back by giving away some games for download. This is how I acquired Infamous, developed by Sucker Punch Studios. You play as Cole McGrath a parkour mailman that inadvertently acquires the ability to manipulate electricity, the same blast that gives Cole his power also kills about 10,000 people and cripples and quarantines the city you reside in.

It’s a sandbox/super hero game but Cole is not limited to just running through the streets. Much better then Faith from Mirror’s Edge he can scale most buildings, unfortunately he can’t fly. But between most buildings are cables connecting them to other buildings so he can ski along these cables via his electrical powers.

His powers themselves let him fire a variation of Electrical blasts, all types of video game trope weapons like sniper rifle, rocket launcher and machine gun. His abilities develop as some progress offering him improvements on old abilities and new ones throughout.

Infamous is a game that doesn’t seem to push any boundaries or make any watershed moments. Just solid gameplay within a sandbox world. The world that you’re tossed into has tons of crime for you to clean up as the government seals the city off from the outside world and it’s up to you to either help or hinder the cities recovery. You see this game like so many others was built with moral choices. Some examples, there’s a giant garbage man that’s about to launch a gas tank at you. You can either A destroy the gas tank from a distance but kill all the innocent civilians nearby. Or B takes the gas tank head on and looses half your health.

Now usually I think most moral choice systems are internally busted because there’s no middle ground. Your either as Yahtzee put it Mother Teresa or a Baby eater. Infamous falls into this same trap also but does something not many other moral choice games do by making you suffer for doing the right thing. Most of the choices in the game that involve doing the right thing cause Cole pain in some way. This is a change from games like Star Wars KOTOR or Fallout 3 when doing good or evil you’re rewarded either way. While in Infamous all you get are points pushing you towards divinity. Sure they assist in good related abilities but they don’t offer a short term goal to sate you with immediately. One could say that good actions themselves are Coles only reward at times. Not since Fable 2 tattered Spire scene has a game offered negatives for doing the right thing.

Now I’m not saying Infamous is perfect in this regard. As it still is boiled down to a handful of choices that determine your outcome making your smaller good or bad actions meaningless. Also the good and bad ending could literally be palette swaps of each other with Cole sneering more. There are things done right and hopefully my bigger moral choice games can take a nod.

One other thing that stood out for me was the end game of Infamous. You’re drawn into a final battle with Kessler a mad man that has killed your love interest in the game, made your best friend Zeke betray you and as you find out gave you your powers and started the incident in the city. When you defeat Kessler he lies dying in your arms and he tells you that he is Cole that has come back through time, ok please keep reading it makes sense in the next paragraph well kind of.

You see Kessler/Cole got his Electrical powers later in life; he married and had a family. Then a monster called the beast shows up and begins destroying America. Instead of standing and fighting, Kessler runs with his family till the best catches up to him and kills his family. Spurned by grief Kessler some how goes back in time to accelerate present Cole’s abilities as well as kill the women he loves and turn his best friend against him. To Kessler the end justifies the means, his logic suggest that if he remove all the things that kept Cole from facing the beast to begin with he could save the U.S and the world. At the cost of everyone Kessler/Cole hold/held dear.

It’s a twisted but elegant logic that allows a man to forsake his own happiness for the greater good. It brought up a very interesting idea. Does the end justify the means or was Kessler so distraught that he saw this insane scenario as the only possible choice.