The "set-up a sequel at the end" problem
Infamous had me until the very end of the game. I thought it was a great game that nailed every mechanic that it tried to implement. But then came the last cutscene of the game, and the plot twist. It was very underwhelming. It felt like a very cheap way to set-up the sequel. It was a big "fuck you, you are going to have to wait for the sequel" gesture to the player. The gameplay is perfect in Infamous, and there is not a single fault with any of its mechanics. It is the underwhelming story and the plot twist that hurts the game. At the end of the game, it turns out that all you have done during the game has just warmed you up for what is about to come in the sequel. If the game had gone on for another hour, and you actually got to fight "the beast", everything would have been great. But no, that it going to be in the sequel.
The story in Infamous is very inconsistent. At points, you feel like you are watching a great superhero movie with political undertones. But at other times, you feel like you are playing a cheap video game tie-in to an average superhero movie. The protagonist, Cole, is a bike messenger. One day while delivering a package, he causes and explosion in Empire City which causes a disaster and gives him super powers. After the explosion, some armed gangs take over the city since forces of law enforcement are scarce around the city. You have a friend named Zeke, who can be annoying at times but ultimately comes off as a somewhat likeable character. Then there is Trish, Cole's ex-girlfriend who begins to despise Cole after she learns that Cole has caused the explosion. There are also three gangs in the game, each with their own leader. Each leader has a back story and you get to learn more about them as the game progresses. Most of the story is told through comic book style 2D-animated cutscenes that look fantastic. But whenever the game tries to tell its story through in-engine cutscenes, it fails miserably because of ugly character models, stiff-character animation, and bad lip-synching.
The visuals in the game feel dated at times, but to be fair Empire City is very large and detailed. The urban landscape feels very familar; it is very much like Liberty City after a natural disaster. When looking at them up-close, the character models are down-right ugly. They don't animate very well either, Cole himself being the sole exception. There are also frame-rat and pop-in issues throughout the game. The musical s core is average at best. The voice acting is acceptable. The main character's voice sounds like me doing my impression of Christian Bale in Batman Begins. Zeke's dialogue sounds very forced to maintain "the hood" accent throughout the game. Overall, the production values are not anything special, but they manage to get to job done. But production values just compliment the gameplay, and they can't make or break the game. Thankfully, Infamous has got the goods when it comes to gameplay. The gameplay is perfect in Infamous. It consists of two ingredients: the platforming of Prince of Persia, and the combat of Halo. You can climb anything in Empire City. Although the climbing mechanic is not as robust as Assassin's Creed, and you end up pushing X about three-thousand times to climb a tall building, it feels right and Cole animates very well. It has a very similar assist system to Prince of Persia, which means that timing and being precise don't really matter as long as you jump in the right direction. The combat in Infamous is also awesome. You find yourself in big, open-ended areas with various enemies spawning all around you and chasing you, much like the Halo games. The approach you take to combat is very dynamic, and zapping bad-guys feels very similar to the Plasma guns in Halo. Grenades are also very important in the combat (again, much like Halo). You also unlock a plasmid shield (did I say it's like Halo?) later in the game. I ended up using the grenade a lot in the combat, and only using other powers when necessary. Overall, the game nails its two very distinct individual mechanics and also blends them very well. The end result is a game that always keeps a grin on your face while playing.
Infamous' only fault is its ending. There is not a single misstep in the implementation of any of its game mechanics. But it fails to set-up the unavoidable sequel in a subtle way, and perhaps ends an hour or two soon. The game is not short by any definition, and there is a lot of side missions to do after you are finished with the main quest. But you don't get to fight the one boss that you are supposed to, the main "nemesis", because the developers want to reserve that for the sequel. Why? Because any game with a "2" on the box sells better.
