Zeke still sucks, but that's about all that does.
Infamous 2 is a hard game to place, they’ve changed so much about it while leaving so much of it the exact same. Yet it still manages to feel like a unique open world experience with a ton of content and a lot of replay ability. It’s a game for comic fans, open world fans, or even to some extent third person shooter fans. It reaches a broad audience and it mish mashes all these different genres and play styles into one gorgeous, fun to play and well told story.
Without spoiling anything from the first game, or even now, you still play as Cole. An electrically charged bike messenger that got his powers one day from a package he was delivering. It’s a tried and true origin story, with a whole hell of a ton of plot twists throughout. So now, here you are in a new city, still with your same asinine best friend Zeke and a few new friends a lot the way to stop a creature so powerful that now even one of the world’s only superheroes could stop it. You leave the location and search for this Doctor, who supposedly can boost your powers tenfold, and here’s where the game takes place. Each day, the Beast comes closer and closer to the city you’re in now and it even shows it on a handy little map screen. I’m not going to get much further in the story but I am going to say that it’s one hell of an incredible story, and it is a necessity to have played the first one to get the full appreciation for what Sucker Punch has written here. The very end of the original Infamous is something I’ll likely never forget, and I could say the very same thing with the opening of Infamous 2.
As for the gameplay, virtually nothing has changed so more likely than not if you didn’t like how the first one
played you probably won’t like it here, that being said if you did like and or love how the first Infamous played, you’re going to be all over this game. The powers have a much greater variety and I’m not talking about just different elements such as fire and ice, I’m talking a greater range and usability throughout, you can practically use the force now (which it doesn’t help considering from the back of his head he looks a lot like Starkiller from the Force Unleashed) to pick up cars or literally anything else you find, and hurl them at enemies or even random civilians. The action and set pieces are ratcheted up significantly and there’s just a greater variety and feel all around. Such as in the enemies (there are a lot of new enemy types and a lot are not just plain thugs like you fought in the first games), enemies as a whole have gotten massive, some reach past the sizes of buildings. Not only that, but the karma system is back and depending on which options you choose it could greatly alter the already engaging story, it’s worth seeing through, and seeing through twice. The gameplay isn’t without it’s issues, the karma system is about as basic as they could get with it and the climbing is still not perfect, there’s a lot of weird moments with him not latching onto certain things that he should be able to latch onto. Actually, there are a lot of visual glitches also such as cars dancing or exploding yet no one gets hurt. They don’t break the game or experience in anyway; they’re just sort of funny to see. Finally, there are user created missions and mini games that have been made by Sucker Punch themselves. They put in those little tools for the community to make their own story arches and all that. The potential for these user missions is incredible. I haven’t messed with it much, nor do I think I will, but people could easily do some incredible things with this.
The last component that rounds off the wonderful experience is the presentation of the game, this game
isn’t the best looking open world game out there but it sure as hell is up there. It runs perfectly smooth nearly all the time, the motion comics are some of the best drawn I’ve seen and it fits right along with what Sucker Punch did for the Sly Cooper series. The voice acting is great, though I do miss Cole’s old VO; the new one still does a stellar job. The whole presentation is just completely amped up from what was done in the past. As I’ve said though, there are a ton of visual glitches and the sound has some issues at times with all the explosions going off. Overall though, it’s one great looking and sounding game.
The core of Infamous hasn’t changed much from its predecessor, but they upped the quality of just about everything so well that is succeeds as a better game and one of the best games to play this year, if the core game didn’t sit with you well then there isn’t much to take in here that’ll change your mind. But if you want a deep, engaging story, fun to play sandbox game or just a huge open world with a ton to see and do, then Infamous 2 is the game for you. It’s not without its flaws, but I recommend it to everyone looking for a good time, or to just have something engrossing to play throughout the up and coming summer.
