There comes a time in a person's life where they just have to do what they have to do. Joe has to find a way to pay the mortgage, Bill has to send overpriced products onto the shelves of your local stores, and our hero Cole has to make life-changing choices and determine the fate of an entire city by shooting electricity from his hands. In inFamous you do just that, and with the natural controls, great action, and solid plot, you'll never want to put down the controller.
In inFamous you play as Cole, a bike messenger in Empire City who just so happens to be unlucky enough to deliver a bomb. Soon, you find yourself with some crazy electric powers and adventure ensues. The plot of the game is, in a nutshell, solid. Not the most spectacular story ever told, but good enough to keep you interested until you finish the game. The static characters aren't there just to push you, and seem to have their own agenda that just happens to involve you. There are only a few characters, however, that seem to be worth worrying about, and that does make some scenes in the game feel unneeded. These moments appear very rarely, however, so it doesn't stop the story from keeping you on the edge of your seat. There are some plot twists mixed in, which really makes it exciting and also explains the evolving madness in this city. The voice acting is also done well, and while it is nothing spectacular, the dialog is always appropriate for the situation.
Now the plot is a very interesting part of the game itself, but the main focus of this game is phenomenal action. I got used to how Cole gets around within the first 10 minutes, which includes the prologue, so it's very easy to get used to. The powers are also very natural to use, and eventually you perform them without even thinking. Cole doesn't get all of his powers from the get go, and you get a grasp of the powers with time. A another driving force in inFamous is the karma system. Basically, if you do good deeds, you're going to be a good guy; evil deeds will make you evil. This affects a lot of things in the game, like how people react to you, or how you interact with other characters in the game. It also affects what kind of upgrades you can purchase for your powers. Good upgrades will focus more on restraining the enemies with minimal collateral damage, while bad upgrades are focused on causing mayhem in the direction your pointing in. Of course, it's always fun to be full of evil and not have to worry about anything but yourself, but being good is very fun in its own way. The game is also open world, so you can do anything you want to do. The game provides a number of ways to get around Empire City such as hovering, riding cable lines and train tracks, or riding the train itself if you're up for a little adventure. There is also a parkour movement system that allows you go to wherever you want in the city.
The soundtrack of this game is just like the plot in its solid nature. The music fits in with the whole vibe of the game, and is enjoyable to listen to throughout. When you play the game, you might not agree with me because if you decide to not do all of the missions all at once there will be a more ambiance-type music playing or just silence. The ambiance sets an eerie/mysterious tone to the game however, so it's still adds to the experience overall.
There are a numerous amount of collectibles in this game, serving a
deeper purpose than just more things to do. The first type of
collectibles are blast shards which, after enough are collected, will
give you battery cores,
which acts as your ammo in this game. The other collectibles in this
game are audio recordings left by an agent who had something to with
the bomb in the prologue, so these help fill in the background of the
game. There are also stunts to perform (combinations of moves to try
out on enemies), and a huge amount of trophies in the game. Also, the
game only allows you to be mainly good or evil, so you're going to have
to start over with being the opposite of whatever you chose to be last
time: good or evil. This, mixed with possibility of starting over in
hard mode, makes for a huge amount of replay value.
InFamous is the first PS3 game Sucker Punch has ever done and they have nailed every thing down to the letter. The plot is solid, the soundtrack is solid, and the action and fluidity of the controls is just outstanding. They made sure to give you a lot of ways to keep playing and they really amped up the possibility of multiple save files being created because you can't get enough of this game the first time. Any flaws in the game were discovered by very intense processes of nit picking, so this game has to get a 5 out of 5.