inFamous is a highly anticipated PS3 exclusive from Sucker Punch, which lets you play out your hero or anti-hero fantasies in a post-apocalyptic city. Is this game set to shock your world? Here is my review.
Story
inFamous literally starts with you pressing the start button which activates an electrical explosion which destroys and warps most of the city (Well done you). The only thing left at ground zero is a battered bike messenger named Cole McGrath, as he stumbles among the debris he keeps involuntarily absorbing electricity and soon after that falls into a coma. Two weeks later he awakens to find out that he can store and discharge electricity with his body, as well as being more agile and durable. Cole is not the only thing that has changed, Empire City has been quarantined due to a mysterious plague and society has gone arwy such as no law enforcement and it’s up to Cole to utilise his powers to save the city or look out for himself with the help of his best friend Zeke, who wants a piece of the action and his girlfriend, Trish, who is using her medical skills to try and help everyone while chastising Cole due to him being blamed for the blast that killed her sister.
The story can be completed in 10-12 hours with side missions included. Collectibles in the form of dead drops and blast shards that fill in the story and increase your power storage (and they are worth finding) which increase that play time to 15+ hours. The story has brilliant pacing using beautiful graphic novel styled panels as cutscenes, well built characters (especially Cole who is flexible to incorporate your good or evil tendencies while letting the developers build the story around you), TVs that spew propaganda to the rest of the world, a city that feels alive and broken with plot twists that never stray too far from the original path or create plot holes and an ending which explains everything (and have you gagging for more), while leaving it open for a sequel. It is one of the most carefully crafted original stories you will play so far this year.
Gameplay
The gameplay in inFamous consists of 3 things: Urban Exploration, Electrical powers and morale choices. Before the blast, Cole’s hobby was Urban exploration (which is where you navigate abandoned buildings by climbing and jumping) now that he is more agile, he can leap higher and further which makes the climbing controls very intuitive for you to move Cole quickly to your destination, all thanks to a ‘automatic lock on’, which lets you pretty much grab anything from ledges, poles, train rails, power lines and pipes, even better is the fact that you unlock Static Thrusters which let you glide around and a rail slide move which lets you travel in style. The only niggle with the climbing is that the ‘automatic lock on’ will hone in on objects nearest to you, which can get annoying when you are trying to find a place to regenerate your health from a vicious battle, only for a lamp post to get in your way of your escape route causing you to experience cheap deaths but for the most part it works very well.
The electrical powers range widely to compensate on other game mechanics we have seen before. Ranging from the standard Lightning Bolt (which is your default power) and a Shockwave Pulse ( which is basically a Force Push) What is genius about these powers is the fact they are all linked and based on electricity so it never feels like Cole is a cheap superhero knockoff with nearly every elemental power available to him. The fact that they are based off Electricity means that Cole will have to recharge once in a while. This is easily accomplished by clicking in the left analog stick to find a source of a electricity and pull L2. It's a neat idea and makes you feel like you're recharging a laptop or iPod because you rip, roaring and ready to go.
The controls are near perfection and lend themselves very well for shooting and movement, you can pick up the controller (even if you think the PS3 controller is a little unwieldy for shooting) and start having a blast because the movement is fluid and the powers are easily accessed by a 2 button combination of L1 and one of the face buttons. Suffice to say you will master the controls in no time so the gameplay becomes a very natural flow between fighting and movement.
Lastly, the Karma system, that lets you choose between good and evil. Although blankly makes you choose decisions by detailing what both sides will do. For example: Do you give people the food drop supplies or zap few pedestrians to scare them off and take the food you and your friends'. All the choices are plainly black and white decisions which is fine because it's the combat that will control little bits of your alignment most of the time, by giving you extra experience points for dealing extra damage with enemies by doing stuff like, restraining a beaten foe with electrical handcuffs or executing him, so in that respect, completing extra stunts in fight situations, will most definitely reward your play style.
Presentation
Right from the beginning you are introduced to beautiful graphic novel panels detailing what is going on with the city 2 weeks after the explosion; it perfectly sets up the gritty tone for the different environments and is a fantastic way of dramatising different plot points in the story. The transition to the gameplay visuals afterwards is minimal; the game looks fantastic in both respects, the artwork has bright colours and paint splatters to give you a sense of gravity of the whole situation with the in-game visuals seem almost comic book like with sunlight being the only pure thing that is left in dingy Empire City. Character design is also great, Cole with look pristine and heroic when good and dark and malevolent when evil, his voice which is akin to Christian Bale's Batman voice (which some may find is becoming an increasing trend) sounds perfect because it fits both good and evil and is used very effectively when Cole is delivering his neutral thoughts and the odd good or bad one liners.
Problems
Although inFamous is a great game that boasts both quality and quantity there are some issues to be found. While playing through I found the game to become unresponsive a couple of times and the frame rate will slow down dramatically when Shock Grenades and other explosions become really intense. Other problems include pedestrians acting weirdly such as clipping onto objects, becoming injured from falling over a bench and experiencing cheap deaths from a barrage of bullets which doesn’t sound like much but can be very frustrating especially in the blacked out areas of the city, that require you to go into the middle of the area with limited power while dealing with mounted turrets on trucks which after a couple times of fighting them, I just resorted to skulking around and eventually running for the mission marker.
inFamous overall is every gamer/comic book fan’s dream, it boasts amazing powers to utilise, a very well written story, gameplay control that is near perfection and a fantastic art and graphical style. Although the game does sport a few blemishes from time to time it shouldn’t stop you from letting this superhero extravaganza take you on an electrical rollercoaster of a ride. The tagline for this game is ‘Being a hero is optional’ but buying this isn’t because if you are a PS3 owner or are a gamer you MUST buy it and so far this is my game of the year. Bring on the sequel!