This game from Sucker Punch is among the games made available for free download, as part of the PlayStation Network's "Welcome Back" pack. It introduces a new kind of gameplay.
In this game, the world's atmosphere really gives off that a city once known to be incredibly busy and exciting is now very hollow and gloomy after such a disaster with thieves running amok and people suffering from the lack of food and medical help.
With an incredibly large open world which you can traverse at will, lots of side missions (while they aren't awful, they do, after awhile, get pretty repetitive) and collectibles to complete in case you don't want to continue with the main story, tons of unique superpowers to unlock via the main story and purchase and upgrade with experience points (making the gameplay incredibly fun weather you're fighting enemies, running away, or just generally traversing the city), inFamous is PlayStation at their greatest. While traversing the game is great in most cases, it did, however, falter in a few, the most well known being the inability to climb fences. In the sequel, Sucker Punch even put a trophy in the game when you do climb a fence as a direct reference to this. Also, while the blast shards are worth collecting because it increases how much electricity that Cole is able to hold and makes him stronger, there are more than 350 of them in the game, and they are notoriously difficult to find, to the point where lots of players like me end up giving up on finding them all, especially considering that the reward for collecting every single one of them is just a PlayStation trophy.
The characters feel very much like real people. The graphics are photo-realistic, which were still in their infancy at the time, which is especially impressive since, unlike Infamous 2, they didn't use motion capture for this game. Even an incredible soundtrack. Most of us agree that the standout is the end credits song "Silent Melody" by the band Working for a Nuclear Free City.
The world is broken up into three districts and each of these districts have their own fractions:
- The Reapers, who control the Neon District, that are being controlled by "Black Tar", a mind control agent that is produced by their leader, Sasha.
- The Dust Men, who control the Warren District. With their District being the poorest, the gang is made up of the homeless led by Alden Tate.
- The First Sons are a cult group dedicated to discovering and unlocking the potential of humans, who control the Historic District of Empire City with their leader Kessler. Also unlike the other factions of Empire City they are fully equipped with the latest in weaponry and armor, making them the toughest of the three factions.
The story involves vengeance, loss, sacrifice, and what it means to be a hero or a villain, which the karma system perfectly plays into. There's an in depth karma system in addition for gamers who want to play the game as a hero or a villain. The choices they make affect not only the look of Cole and the look of the world, but also how the citizens of Empire City reacts to him. Despite having two different endings, there's hardly any difference between the two with only slight alterations.
There aren't many boss fights in the game, and the ones it does have aren't very good, aside from the final boss fight against Kessler. The melee combat is also pretty poor, which leads to most players almost never using it in the game. Thankfully this is fixed in the sequel.
If you got a PS3 but no new games for it, make inFamous your first game.