Infamous. Quite a lofty title for a game. Sucker Punch’s super powered anti-hero may not have been known by all, but he apparently did well enough to warrant a sequel. Which brings us to Infamous 2. After having a bit of a personality crisis, Cole MacGrath is back for another round of electricity fueled adventure. This time the party is in the New Orleans knock-off, New Marais with a titanic clash between him and a giant fire beast. The exterior trappings may be a bit different, but the framework is straight out of the first one. And I suppose I could say that it is not half bad.
So what is good about the game? The story is actually pretty decent. I would even go as far as to say better then the first. The team definitely tried to put more emotion and depth into the storyline. They also did a better job of breathing more life into Cole and the supporting characters. Hell, they even made you care about Zeke! The diversity of side missions is refreshing after doing the same thing over and over again in the first game. There is even a crazy user-generated level system that lets you create your own missions and upload them for everyone to play. Crazy! Other than that there really isn’t much in the way of “new” aside from some new powers and the continuation of the story of Cole.
But there are also issues I take with the game. Suddenly Cole is not the only person who has used a Ray Sphere. Yes people are popping up left and right with super powers down in this faux Big Easy. This kind of weakens the character of Cole as an anti hero if there is nothing really uniquely special about him. Also there are a few new platforming tools to get you up to the roof faster, but in particular the vertical electrified pole thing, never really worked. I would be looking right at it, jump forward to grab it, and Cole would just jump to the left or right of it instead. It is just twitchy platforming and I completely detest twitchy platforming.
So you take the good and the bad. The first Infamous game was pretty neat and the fact that they got to make another is good for them. It certainly does not feel like the peak of what they can achieve for the franchise, but it is an interesting and progressive step. There is always room at the end of this game for a third installment (yes I know how it ended but Sony likes to hedge their bets that way) and given the advancements made in this game I would be willing to give Sucker Punch a third go at it. Perhaps the third time will be the charm as they say. It may sound like I didn’t like the game from reading this, that is not the case. It is a better more fully realized game than the first, but I would not recommend playing it without knowing what you are getting into. So right now, unless you are invested in the story of Cole MacGrath, you won’t find much in Infamous 2 that is worth your time.