Infamous
Reviewed by Coxster Played on Playstation 3
For the last couple of months there has a lot of talk about Infamous and Prototype, mainly how similar they seem to be to each other. Now that they are both out on the shelves, it’s easy to see that they are worlds apart, even if they do share similar ideas. Infamous is a Playstation 3 exclusive, a must have for any fan of the action genre, and another reason why owning a Playstation 3 is becoming a better idea every day. Sony have a great year ahead of them! I’ll get this out of the way before we go any further, I’ve finished Infamous, and I plan on returning it and finishing it again. I’ve become a fan.
When I first started playing this game, there were a few moments where throwing my controller seemed like a good idea, make no mistake, Infamous is a tough little game. It seemed like I was constantly getting killed by enemies who seemed much more powerful than the weak little lightning bolts that came out of my fingertips. It wasn’t until a good three or four hours in when I started upgrading my powers with XP I had collected and unlocked a few more by playing the game, that I realised how satisfying the combat in Infamous really was. Those enemies who gave me such a run for my money, suddenly didn’t seem so tough. I was jumping around, Assassin’s Creed style, over large buildings, throwing electrical grenades, hovering over wide gaps, bringing all types of pain to some well equipped bad guys and having the time of my life. This is seriously a comic book come to life, and because I never did learn to grow up, it makes the game that much better. Most videogames based on comic book characters seem to lose that comic book feel when they make the transition to the video-game format, but infamous, which isn’t based on a comic book, feels more like one than they do…what a confusing sentence to read.
You play as Cole McGrath, a courier who delivers a package that ends up exploding, leaving Cole with the ability to conduct and control electricity. Because of the bomb and a mysterious virus, the entire city is in lockdown as the population start to become very sick. The authorities are of no help, there is no cure, no relief, lucky Empire City just got themselves a real life superhero!
As you would expect there are some villains that mirror Cole, from a mutated old man with powerful mind powers to a freaky woman who can make you hallucinate, plus hordes of foot soldiers to fry, they are all varied enough to keep you playing along. There is an arc to the plot that plays in the background for most of the game, shadow organizations, your ex-girlfriend who thinks you’re one of the bad guys until you gain her trust, it’s all a tad convenient and melodramatic which makes it feel like it was authentically lifted from the pages of a comic book. The developers, Sucker Punch, obviously know what it takes to make a game feel like a comic book, and I applaud their efforts.
Story aside though, the action in Infamous is superb. This is one of the best third person action games I’ve played in a long while. The abilities that Cole has are not only awesome, but they play very intuitively, you never seem to get mixed up with the buttons and what you have to do to pull off certain moves, it’s all set out so that firing off a string of varied attacks becomes simplicity itself, which is exactly what you want when you go about creating a game of this nature. What really impressed me was the way that Cole was able to climb just about any wall or building that gets in his way. There is a little looseness with some of the jumping sequences, but seriously I can’t remember the last time I had a game seem to know exactly what I wanted it to do.
Not only does the combat and climbing stay engaging, but Empire City itself, is a very interesting place to explore. There are several islands that connected with bridges and you’ll have to go about liberating small chunks of those islands as you complete various missions, but the locations all have a very worn down, lived in flavour which I really dug. The residents look cold, sick and hungry and their reaction to Cole (depending on whether you want to be good or bad) is really quite clever.
Every enemy you kill, every resident you save, every mission you complete unlocks small amounts of XP which you can then use to unlock more powerful moves for Cole to master. For instance, levelling up your shock bomb enables you to expand the blast radius and power, just about levelling an entire street corner. It works fantastically because it’s balanced perfectly because you get the right amount of XP to unlock extra abilities right when you seem to need it most.
Now there is a moral system at work in Infamous, but don’t expect any varying degrees on Good or Bad, you have clearly only two choices on what type of guy you want to be. It’s a little bit clean-cut and not very complicated but either way you play it is still fun. Being a good guy will give you certain powers and abilities, while being a bad guy (and I mean that in a antihero kind of way) give you different powers with different results, even though the outcome in both situations usually ends up with bad guys being killed.
Because Infamous is a sandbox game like GTA, you can pretty much go anywhere and do anything you want, completing missions or just stuffing around looking for hidden packages (that actually increases your electrical attack meter) or satellite dishes that provide a fill-in for the gaps that exist in Cole’s mind. It’s not the biggest city on Earth, but because Cole doesn’t seem to be able to drive cars (that I could figure out anyways) getting around will take some time, unless of course you ride on top of a train or grind down the train tracks, better still you can push along the many overhead electricity lines and get about that way. Getting around looks stylish, there are plenty of spots to find, bad guys to beat and varied missions to accomplish.
The music and feel reminded me of the Warriors for some reason, lovely haunted synths and perfectly timed to correspond with the action on screen. There is really so much to like about Infamous that it’s easy to forgive that it has a terrible draw distance at times, looks a little bit underwhelming for a Playstation 3 game and can have framerate jitters when there is too much going on at once, but because everything else works so well you’ll hardly notice the flaws.
The quality of the story and gameplay make Infamous a game worth noticing. I loved it and I can’t wait to get into Empire City and do it all again. Sucker Punch, you’ve nailed it!
Overall:
+ Excellent story, fun comic book presentation. + Precise combat options, fun to play and master. + Great control scheme, responsive and does exactly what you want it to do. + Enjoyable Missions that are challenging and varied. + Plenty of game here, will take many hours to complete. + High replay value, do it once as a good guy and then again as a bad guy. + Climbing controls put Assassin’s Creed to shame! - Graphics are a little under par for a Playstation 3 exclusive. - Draw distance isn’t very good in some parts. - Hard to know where enemies are firing on you sometimes. - Sidekick is annoying - Can be a little bit repetitive.
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