inFamous Review

                                     A Journalistic Review by DefiantParrot

  Originally Written: 09/29/2017

                                                 *Spoilers May Be Ahead*

Generic Video Game Haircut #3

Developer: Sucker Punch Productions

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertaiment

Platform: Playstation 3

Genre: Action-Adventure

Release: May 26, 2009

                There aren’t many development studios in gaming that I trust. There’s definitely more than gaming publishers, but as the cynical prick that I am, only a few have good standing with me. Sucker Punch is one of those developers.

Growing up I was an enormous fan of their Sly Cooper games on the Playstation 2, and since I’m looking into some PS3 games I missed, I decided my next one should be InFamous.

From what I’ve read after finishing their Sly Cooper trilogy Sucker Punch wanted to try something new, something ‘brazen and loud’ so as they were big comic book fans they decided on their own superhero game.

The point of inFamous was to become a modern day superhero and since I have recently been burned by other superheroes…

I’m hoping that infamous is the breath of fresh air that I need, so is it any good? Is this another system seller for Sony? Is it better than [Prototype] (Yes Obviously Yes!) let’s find out! This is inFamous.

So the first thing that you’ll notice when you start the game is once you press the start button at the title screen, the fucking city blows up. Like no immediately that’s what happens less than three seconds seeing Empire City and it’s already been blown apart like Brendan Fraser’s acting career.

I’ll give it this it got my attention… too bad it lost it pretty quickly after that.

He looks so... enthusiastic

So the plot of this game is a courier named Cole MacGrath was delivering a package when it blew up, instead of murdering Cole it gave him superpowers, which to be fair is sort of how several other famous superheroes got their abilities.

However Cole is not the only one to have been given superpowers, and Empire City wasn’t exactly a nice place before the explosion. So with his best friend Zeke and girlfriend Trish, Cole must learn to adapt to these powers and try to survive in the warzone known as Empire City.

Now let’s go straight for the throat here, a big drawing point for this game is choosing whether to use Coles knew shocking powers(HA!) for good or for evil. This is as much a supervillain game as it is a superhero one a bit of choose your own adventure going on here.

Nothing to see here

The game will keep track of your Karma as it calls it, and will offer you various side missions as you adventure around the city. Advancing along a good path with Cole for instance, will lock off some of the more evil missions.

Depending on your Karma you will also receive different outcomes to the story including the ending and different abilities as well. These are really well done and you can play the game the way you want to play it and more importantly it does increase replayability here, however put a pin in that and we’ll come back to it later.

Now I will say this, for the time inFamous looked really good, the city and Cole himself, the graphics were just fine for their time. However in the 8 years since this games release I feel it hasn’t aged very well. Now two exceptions here are in the sewers where the electricity is crackling off of Coles body it looks fantastic and also the comic book style cutscenes are also done really well. However anything in game just looks as I said dated. Not bad, but Empire City is gray and brown and just depressing. Coles powers do look cool, but his and every other characters model is once again dated and just doesn't look right to me.

Speaking of characters one of my biggest complaints here is that I don’t care about anyone. That shocking opening with Empire City is done really well but what it does is it just throws the player into this situation with no prior experience with anyone.

I’m not attached to Cole or Zeke so I’m not really invested in them and as the game goes on it just gets worse. Cole’s girlfriend Trish got on my nerves and was so obviously going to die I’m surprised a side mission didn’t involve Cole taking out life insurance on her.

Fuck You, you obese piece of shit

Zeke is a colossal fucking dumbass, I know the game tries to paint him as a lovable buffoon but I was desperate for an opportunity to chuck his fat ass off of a high building.

Cole while easily the second best character in this game is also so bland, while cool as hell definitely, I think the biggest issue with him is his voice acting. Not to insult his actor but it never felt like Cole cared about anything in this game, which neither did I so I guess we have that in common.

Now of course there are good things in this game while the characters are a complete failure to me here, the gameplay really does make up for a lot of that. The powers and abilities Cole can unlock are freakin’ sweet. My favorites being him using his electricity to skate along wires or railroad tracks, and of course the Lightning Storm!!

UNLIMITED POWER!!!!!!!

Oh man the Lightning Storm is so much fun to use, and it utilizing the Six-Axis controller being tilted to control it worked pretty damn well for me. Using this thing to kill enemies and destroy trucks mounted with turrets mmmmm Parrots got a stiffy!

Ummm anyway, there are Blast Shards scattered across the city, collecting enough of these can gain Cole a Blast Core which increased the duration of his abilities before he has to recharge.

Another decent addition to this game are the stunts. These are actions you can perform in the game which will reward you with experience points, there are a total of 21 in the game and for you completionists out there it gives you another reason to play. For the rest of us, it is a nice way to gain some XP and get some more awesome upgrades.

However I must address my biggest frustration with this game, Cole can run and parkour all across Empire City virtually anything and everything is climbable much like in Ubisofts Assassin’s Creed series.

And just like AC one of my biggest problems here is when I am controlling Cole particularly when I have to be moving quickly, chasing something etc. Cole will stick and grab hold of virtually whatever he wants.

It is frustrating beyond belief when I am attempting to race towards a literal ticking time bomb and I fail the mission because Cole was too busy humping a fucking wall!

Fucking LOVE this fight

Now the boss fights in this game are few and far between unfortunately but they are pretty good nonetheless. Battling other super-powered individuals known as Conduits is a lot of fun especially the final boss Kessler. I fucking love this guy! His voice, his actions, his backstory, his character design all of it is phenomenal I wish there was more of him here!

I also experienced some glitches during my time with inFamous which was about 13-14 hours I’d say. These included occasional pop in, be it buildings or sometimes enemies (which sucked) there were a few times I’d go to leap on a building and Cole would instead go through it for a split second, working with Zeke to get on an elevator and him losing him fucking mind cartwheeling all over the damn thing.

And finally some framerate dips particularly with a lot of enemies on screen or with several things going on at once i.e. explosions, several enemies, me playing with that damn Lightning Storm again.

But nothing ever game breaking.

Now about that replayability I mentioned earlier, for those who love this game and I know there are many out there, this game is indeed replayable. However I only played through this game once, with good Karma on medium difficulty and with the complaints I addressed earlier… I did not really enjoy my experience.

While I did play through X-Men: Destiny three separate times I just couldn’t bring myself to start from square one again with this game. What would be able to bring me back into this game for a second playthrough I’ll tell you my friend, New Game Plus!

This game would be perfect for it, allowing you to keep much of your upgrades and abilities from one playthrough while going through it again! But unfortunately it’s not here and I just find that sad.

Still better than [Prototype]

All in all of the Playstation 3 games I have gone back and played this is easily the weakest one to me. Many of my problems here can be addressed in a sequel and this game did receive one, and I do plan on checking out inFamous 2 hopefully before the beginning of next year.

inFamous receives my Bronze Seal of Acceptance… but admittedly just barely

This one was really hard for me to decide, because I really didn’t enjoy much of my experience here. But this is far from a bad game, this series has its fans and while I expect many to hate me for this I must stand by what I say. By all means continue to enjoy this franchise, here’s hoping that inFamous 2 can get me on board with the rest of you.

               

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