Review Score:

The developers of the Sly Cooper series, Sucker Punch, intrigued us all when they announced that their first Playstation 3 title was in fact not going to be the fourth game starring that lovable thieving raccoon.  inFAMOUS is not only their first entry into the open world style of gameplay, but also their first game to use a more realistic, darker and grittier art style.  Was this unexpected move from the familiar a successful outing for Sucker Punch? I’d definitely say so.

The storyline that was crafted for inFAMOUS is really well done and rather than trail off into mediocrity like other longer games, it actually picks up towards the end. You play as Cole, a courier in Empire City that is asked to deliver a package from an unknown client, which leads to him inadvertently causing a huge explosion that rocks the city and gets it put under quarantine by the government. Chaos ensues after the people began to feel abandoned by those that have put them under lockdown, with the three islands of Empire City each being under the control of a different faction of deviants. Cole happens to survive the blast and while recovering for two weeks, he discovers he has superhuman abilities that allow him to control electricity. With these new powers, Cole feels the need to change how things are going in the city, for better or for worse.

Throughout the game you are given moral choices that will lead you to be seen as either the savior or the destroyer of Empire City.  The story’s cutscenes vary according to which of the two you are seen as, along with the way the general public reacts to seeing you around on the street. If you are viewed as a hero, people will cheer for you and take pictures, while being infamous leads the people to yell angrily at you, throw rocks and alert the police of your location. In my first play through, I decided to go evil, as I normally enjoy doing when given the choice in games.  Most other games that have this feature actually make the game harder for you if you’re evil. inFAMOUS, however, seems to make it easier since, as an evil bastard, you’ll do anything to get the job done no matter how much destruction you cause.  If you’re playing as good and intend on staying that way, you will have to be more careful of who or what you hit with your powers.  Accidentally kill a restrained bad guy by blowing up the car next to him? Woops, that’s counted as an Execution by the game and goes towards your negative karma.  Some other moral choices are presented to you during side missions where, for example, you are to help a citizen get to his locker in exchange for a blast shard, the game’s collectible item that adds to the maximum amount of electricity you can hold at once. Once you get to the locker, you find out that the citizen actually has five of them and are given the choice of either taking the one piece that is offered or killing him and taking all five. The parts that give you the most karma are from the main storyline missions, the first of which gives you the choice of sharing some dropped off food from the government with the rest of the citizens or killing them and taking it all for your girlfriend, best friend and yourself. Every time one of these paths come up in front of Cole, he voices his thoughts on each side and, interestingly enough, justifies the bad choice to actually make it seem right. A majority of these choices are pretty clear cut and easy to choose depending on which way you want to go with your alignment, but even though I played all the way through as evil the first time, I can see how at least one of the choices would be really hard to go with as a hero at that point in the storyline.

inFAMOUS isn’t the best looking game on the Playstation 3, but that doesn’t mean it looks terrible. The environment looks good and fits the devastated place that is Empire City.  Lots of visual Easter eggs are available via billboards, posters and store signs (i.e. an advertisement for the store closing sale of a business called Transistor Town with a logo that looks quite similar to Circuit City’s). There is a bit of pop-in now and then and you’ll see cars or people just appear out of nowhere. I noticed a couple spots where an enemy either disappeared up to it’s head into the floor or oddly ragdolled around against an invisible wall after dying near a ledge. These are, of course, minor things that obviously did not effect the score, but should at least be mentioned. The best part of the visuals to me was the cut scenes where they had graphic novel style art rather than the in-game graphics. Hopefully when/if there is a sequel they choose to go with this style instead of the realistic approach.

As far as how it feels to scale buildings and move around in this large open world, Sucker Punch did a really good job of making things almost effortless in this department.  Within minutes of getting control of Cole, I was able to climb up buildings and go from rooftop to rooftop with ease. Eventually you are given the ability to ride along railroad tracks and power lines in order to traverse throughout the city quicker, all the while charging yourself up with the electricity running through them.  Combined with the ability to glide that you come across later on definitely makes a game where there are no cars to drive or teleporting features to get from island to island a bit less of a pain.

The combat in inFAMOUS is enjoyable, a plus considering you’ll be doing a lot of it. Melee attacks are just about useless since just about every enemy employs long range weapons and swinging at them, for the most part, results in them backing up before a fist can land. On the note about enemies and their long range attacks, exposure to the explosion must have given them the inhuman ability to be the most accurate shooters ever. I could be a few buildings away, where my lightning bolts would not be able to reach my assaulter, yet their shots would strike me easily. The game has quite a few combat abilities which are fun and change depending on if you’re good or evil. Good abilities will focus more on precision hits and restraining the enemies, where the bad ones cause much more collateral damage (i.e. the Hero’s shock grenade will automatically restrain weakened enemies, while the Infamous one splits into seven grenades that cause splash damage).

I’ll admit that, up until now, my Playstation 3 had collected more dust than any of my other gaming systems. Another thing I’ll own up to is that I’m stricken with a sort of video game ADD. I’ll start a game and before I get too far in, I get distracted by the next big game and never touch it again. Even if I had not been required to finish inFAMOUS before reviewing it, I can definitely see myself going through it on my own. In fact, this is probably the first game I’ve actually felt the need to go through a second time to play as good and eventually try for the Platinum trophy. inFAMOUS is the best game I’ve played on the Playstation 3 so far and I cannot recommend buying it enough.

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