Sucker Punch’s PS3 debut revolves around a deliveryman in Empire City that unknowingly sets off a huge bomb in the city centre, causing the city to be taken over by a plague and your character, Cole, to receive electricity-related superpowers. InFamous is an original game with no games or fiction (save a small 24 page comic) to come before it, so Sucker Punch really had to work hard to nail Cole, and Empire City’s personality to make this a first-rate origin story, and they did. I thought that Cole’s voice acting, while mocked by many in the press, is fitting to a character that unwittingly killed thousands of people, and that his friends, Zeke and John were well fleshed out, and definitely stood up on their own.

Moral Choices in videogames have been as “in” as Keyboard Cat ever since Mass Effect, and InFamous willingly jumps on the bandwagon. Along the way to the game’s ending you will be confronted by moral choices. These can vary from choosing whether you want to have a “good” or “evil” poster with your face on it, to deciding the fate of the city later on in the game. Your choices in these moments push your “karma” (My name is Cole?) towards good or evil, which changes the way normal citizens, and other characters react to you. There are also some powers which can only be unlocked by going one way or the other down the karma path, which basically forces you to be all the way good or all the way bad - there is no ‘neutral’ karma in this game. I played through the game twice, once good and once bad and found that the powers were a little more fun while being evil, but that I really felt awful making some of the decisions I did.

As the game develops Cole gets more and more powerful leaving you with the decision of “do I take over the city, or save what’s left”. The game definitely does a good job of giving you the powers to act on your decision with awe-inspiringly lethal powers. These powers basically replace guns that you would expect to find in a game of this genre. The normal lightning attack replicates a rifle, the Megawatt Hammer replicates a rocket launcher, and Lighting Storm replicates…I don’t know, something really badass. All of the powers are upgraded using XP earned by completing missions or killing bad guys – but the upgrades you get depend on whether you are good or evil. Good powers generally receive upgrades that make the powers more precise and lethal, whereas evil powers just cause an extra area of damage, making you feel like a dick for killing hundreds of innocent people.

Alongside the main mission there are lots of distractions. There are trophies for any people (such as myself) who are sufficiently insane to collect all two hundred and something “shards” and thirty something “dead-drops” (which are audio clips that help flesh out the story really well). It took me about 30 hours to go through the story twice and get the platinum trophy, but I’ve heard from others that it can take up to 40 hours to do.

However much I have poured over InFamous’ good points, it isn’t a perfect game. The game starts off really hard, enough so that I nearly stopped playing, because at that point Cole hasn’t got all of his powers. But after the first 3 or 4 hours it gets easier, to a point at the end of the game were a small flick of the down button can kill 7 enemies effortlessly. This end-game power is actually great, as it really feels like Cole has developed from a small battery to a nuclear power plant in terms of power, which is, if truth be told, very rewarding.

Another bad point, if minor, is the main bad guy; Kessler. He may be tough and, at times, badass, but his voice acting is atrocious. Seriously, he sounds like the stupidest person on the planet. The only comparison I can make is that of the voice of the doll in the Saw movies. Ugh.

Anyway, I digress, InFamous is a great example of how an open world, superhero action game should be made. At no point does the game stop you from having immense amounts of fun. Everyone with a PS3 that likes action games should buy this. Good job Sucker Punch!

9/10

Matt

Labels: InFamous, Matthew, Matthew Meadows, Review

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