inFamous

A massive explosion rips through six square blocks of Empire City, leveling everything and everyone in its path. At the center of the blast crater a lone man stands up miraculously unharmed… gifted with incredible powers. From the creators of the award-winning Sly Cooper series, Sucker Punch brings you Infamous, the first open-world action/adventure title by SCEA, for the PlayStation 3. Players experience what happens when a real person suddenly starts developing super powers.

Hurray, our first review is about a game that is actually fun to play. Infamous, a game we have been waiting on for years now has finally landed on store shelves and the electric playground comes alive. Sucker-Punch Studios, developers of the popular Sly Cooper series, have taken a break from the masked Raccoon to present the story of Cole McGrath, the electric super-powered vigilante of Empire City.

You play as Cole, a courier for hire who unknowing was sent to deliver the doomsday device that went off during it’s delivery and destroyed most of Empire City. However, where thousands of people died in the explosion, Cole survived and found that he now has the ability to control electricity. The city is quarantined and Cole is left with no escape but a deal he has worked under the table with the government that asks him to find a missing agent and retrieve the device that caused this mess.

One of the big features in Infamous is the ability to play as a superhero or super…… villain? I hesitate to call him a super-villain, because while his actions can be self-motivated and antagonistic, he lacks the megalomaniacal quality I reserve for characters like Magnito and not really a sadistic hedonist that marks many other noted villains like The Joker. Let’s split the difference and call him an antagonist. Throughout the game Cole is given various points where he can choose between helping the greater good or selfishly acting in his own interest. Playing to be a hero obviously means you will be sticking your neck out for the common man, but also effects how you handle conflicts with enemies. You will be incredibly careful not to kill ANYONE, and after having taken enemies down, you then have the option to put them in electric restraints. It adds an extra difficulty to the fray, because you will be cautious about engaging gun-wielding wackos in a public area where one misplaced electric grenade can spell death for a couple unsuspecting civilians. Basically ask yourself: “What Would Batman Do?” On Evil mode, the game becomes about killing, why bother with restraint, no one likes you anyway. Throw grenades when you can, what’s stopping you? Thunder Drop from the highest building you can leap from. If a civilian gets caught in the fire, Fuck Em! Shouldn’t have been there in the first place, and they all call you a “terrorist” anyway. Learn not to piss off the psychopath next time. To its credit the choice feature is flushed out, and the different ways you play grant you access to unique powers and different customizations of shared powers. For Instance, the grenades Cole has the ability to throw. In the Hero mode, the grenades are big with large splash damage. In Villain mode, the grenade breaks off into multiple fragments that scatter and can take down multiple targets.

What makes Infamous unique? First, it is original. It is a great story with well-rounded characters and some unique power development. Though constantly coming off as gruff and irritable, Cole is genuinely tailored for whatever side you cast him (evil or good) and his role in the story line is still believable whether he is the city’s champion or social pariah. Sure, he may take a cue from Christian Bales’ School of Growling Heroes to extreme measures (in fact he may have been Valedictorian), but it never feels out of place on a character who woke up bombed out in a crater and was then labeled a “Terrorist.” The supporting characters are typically every shade of dark and serious, between his melancholic girlfriend, the omniscient government agent, Moya, and the throng of gang-leaders Cole must smack down. Set against all of these, it’s no wonder why Cole’s best friend Zeke stands out, who can be described as a husky Elvis impersonator with a give-em-hell attitude that supplies some much-needed comic relief throughout the game.

Second point: brilliant world design. Cole’s powers are crafted perfectly into the electric playground that is Empire City. The game plays on the electric abilities and offer new ideas on how an environment might interact with this static-charged hero. Cole will grind telephone wires and subway rails with the electricity generated out of his feet as if he had a skateboard. Throughout the world, practically anything that generates a current can be used to regenerate power and health for Cole (this includes people). Also, the game makes a point to explain his limitations, told through humorous musings with Zeke. He can’t pick up guns: The static charge would trigger the gunpowder and blow up. He can’t get in a car: the current he generates would blow the car up the minute he sat in it. Learned from experience, Cole cannot swim: Toaster in a bath-tub, same principal.

There are a few points I feel obligated to make. The world physics are full of bugs. Every game has its glitches, and Infamous is littered with your character accidentally running through the wall of a bus stand, or having a leg splicing into a fence. Minor threats, I know. The biggest one for me came with Cole crashing through a building model. I leapt from grinding on a wire and floated to the rooftop of the next building. When Cole landed he rolled, and upon standing up it was noticeable that his knee-caps were making contact with the floor. Before I could jump, Cole……… fell……… through the roof. Cole fell into nothingness as I could see the building fading off into the heavens and then I died. A lot of detail, I know, it still is immensely funny, not going to lie. Something like this is embarrassing, but never deterred me from playing through to the ending and I haven’t come across anyone who has come across a similar problem yet. I just got lucky (insert suggestive irony here).

Bottom Line: Infamous is a glorious first step in a long and unique franchise. For a single player game, you will find yourself losing days on it. Not since the first time I played GTA 3, have I been this excited to screw the missions and just explore the world. Sure, crazy gunmen were out for me, but it didn’t matter, I was able to quickly silence them and keep moving. When I mentioned franchise… yeah, this will be a franchise. I really want the second one right now. I want to know which comic book company is going to battle for the rights to make a series out of this (Wildstorm would probably be the perfect candidate to pick this up). Wait around even further than that. There will be a movie coming out of this. What world do you live in that hasn’t seen the live-action version of every comic and video game property any movie studio can get their hands on?