I fondly remember the debut video for InFamous at Sony’s 2007 E3 event. Finally, Sucker Punches Playstation 3 entry was revealed in the form of an open world escapade showcasing the allegedly good or evil exploits of a modern day super hero. Comparisons to Crackdown were unavoidable, but InFamous looked to bend the prototype by introducing a more coherent narrative and elements of morality into the mix. Whether or not people will fear or worship you, how the city will look, and how Cole, the main character, is treated are all reflections of the morality based system underlying the more overt gameplay. We’ve seen these elements in RPG’s before, but plugging them into the sandbox world of GTA and, yes, Crackdown is still unknown territory.
As previously unseen is the feature that, as a superhero, you’re also blessed with a host of superpowers. Cole’s gift is in the form of electricity, which, as the developers told us, easily lends itself to a host of appealing gameplay devices. Of particular interest was Cole’s ability to use electricity to chain together objects. He would throw lightning at girders, bring them down onto other metal objects, and channel electricity through those objects for added effect. The developers said they were striving to make sure every single use of Cole’s power felt dissimilar from the traditional projectile and melee weapons that populate so many other open world games, with a complete emphasis on the fact that you will never see Cole, or anyone else, pick up and use a gun.
As an open world game, InFamous lacks the traditional ‘level’ paradigm, but the sequence of events we saw were part of a mission called Blood Trail. Cole was climbing lampposts and free running his way up buildings in glorious fashion. In the end he had to find some sort of power grid, which he had to free of Reapers (the game’s similarly elemental super powered antagonists) with a glorious display of electro combat. The game is still at least half a year away, but it’s already looking competent enough to have a sizeable impact when it finally drops sometime next year.
