I couldn’t see much of Jak in Uncharted or Ratchet in Resistance, but I can definitely feel Sly’s influence in every step inFamous’ Cole takes. The “floatyness” of the character, his dancing across knocked over poles, a seemingly magnetic attraction to platforms – inFamous proudly wears Sly’s lineage on its sleeve. Other open world games (save Crackdown) concern themselves with realism and, for lack of a better word, logic, but inFamous isn’t shy to drop conventions in the name of having a good time. I can fall from any height like in Crackdown, I can climb any building like in Assassin’s Creed, and I can shoot lighting out of my hands like in nothing this well executed genre. Sure, Cole’s powers often mirror other modern conventions (grenades, guns, power stomp, etc), but their unique aesthetic and their context make them seem like an entirely different approach to game design.
Grand Theft Auto 4 was beautiful, ambitious, and technically impressive, but it largely failed to bring the gameplay up to the level of its technical scope. Save a few specific example, the missions were cookie cutter replications of last gen design. I’m only a few hours into inFamous, but the previously mentioned mechanics have already leant themselves to a variety of wildly amusing missions. For example, GTA4 feature the tried and true “follow without getting noticed” missions and bound you to a “spook meter” if you got to close to your mark. inFamous has a similar missions, but eschews the meter in favor of pure stealth; the guy occasionally stops to look around, but if he so much as notices you, it’s missions over. You’re supposed to climb buildings or overpasses and follow him from above, staying completely out of the way of his x-axis point of view. Finding a way to get from building to building require a few greater sense of place, easily outclassing GTA’s primitive approach to the same concept.
And Cole’s powers do quite well to expand traditional open world gameplay. Escorting prisoners to jail would be a boring activity in any other game, but zapping them into place and trying to hunt them down when they broke free was a lot of fun. Assaulting a bus and some guards, an activity that usually requires rocket launcher rationing and trial and error death, was a head on face off. I’m also totally hot for finding radar drops and collecting blast shards. The latter isn’t as ambitious and beneficial as Crackdown’s agility orbs, but I’m always pleased to see collectables that actually do something for a specific purpose. Oh, and there are always the intangibles I haven’t yet thought of; my mind was blown when I jumped in the fountain in the park – and then watched in horror as the random people in it got electrocuted.
Originally I wanted to play through as the antihero. I’m always the good guy in morality games and I wanted to give evil a shot, but for whatever reason my default instinct wouldn’t allow it. I figured the meter would be bound to the specific, time-stopping “what do you choose” events, but, long after I became a Champion, I was surprised to find a rather messy encounter that claimed the lives of some pedestrians had lowered my good rank down an entire notch. Needless to say, the morality system is ground deeper into the gameplay than previously thought, so I guess I’ll have to watch my ass.
I don’t really know a more nuanced way to put it, but I’m loving the hell out of this game. Uncharted, I think, was the last time I loved a game so much that I totally ignored any perceptible flaws, and inFamous is having a similar effect on me.. Yakuza 2, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, Resident Evil 5 – all the games I’ve played as of late have been good, well made games, but they all sported niggling issues that soured me on the experience. This sounds ridiculous, but currently I see no flaws in inFamous, and I fully intend to 100% complete the game and get my first Platinum trophy. Yes, I will play through it twice, yes I will collect every dead drop and blast shard, yes I will complete every side missions, and yes, I’m sure all do some stupid stuff to round off a few trophies. Those are bold words for a game I’ve only played six or so hours, but everything just feels so right and so perfect, I can’t help but do little else but sit here and look forward to getting home to play it.
