“It’s grueling, man,” is my typical response when someone asks what it’s like to review games all the time. PR prefers coverage to appear as soon as possible, and the editorial staff here at Digital Chumps generally agrees that reviews should be posted no more than a week after a product is received. This typically translates to angry friends or significant others whom can’t quite come to grips with gaming as work, but, the point remains, we usually play the snot out of all the games we receive. I (as well as my friends here) love doing it and wouldn’t have it any other way, but to play a game top to bottom for a competent review is often a grinding time sink. It’s almost a vacation when we buy our own games and can play them at a leisurely pace.
Not intending to review it, I bought a copy of InFamous and, within seven days time, had beaten it twice on my way to earning my first Platinum Trophy; I literally 100% completed the game. And perhaps that’s the best compliment I can give InFamous; I was zealously blasting through it for no other purpose than to feed into the outrageous amount of fun it was providing. I was consuming every inch of content without the critical lens and content to fully immerse myself without worrying about what I was going to write. Somehow I am reviewing it anyway, so here we go…
Paperboy 2009
Cole, a courier and reasonably well to do resident of Empire City, is an unfortunate catalyst for a horrific explosion. The city is leveled, his girlfriend’s sister is dead, and the blame happens to fall squarely upon his shoulders. In typical origin story form, Cole also finds himself blessed with an uncanny ability to absorb damage, as well as wield and manipulate electricity. Here in lies the basis for the mechanics behind InFamous’ stellar open world gameplay.
We’ll get to the more overt super powers shortly, but I can’t miss the opportunity to describe the visceral feeling of pure power behind Cole’s basic abilities. I was blown away the first time I leapt off a twenty story building and landed on the ground with absolutely no consequence. Climbing back up was a breeze (even less cumbersome than the similar method of accent in Assassin’s Creed), and leaping off the top required no preset landing point. An attempt to leap from building to building, even if I would only make it to an adjacent wall, required minimal input, but yielded maximum reward. Simply put, it felt awesome to move around the environments, and, when a game nailed so much fun to such a basic mechanic, I couldn’t wait to figure out what else was left to discover.
Which is where the rest of Cole’s powers came in to play. Electricity based, Cole can fire an infinite amount of small lightning charges from his hand. His basic attack doesn’t drain his power nodes, but further acquired powers, such as force push-like shockwave, shock grenades or the megawatt hammer burn a variable number of nodes off his meter. Your meter, as well as your health if you don’t want to wait for color to return to the screen, can be recharged by drawing power from any nearby electrical interface; street lamps, voltage boxes, cars – anything that conducts electricity is there for your pleasure, and is easily identifiable with a click from the L3 button.
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 else in the 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, and they 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 that require precise timing, geographic foresight, and a perfect sense of direction. When you boil it down its all stuff you may have done before, but in a completely different and wholly unique light.
I couldn’t see much of Jak in Uncharted or Ratchet in Resistance, but I can definitely feel Sly Cooper’s influence in every step Cole takes. The floaty nature of the character, dancing across knocked over poles, a seemingly magnetic attraction to platforms – InFamous proudly wears Sly’s lineage on its sleeve. Cole is light on his feet and maneuverable in ways I couldn’t imagine. Niko or any other character feeling. Playing the Uncharted 2 beta, the controls of which are nearly identical to InFamous, made me realize how stiff and cumbersome standard 3rd person games feel. Drake’s lack of maneuverability isn’t a bad thing, I loved Uncharted and it works well in the context of the game, but with InFamous, it feels like Sucker Punch is playing with an entirely different set of rules.
You’re so Sly
Mission structure was familiar, but, again, the aesthetic helps keep your activity fresh. Reestablishing train circuits and removing poison from the water supply may seem like Dudley Do-Right busy work, but the way the contexts blends with the mechanics doesn’t just make it bearable, it actually makes seemingly mundane activities rewarding and engaging. While it does occasionally manifest, the departure from the tired open world “travel to a place and kill all these guys” missions structure is a welcomed on all fronts (and all of that isn’t to say InFamous doesn’t have its fair share of wildly innovative missions; downing recon planes all over the city and trying to recover their data before they explode was an incredible amount of fun).
In traditional open world fashion, there are plenty of things to keep you busy if you need a break from the narrative. Dozens of side missions are available, and completing each will (mostly) banish enemies from spawning in the surrounding area. There are also Dead Drops, basically small bits of audio narrative injection, and 350 Blast Shards, which slowly increase Cole’s available power nodes, to find. Dead Drops and Blast Shards border on the dreaded pointless-collection mechanic that I often hate myself for compulsively completing, but it’s a tad more player friendly in InFamous; each are visible on your radar. Dead Drops locations appear with sonar like guide, and Blast Shards, every last one of them, pop up as dark blue circles with a click of L3. That may seem too easy, but the vertical nature of the territory doesn’t diminish the fun of pursuit. And trust me, as someone who always missed one package or pigeon in GTA and spent an inordinate amount of time going through maps at GameFAQs, some identifiable means of item location is a godsend.
Another, almost offshoot, sort of mission design lies in the sewers. Cole occasionally has to traverse the seedy underground to restore power to portions of the city (and get a new power in the process), and he does so through a linear progression through these somewhat basic platforming/action levels. If you want an early taste of Sly 4 then look no further, because InFamous offers a wonderful tease.
Reapers (and different sects of adversaries on the other two islands) are your primary means of opposition, and, like any terrorist sect worth their salt, they all seemed to be armed with rocket launchers or AK 47’s. Pockets of them are all over the city streets and rooftops, and they all seem to have a knack for precise aim. Conduits, rare but super charged versions of normal enemies, are even more of a threat. Initially, it seems like you take a lot of damage in InFamous. I was beginning to think the game was scaled unfairly on normal difficulty, but eventually I adjusted. Boss fights are infrequent, but greatly appreciated with the rather untraditional means of victory. The final encounter, in particular, felt wonderfully epic and turned a few earlier learned conventions right on their heels.
Grand Theft Auto 4 was beautiful, ambitious, visually impressive, and wildly atmospheric, but it largely failed to bring the gameplay up to the level of its technical scope. Save a few specific examples, the missions were cookie cutter replications of last gen design and interface. In Infamous, Cole’s powers lend themselves to a variety of wildly amusing missions. For example, GTA4 featured 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 few 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 mission 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 now-primitive approach to the same concept.
All of your activity nets points on two opposing fronts. First is the more traditional line of experience points, which can be gained from in large quantities from doing missions, but also stuff like side missions, finding blast shards, and performing stunts. Further complicating your actions is the It-feature of the current generation, a moral choice meter. Cole can either use his powers for inspiration and be a traditional hero, or take the alternate, control-through-fear path and become an antihero. The villains stay the same and the general plot outline doesn’t differ dramatically, but the mood of the city, the powers you gain, and the ending is entirely dependent on whether or not you choose to rule by example, or by force.
My first time through InFamous, I abided by my default standard and lead of life of pure good. I healed the wounded, mended my relationship with my girlfriend, minimized collateral damage, and always did what I thought was morally right in the few but heavy handed “what do you choose” scenes. I then played through a second time on the evil route (on Hard) and, honestly, enjoyed it a hell of a lot more. Cole’s evil powers have a similar base, but are less about precision and more about all out destruction, and it felt awesome to not have to worry about the consequences of my actions. Sure, people hated me and threw rocks everywhere I went, but the feeling of absolute power – the ability act like a Sith and force push people into a lake or off a bridge, was devilishly gratifying. Cole can be a ruthless killing machine, and when you’re given the option to literally suck the life out of people to restore your own health and power, it’s easy to fall into a villainous mindset.
Comic Genius
What surprised me the most about InFamous was it’s delivery on the presentation front. Comic book inspired still frames may have been an obvious way to distribute plot points, but their evocative disposition and stylish flair add appropriate dashes of personality to the inherently over-the-top narrative. The ending, in particular, were far from the traditional merry fare, and levy a surprising amount of consequence. Some of it doesn’t work; the in game animation is uncharacteristically amateur, Zeke is little but annoying, the frame rate often stumbles (and it a huge tease when it hits 60fps), there are a few weird glitches, and Cole’s voice tends to grate, but those are minor complaints in an otherwise competent narrative. It also doesn’t hurt the InFamous, be it in the preset conditions of dusk, dawn, day, or night is a gorgeous game. It isn’t the most technically impressive thing out there, but when it’s as stylized and slick as InFamous, it’s easy not to notice.
