Zombie modes are easy; throw an absurd amount of brain-dead AI at the player, brand it as a bonus feature, and call it a day. Countless games have exploited this supposed value-add, but few have managed to do anything tenuously creative. Undead Nightmare, Red Dead Redemption’s zombified follow up, literally and figuratively changed the game. Yes, it dumped hoards of the living dead in the Wild West, but it also effectively reinterpreted the entire world and fastened it to a hilarious and macabre narrative. More importantly, Undead Nightmare left a blueprint for how to successfully modify a game in the console space – one that the folks at Sucker Punch have embraced with InFamous: Festival of Blood.
Men are prone to telling stupid lies to impress women at bars. Zeke, Cole’s messy side kick, sets his sights on a lady and conjures a thrilling tale where Cole becomes a vampire. According to Zeke, Cole only assumes vampirical powers because he accidentally resurrected a long dormant vampire, Bloody Mary, while exploring some catacombs beneath the city. Next thing you know its eight hours to sunrise and Cole has to hunt down Mary before the sun incinerates his existence. Festival of Blood isn’t especially profound, but it gets by with a tongue planted firmly in its cheek; jabs at twilight and vampire fiction stand alongside the prerequisite senseless violence that arrives with eradicating the undead.
The first island of InFamous 2’s New Marais is the backdrop for Festival of Blood. Supposedly celebrating the day of the dead under the guise of Pyre Night, the entire city has undergone an extensive transformation. Float like structures, most with fireworks or sparklers attached, pop up in the middle of every street. Pedestrians are flourished with novelty gargoyle heads, harpy wings, glow stick necklaces, and other ghoulish costumes. Smaller touches, like the marquee on the movie theater advertising Assassin’s Bleed, are everywhere. Best yet, the entire soundtrack has been replaced with an energetic, winding mélange of spooky strings and thumping keys. Sucker Punch went all out in their transforming New Marais into Halloweentown and while the geography is ultimately identical it almost feels like a brand new setting.
Cole’s default electrical powers are mostly intact. From the start he has low or mid level versions of his bolt, blast, electricity grenade, and static thrusters. They’re blended, of course, with a couple new abilities Cole can discover. The most visible and all around useful power allows Cole to turn into bats and fly around New Marais. Bound to a new blood meter, Cole can explode into bats and fly anywhere really fast. It takes a while to get the hang of (and seems unwieldy in tight spaces) but true flight is a great addition to InFamous’ movement suite. Cole’s electrical powers can also receive modest upgrades through completion of in-game goals (like biting citizens or ramming stakes through vampires) and while they’re objectively ‘new’ versions of Cole’s powers they’re mostly alternate names for the upgrades we saw in InFamous 2.
Missions are a mix of familiar and new. Festival of Blood begins in its only legitimately new area, the catacombs. A winding series of straightaway train tracks connected by modest rooms, the catacombs are simple and effective through the handful of missions contained within. Most of the missions task Cole with battling different breeds of vampires. The standard vamps are armed with crossbows and melee weapons while the harpies are outfitted with small machine guns. Giant winged creatures known as Firstborn’s assume the role of minibosses, though they’re easily dispatched with Cole’s bat attack. The other baddies fall victim to tricks familiar to InFamous vets, namely spamming the living hell out of them with rockets or grenades.
Beyond the new enemy types, there isn’t too much in the way of variety. Vampire vision allows Cole to locate hidden doors and follow otherwise imperceptible vampires, but it’s simply yet another way to reskin chase missions from InFamous-proper. User-created missions also pop up, however, with the absence of actual experience points, they lack much of a tangible incentive. User created content has just as much potential – if not more with Cole’s new powers – but without that carrot on the end of a stick there isn’t much reason to plow through any after you’ve snagged the trophy.
Clocking in at two to three hours, Festival of Blood can feel like a pretty quick ride if you rush straight through. Plenty is available for completionists; there are 100 Canopic jars scattered around, and each set amount will increase Cole’s blood meter. Using vampire vision, Cole can track down hidden Firstborn’s as well as see paths to glyphs broadcasting recordings of Mary’s “teachings.” Cole can also hunt distinct packs of menacing vampires. All of these tasks essentially rebrand blast shards, dead drops, and karma opportunities, but new foes do well to refresh their purposes for the few hours needed to clear them.
The absence of any sort of morality system is consistent with Zeke’s wildly exaggerated tale, but somewhat conflicting with InFamous’ design. Sometimes I would see camps of vampires taking humans hostage, but without any tangible penalty there was no incentive for me to not carpet bomb the premises with electrical carnage. It didn’t matter if the hostages died, which also meant I was free to abduct and suck the blood out of any pedestrian. All of that fits in with the campy narrative (and I did laugh every time Cole nonchalantly hurled a stake through a hidden Firstborn) but it didn’t line up perfectly with InFamous’ framework.
But for ten dollars, most of this can be forgiven. Festival of Blood benefits from being totally standalone; InFamous 2 isn’t required to access it. This means you’re essentially getting the production values of a full-retail game condensed into a rather affordable experience. The closest analogs are the aforementioned Undead Nightmare, but Dead Rising 2: Case Zero and Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty fit in a similar mold. Even when it’s cleverly repeating its predecessor’s tricks, Festival of Blood feels like a $60 game – albeit one that only lasts a couple hours.
