- Change the outcome of the game at every turn as citizens and city environment itself react to, and are impacted by your in-game actions.
- Take on the role of Cole, an everyday guy who develops a super-human powers and must decide whether to use these for the good of Empire City and its people or their detriment.
- Discover, grow and wield a wide range of electricity-based super powers against enemies using standard weapons as wells as comparable special abilities.
- Utilize Cole¿s climbing skills as you scale the cityscape and discover new vantage points, vaious offense and defensive tactics and employ inFAMOUS’ vertical combat system.
- Experience the complete freedom to accept structured mission play options, or to explore the deep, open-world design of Empire City.
Product Description
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 … More >>
Infamous is a great game. Just how great it is depends on your taste in games. This is not a run and gun shooter like Killzone 2 or Resistance. This game is more a mix of a shooter with platform game elements. You play Cole who through some mysterious manner (explosion) has developed electrical “super powers”. You are basically locked on an island ala “Escape from New York” style. You can scale buildings, poles, train tracks, almost any structure you can get your hands on. Scaling up the side of a building or up the beams supporting the train tracks is a lot more fun than I thought it would be. The best part of your super powers are your electrical abilities. You can zap enemies with lighting similar to Star Wars Jedi, you can throw “energy grenades” which are lethal and you can develop other powers. The powers you develop depend on whether you choose to be “good” or “evil”. You get certain special powers down each path you take. If you help civilians and do other good deeds/missions you are basically taking the “good” path. If you decide to crisp the good old civilians like bacon and do “evil” missions then you go down the “evil” path.
This “good vs. evil” choice is actually implemented very well, much better than I thought it would be. I will be playing this game through a second time in order to see how the other path develops and ends. Overall the graphics are very good and the controls are pretty much spot on. I never had problems with targeting, etc. This is a great exclusive for the PS3. I waffled between giving this game 4 stars or 5 stars and ultimately decided on giving it 5 stars. I gave the game 5 stars because I felt the originality, story and gameplay were some of the best for a PS3 game. That’s ultimately how I judged this, compared to other PS3 games since this is a PS3 exclusive. This is definitely one of the top titles on the PS3 and for me personally is one of my top 5 PS3 games. If you are unsure about this game I recommend downloading the demo from the Playstation Store as it is a good representation of the game’s feel.
Rating: 5 / 5
inFAMOUS is a superhero game about a guy named Cole who wakes up in the rubble of a large blast that killed thousands. When he awakes, he realizes he now has incredible powers, allowing him to absorb and control electricity. Shortly after the blast, the government has quarantined the city, Empire City. Empire City is made up of 3 islands, and each one has now been taken over by a different gang. The Neon is controlled by the druggies the Reapears, the Warrens has been taken over by the homeless now calling themselves The Dust Men, and the Historic District has been taken over by a secret organization called The First Sons.
Early in the game Cole gets in contact with an FBI agent named Moya who gives him information and missions, and tells him that if he can find her husband John, who disappeared after the blast, and bring her the Ray Sphere, the bomb that caused Cole to get his powers, she can get him out of Empire City.
The game is an open world sandbox type game, allowing you take on missions as you see fit. Early in the game Cole doesn’t have very many powers, but as you progress, you earn new powers by restoring power to the blacked out portions of the city.
Your basic attack, which also doesn’t spend any of your energy, is a lightning shot or bolt that Cole fires from his hand as quickly as you can press the R1 button (also while holding L1 to aim). You’ll also earn such powers as throwing electrical grenades, fire a rocket of elecrticity, summon a lightning storm, perform a sniper like precision shot, fire off a shock wave, and some others.
As you complete story missions and side missions, you earn XP. You also earn XP for killing bad guys, healing people, capturing bad guys, or draining enemies of their life. You spend this XP on upgrading your powers. The upgrades will be different depending on whether you want to be good or evil. Certain upgrades won’t even become available until you’ve reached a certain level on your Karma, Cole’s good and evil meter.
Early on in the game you need to decide whether you want to be good or bad. The game doesn’t really allow you to be somewhere in between. Although you could, it wouldn’t really benifit you much because you would never unlock the more powerful versions of your superpowers.
Throughout the game you’ll be given the choice to do something good or bad. Early in the game the government has dropped some food crates into the city. You’re given the choice to let the people in the city take the food, or you can be selfish and scare the people away and take the food for yourself and your girlfriend, Trish, and your best friend, Zeke. There are many more choices throughout the game similar to this.
One of the best things about this game is Cole’s ability to scale buildings. Almost anything you see is climbable, allowing Cole to make his way up buildings and light poles and whatever else very easily and quickly. If you’ve played Assassins Creed, then you pretty much get the idea. I’ve had more fun scaling buildings in this game than I ever have in any of the Spiderman games.
Cole will also unlock the ability to slide along power lines and train tracks, and use static thrusters to glide, which adds even more fun and depth to traveling around the city.
The graphics in this game are good, but not great, but defiantly not terrible either. Unfortunetly the game suffers from some pop in, but this is easily forgiven due to the fact that the only load screen you’ll ever see is when you first boot the game up. You’ll also notice some jagged edges here and there. But the characters look great, especially Cole. Even more so when Cole becomes really evil, as his clothes become really dirty and grimy, and his skin turns pale.
The sound in this game is good, with all the proper special effects you’d expect to hear from someone who can shoot lightning from their hands. And the voice acting is really top notch too.
The cutscenes are a joy to watch as their told in comic book style, with added elements of 3D and movement.
As far as negatives, the game is a tad bit glitchy. Sometimes when Cole goes to restrain a villian or leech the life out of someone, he kinda gets stuck on something and jerks around for a moment before finally unfreezing from the spot. Also, in my time with the game, at one point an enemy threw a grenade at me and I somehow fell through the floor and to my death.
The other big annoyance is that Cole has very sticky fingers. While this often makes some of the platforming easier than in most games, it can also become very annoying when all you want to do is drop to the ground but Cole keeps grabing every little thing between where you were standing and where you want to land.
If you get bored in the game, there are blast shards to collect, and for every so many, you’ll add another power node (your energy bar basically). You can also collect Dead Drops, which is audio recordings that help fill in the background of the main story.
There are 15 good guy missions and 15 bad guy missions, but every time you complete one, you lock out one of the others. So like I said, it’s good to decide early on whether you want to be good or bad. There are 40 story missions and I don’t know how many side missions, but there are quite a few. To get through the game probably takes a good 15 hours if you take the time to do every side mission and take the time to do some serious blast shard collecting.
I’ve beaten the game both as good and evil, and I must say that I enjoyed being evil a lot more. You can be a lot more destructive, plus Cole just looks really cool when he’s evil. There are three difficulties, and playing on Easy is in fact easy. Plus, on a positive note, the game uses a very good checkpoint system, so if you die during a mission you never have to backtrack that far or replay the same mission over and over. If you die while not in a mission, just in free roam, then you just respawn at a med clinic at no cost to you.
I very much love this game. It’s one of the best super hero games that I’ve ever played. I certaintly recommend it to anyone who loves a good action/platformer or anyone whose ever wanted to know just what it would feel like to have super powers.
Rating: 5 / 5
I’ve only played about 5 hours of this game, but I can tell you now that it is an amazing accomplishment, and worth your time and money.
If you’ve read any of the reviews for this game, you’ll see most of the negative points are about the graphics, repetitiveness of missions, and controlling Cole (namely the platforming aspects).
Taking these concerns head on, I’ll admit that yes, the graphics are good, but not great. For a sandbox/open world game, I find the graphics to be stellar, but of course they don’t stand up to games such as Killzone. This should *not* deter you from playing this game.
Granted, I’ve only put about 5 hours into the game so far, but I feel fairly confident in saying that anyone who complains about the missions being repetitive is just nit-picking. The main story missions are not only interesting and compelling, but move the story forward at the same time. The side missions range from the extremely short (I’m talking like less than 2 minutes–kill this group of reapers) to fairly long. In the missions you might have to destroy surveillance cameras, race across rooftops, usher a group of people through a barricade, or any number of other things.
Finally we come to Cole’s controls. This is another point that I happen to agree with (it can be hard to maneuver Cole into small spaces while climbing down a wall, for instance). And yet, once again, it’s nothing that should deter you from playing the game. It is, at most, a mild annoyance. Usually you won’t even notice a problem.
There is so much to do in this game (main missions, side missions, collect dead drops, collect shards, explore, upgrade powers, etc) that you will have a very hard time putting the game down. (That five hours I mentioned having played…that was in one session.) The developers were smart about the side missions and collectibles. You actually *want* to do it:
As you collect shards, it increases your power bar. As you collect dead drops, it uncovers new parts of the back story. As you do side missions, it opens up (clears) parts of the map. And for all these things, you’ll get trophies at certain check points (25% of shards collected for example).
The bottom line is this: 99% of the negative comments you’ve heard or read don’t take away from the fact that this game is FUN. Reviewers *have* to nitpick. It’s their jobs. But at the end of the day, none of the negatives amount to squat. Get this game, you will not regret it.
Rating: 5 / 5
Cole is a regular guy with a dead-end job as a bicycle messenger in the fictional Empire City, until the day that one of his packages explodes. He wakes up in a burning crater that used to be a downtown high-rise, alive and suddenly possessing the ability to shoot electricity from his body.
That’s the good news. The bad news is, Empire City is falling apart. Infected with a plague and cut off from the outside world, the city quickly slips into total anarchy, with ruthless gangs ruling the streets. This city needs a hero, and Cole is just the man for the job… maybe. Depending on choices made by the player, he may become the selfless, altruistic hero we grew up reading about in comic books. Or, he may become the sociopathic monster that power has turned so many good men into.
The game follows a sandbox design that as usual employs missions instead of levels, which the player can accept at any time. Additionally the game features a Karma system, based on the goodness or evil-ness of Cole’s actions, which affects his appearance, available powers, reactions from citizens, and (to a lesser extent) the outcome of certain missions.
Graphics: $6
Nothing too special here in the way of characters other than Cole, but the game’s protagonist looks and moves great. The lightning effects are particularly good, along with all Cole’s other powers. The physics are appropriately amped-up for a superhero game, and Empire City itself does feature some interesting locales. On the whole, however, the city looks very drab and monotonous. It doesn’t take away from the fun of combat, but more variety would have been nice.
Sound: $7
Good voice acting for the most part, although Zeke and Moya will grate on your nerves from beginning to end. Musical score fits well with the genre.
Gameplay/Controls: $9
Outstanding. The combat system was unquestionably the central focus of the designers, and it shines. Cole can use just about any of his powers from any position and at any time, which really gives the opportunity for some creative fighting. Controls are well laid-out and respond well for the most part, especially related to Cole’s reactive parkour moves. The difficulty can seem a bit uneven (every single banger in Empire City can hit you with a rifle from 10 blocks away) and the pacing of the missions sometimes feels a little arbitrary, but the high level of combat mostly makes up for this. The boss battles are nothing new.
Genre-Specific: $6
The Karma system was a good concept, but should have had much more development. Being good or evil yields few results beyond the superficial (appearance and power types), although taking the good path is of course more challenging. They could have created some much better story arcs based on Cole’s choices. On the good side, some of the Karma moments are pulled off particularly well. I won’t give too much away, but one in particular is essentially a remake of a “choice” moment of a popular superhero movie, but with legitimate consequences either way. The story, however, strings you along for three acts and then abruptly falls flat, literally leaving you back where you started. Granted, I know this is a video game and not a movie, but storytelling is becoming an increasingly important aspect of the genre, and such a half-baked attempt is disappointing.
Fun $8
Being evil absolutely rocks. Throwing cars into screaming throngs of disposable pedestrians or arc-shocking a dense crowd of protesters is as awesome as it sounds. However…
Replay/Value $2
Once you beat the last boss, there is absolutely no reason to continue playing. Sure, you can start over as the other karma type (without keeping all your earned powers), but the outcome of the game does not change at all, beyond the ending cutscene.
Bottom Line: $38 out of $60
This game suffers from the exact opposite problem of Dead Space. By doing so many of the little things so well, Dead Space made it (usually) easy to forget that the core combat mechanic was fairly pedestrian and repetitive, leaving me with a sense of missed opportunity mixed with optimism for the next iteration. Infamous, on the other hand, handles the core combat mechanic so well that I can (usually) forget about the lame story, uneven difficulty, incomplete Karma system and ubiquitous glitches, leaving me with optimism mixed with disappointment. I hope that the sequel will give me a better city to play in and take more risks with the consequences of my choices. That said, there’s a good foundation to build on with this franchise.
Rating: 3 / 5
After playing through one of the three islands in inFAMOUS I think I have a pretty good understanding of what inFAMOUS has to offer. In short–it’s the game I’ve been waiting to play for over 2 years. Ever since Crackdown’s release in early 2007 I’ve been itching for something that’s even remotely close to what that over-the-top, explosive world has to offers. Though different games overall it does seem to satiate the same appetite.
I love a game with a moral compass, at least when it’s put to good use, and inFAMOUS does a pretty decent job of doing that. To be frank–it’s not perfect though. inFAMOUS calls it’s moral system “Karma” and it takes form in a three-stage slide scale. The function of the Karma scale is to allow the player to unlock certain abilities, as they progress up the scale, to use and upgrade depending on your karmatic choices. Being a do-gooder will get you abilities that allow for more precise attacks, while acts of evil will allow for chaotic, power surging ones. For instance one exclusive evil power allows you the ability to slamming down onto the ground, shooting out electrical charges, in mid-jump.
The people of the city will act accordingly to you by cheering you on and taking your picture if you’re a hero, or gathering a mob around you booing and hissing as they throw rocks at you. It’s a pretty entertaining sight in some regards and really does help you feel like you’re affecting the world around you. It does remind me of the Fable series where people run up to you cheering and clapping over their head, but also like Fable I found myself wanting it to be a little more practical instead of for show. Assassin’s Creed did something relatively similar as well (though it’s a completely different scenario) where someone you save–which is effectively what you’re doing in inFAMOUS–actually physically restrain guards as you attempt to escape. I really would have liked to have seen Sucker Punch take this particular involvement with the cities people to the next level.
These morality choices are presented to you throughout the main story and then through side missions. There are two types of side missions: Regular ones, that are visible on your map in the form of a yellow exclamation mark, and then Karma based ones with either a red (evil) or green (good) circle around it. You will be offered to choose one of these karma-based missions and when completing, will wipe the alternate path off the map.
It just so happens that the single most important aspect of a video game is the one thing Sucker Punch really nailed–the gameplay. It just feels really really good to play! Running, jumping, dashing, climbing, sliding, punching..I mean I could go on and on for days here.
But being able to jump off of the main story’s mission line is an essential element to an open world game and inFAMOUS does this by offering a host of side quests that range anywhere from rescuing some captive civilians from some thugs (the Reapers gang) who are escorting them to certain death, to following–what is essentially a ghost–to where their killer is located. They’re interesting, fun and are repeated a few times throughout the first island (unsure of the second or third island). As you complete these side quests you are rewarded with experience (which is used to unlock more powers and upgrades) and a small “cleansed” segment of the cities territory. These cleansed segments will no long allow Reapers to respawn in their respective area. If you played Viking: Battle for Asgard, it very similar to that in that, aesthetically speaking, everything becomes a little brighter and cleaned up. It’s a nice and appreciated touch.
Initially one of my concerts about the game was transportation. I think Rockstar created a graceful solution, for an open world game, with the Taxi system that was introduced in GTAIV. They essentially act as a teleporter for the impatient (ME!), or a rollercoaster ‘o fun for the vacationers. But that particular system just wouldn’t make sense in inFAMOUS’s world, plus it would rob the game of it’s chance to remind you of how much of a bad mofo you really are. After a few hours of playing the game you unlock the ability to slide along power lines and it’s just a fast and fun way to get around. The first time you do it I guarantee it will pull a “woooo hooo!” out of you. But it really wasn’t until I repaired the cities train system that I stood up cheering for Cole. Once I hopped onto that crazy train (aaall aboooard HAHAHAHAHAH! -Ozzy) I realized that utilizing this system for transportation around the city would allow me to get from one side of the city to the other in no time. The sense of speed when you’re on top of one of these things just has to be experienced, and wait until you jump off that thing moving at those speeds.
For an open-world game I think the game, graphically speaking, looks great. After reading some comments on various gaming forums I think some people have too high of expectations for the current generations console’s rendering power (and the software that drives them). Rendering games like inFAMOUS and GTAIV are extremely taxing on these system’s resources because there is just so much going on. But to me, in the end, it really comes down to the art direction. It’s what separates the good from the bad (pun intended). If I had to pick, for comparisions sake, I would probably say GTAIV looking a bit better–mainly because of the impeccable city designs where nothing is copy & pasted. unofrtunately I did notice once or twice that the same building was being used in different areas of the same island, but just flipped around to disguise it. For some this is completely trival, but for me it was a bummer.
I do have a few others gripes too.
I adore the animated comic book style panel sequences that move the narrative along, but found the in-game cutscenes to be much lower in quality. It’s almost as if they were tacked on at the very end of development. They appears to be less polishing and are certainly not to the same levels of the rest of the game’s offerings. It actually left me wanting more of the well animated storyboarding instead.
The voice and general deign of Cole isn’t too spectacular either. Though I find his overall attire to be pretty cool, his face is rather bland. He looks like…well just some dude off of the street, which I suppose is the point, but now that he’s got all this power he’s not just some dude–he’s special. My point is that I think it would have done some good for the character to have some distinguishing physical marks (of some sort, just please no tattoos) left on him after the incident.
In regards to his voice, it appears to be straight out of the David Hayter school of video game voice acting but with less passion (and grunting). It’s dry and dull and does nothing to invoke more likability for Cole.
My final complaint might be insignificant to some, but for me it’s a point that is grating. There is a very slight and faint squeaking noise that is made when Cole runs. There are times when I completely forget about it and not hear it at all, but when I’ve been fighting or watching a cutscene for a while I immediately notice it as soon as I begin running again. I’m left scratching my head wondering why Sucker Punch left this in the game. What good does it add to the overall experience?
The good far outweigh the little gripes I have with inFAMOUS. With incredibly fun gameplay that just feels right, excellent graphics, spectacular music, a huge city to explore, excellent transport methods, a decent morality system, and wonderful fighting mechanics–this game is absolutely amazing!
For those that are interested there is more at eat-games.blogspot dot com
Rating: 5 / 5