Shocked Value: Review of inFamous (PS3)
inFamous
Produced by: Sony Computer Entertainment/Sucker Punch
Price: $59.99
For: Playstation 3
inFamous is a weird conglomoration of genres that are on two opposite spectrums with me: 3D platformers, of which I have a deep love and affection with; and open world games, of which I like very few of.
Still, inFamous is part of a certain subgenre of open world games that generally excited me: Superhero open world games. One of my favorite games last generation, The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, was an incredibly fun, technically impressive game that utilized the character itself very well. This generation, Crackdown made it incredibly fun to jump from building to building killing gangs.
Now, inFamous is here on the PS3 and, sadly, it doesn’t quite live up to Crackdown or Ultimate Destruction, but it does hold it own on its own terms.
In inFamous, you play as Cole, a messenger who survives an explosion with electrical powers. You fight the Reavers, a deformed gang that terrorizes Empire City. Each action you take has a morality meter that gives you specific powers: Do you restrain an enemy so he can be captured or suck his life out to kill him?
The very first thing I noticed about inFamous is that it plays like an reskinned open world version of Sly Cooper. In Sly, the main character attaches itself to nearly anything that can be walked on or climbed on. The character has a suction cup like feel to him, making platforming incredibly easy. Traversing through the town shouldn’t hold a problem with the controls.
Next, the overwhelming sense of dread, darkness and despiration blankets this entire game. NPC’s say nothing jovial or melancholy: if they aren’t giving you missions, they are talking about how much they want to die and that there’s no hope for people in the city. The feeling of joy and hope lifts slightly as you progress through the game, but it still feels rather drab and depressing.
So the game has a great setting and a good way of traversing through the town. Unfortunately, the town is kind of a bore to go through. It being dark and depressing, not a lot of color is shown off in this big town, save for some stark blues and reds which come out of your own fists.
The lack of distinguishing landmarks makes finding missions a chore at times. The game has no problem showing where enemies are, but there is no height differentation when it comes to finding quest givers. On top of that, it’s hard to find where enemies are on screen because sometimes they blend into the drab environment.
The NPC’s also look highly disfigured and off. This including characters like Zeke (the obligatory crazy fat guy comic relief), most of the characters are bland knock-offs that have no personality to show. This becomes especially grating when characters call you to tell you how much of a good job you are doing and how you’re “making a difference”‘…when it really doesn’t feel like that at all.
Speaking of “making a difference,” the binary morality system becomes irritating at times as well. Moments in the game where you could sharply change your morality are shown in a still screen with Cole narrating on his choices. Nevermind that the choices are simply “do this or that,” the choices really have no bearing on the environment or, much less, the character of Cole himself.
The only thing that really changes with your morality is the look of Cole and his powers. The good portion, which is the way I played throughout, dealt more with stunning enemies and accurately attacking specific enemies with your lightning. Dark powers give you more spread and power, which makes it less accurate but takes up more real estate, which is the cost you bear in mind since you’re bound to hurt more innocent people.
Again, it really doesn’t matter if you do, since you can zap them back to life or leech their health for more experience.
The overall problems with inFamous wouldn’t actually be problematic in the slightest, if it wasn’t for the fact that the game feels…uneven. It’s obvious the more and more you play the game that the developers wanted this to be a new Sly Cooper and just put a new skin job on the game.
The game wants you to go one way or the other, but each mission you play seems to lean you on one side automatically, so it becomes hard to deviate from those types of missions.
Lastly, controls are some of the most elegant and most frustrating. When platforming from building to building, Cole is easy and smooth; a lot of fun to run around with. When using your powers, however, it’s kind of a mess. After playing it a couple of hours, you get sort of used to the controls, but there are still annoyances with the combat.
For example, you can’t do anything combat related without pressing L1 (except when doing Melee). When you press L1, Cole slows down considerably in both strafing and turning, which makes you highly vulnerable to attack. When you’re not pressing L1, which is when you can do melee attacks, Cole is too sensitive and fast to move in close to anyone. Often there were times where I would run to try and melee attack someone and ending up running past them, leading to a frustrating death.
inFamous has some pluses and some minuses and while it is a fun, entertaining game, it is a deeply flawed at that. Gamers can have fun with inFamous, that is for sure, but you’re fun is relative to how much you can get used to the awkward controls and how long it takes you to adapt.
Worth The Cash – Let It Drop – Avoid at All Costs
Brad Wiswall
XBL: Gamakarmica
PSN: Vanillatwisted
www.twitter.com/gamakarmica
