I write game reviews for the University of Missouri-Columbia's student-run newspaper The Maneater. However, the process usually goes something like this:
1) Write review.
2) Squash it down to under 600 words for the paper.
3) Feel unsatisfied with the final product.
So I'm taking this opportunity to share my full, un-edited reviews with you guys, complete with every facet of the games that I feel are worth discussing. Hope you enjoy!
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You're going to see lots of negative comments about this game in the early parts of this review, but I only mention them because I care. The bottom line is that you won't want to stop playing inFAMOUS from the moment you pick up the controller, and fewer better things can be said about games than that.
I'll get the vitriol out of my system early by saying that the story and characters of inFAMOUS stink. The setup falls in line with standard comic book fare, with unassuming everyman Cole McGrath coming into possession of a bomb that destroys a large chunk of his city and bestows him with electrical superpowers, but the tale can't hope to match the more sophisticated tales of actual comic books.
Empire City is depressingly generic in its design, with skyscrapers and landmarks reminiscent of a late 20th century downtown Chicago. Despite consisting of three unique islands, the only unique thing about them is the gangs that inhabit them; otherwise you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference visually. Plot developments occur way too rapidly and with little to no plausible explanation (how does being made of lightning also allow Cole to jump really high and climb buildings like a chimpanzee?), and Cole's two best friends (Zeke and Trish) sound and act annoying enough to get on your bad side almost immediately. In fact, there are no likeable characters to be found anywhere in inFAMOUS, including its main protagonist/antagonist. Cole is just some grizzled stereotypical shaved-head Vin Diesel knockoff, complete with the overly forced gruff voice.
The moral karma system, one of the game's main selling points, also feels mostly superfluous. For one thing, even if you decide to embrace pure evil, Cole still has to take on objectively selfless and good-willed tasks in order to move the story along, so you'll never actually feel like you're playing as a supervillain. Deliberating over the many moral dilemmas that the game presents you with doesn't take more than 5 seconds because players will have decided within the first ten minutes which path to stick with. Changing from good to evil alignment mid-game and vice versa are possible, but doing so only slows down your character's growth.
Plus, the difference in gameplay between the good and evil arcs aren't significantly different. The attacks get only slight modifications on their properties, only one full ability is exclusive to each side (and neither is particularly useful), and the good and evil side missions differ only in the characters involved with them, not how you actually play them. If you complete inFAMOUS as a hero, then start a new game intending to be purely villainous and expect the journey to be radically different, prepare to be disappointed.
Sucker Punch didn't get into this business for being expert wordsmiths, though, and inFAMOUS showcases what that team does best: fun gameplay. Not once in my entire playtime did I get frustrated with the controls' responsiveness, the camera's placement or even dying. It perfectly hits that sweet spot between punishing and forgiving known as "challenging."
The biggest reasons why inFAMOUS feels "just right" are the jumping and climbing mechanics. Scaling the buildings of Empire City is a joyous and hassle-free experience. The buildings have tons of natural-looking hand-holds built into them (mostly windowsills and pipes), and you can stick landings on the narrowest of surfaces pretty much flawlessly. The game predicts which platforms or ledges you're aiming for and guides you towards them with just the right amount of magnetism. This behind-the-scenes trickery only aids players with completing their intended actions, and it never feels like the game is playing itself. Absolutely perfect.
inFAMOUS doesn't play with conventions in the open-world action genre (the surrounding objects and people are there simply for you to mess around with on your way to the next mission), but Crackdown and Spider-Man 2 are still winning formulas for sandboxy fun, and inFAMOUS takes after these games admirably. Hundreds of "blast shards" (which increase Cole's maximum energy storage) are peppered throughout the city, and a quick click of the L3 button highlights nearby shards on your map. Getting sidetracked and devoting an entire hour to climbing buildings and collecting shards happens fairly often, and gleeful addiction sets in soon after.
The developers put plenty of thought into how a man with electricity-based powers would behave. He can restore lost energy from any source of electricity like fuse boxes and street lights, he can propel himself off constant sources like power lines and train tracks, and water can greatly harm him. All of these environmental variables are strewn throughout Empire City in subtle and organic ways. The world doesn't feel pre-fabricated for Cole's personal use, so getting to interact with this environment actually makes you feel like the powerful badass that Cole is.
An almost comical amount of "gamey-ness" in inFAMOUS contrasts with its real-world appearance. Cole doesn't carry guns, but he gradually learns new ways of launching electrical projectiles that might as well be standard shooter firearms like grenades and sniper rifles. The game can call it a "Megawatt Hammer" all it wants, but it's totally just a rocket launcher. Only the rockets are made out of friggin' lightning. Not exactly creative. To top it all of, Cole magically "learns" all of these new abilities by traversing through the sewers:, the inFAMOUS equivalent of a miniature "Zelda" dungeon, and restoring power to that city block's main underground generator. But hey, games like inFAMOUS prove that you don't need buzzwords like "immersion" and "suspension of disbelief" to make a great and entertaining video game.
Even though the game isn't really worth playing twice just to see the trivial differences between good Cole and evil Cole, a single playthrough lasts several hours, definitely in the double-digit marks, and not a single hour feels wasted. The main focus of inFAMOUS is to make players feel awesome while controlling a superpowered electrical badass, and the result is as frantic and thrilling as you would expect.
