InFamous puts you in the role of Cole McGrath a bike messenger who was asked to deliver a package that literally changes his life. The package explodes in his hands leveling most of the city, the ensuing destruction leads to plague, quarantines, and crime lords stepping up to capitalize on the chaos. Cole finds himself unharmed at the epicenter of the blast and capable of firing lightning bolts from his hands, and thats just the beginning.

Infamous takes the role of the still fledging genre of "open world sandbox superhero game", its quite obvious this game takes inspiration from titles such as Spiderman 2, Grand Theft Auto, and Crackdown. People always worry since sandbox style imitators can have a large potential for being repetitive and uninspired, but Infamous quickly eliminates all fears and gives them a nice jolt from the nearest power line. If shooting people in the face with electricity from your fingertips, throwing hand grenades made of pure electricity, leaping from skyscrapers and landing as a ball of explosive thunder all with the freedom of an open world game sound enticing to you. You probably shouldn't even read this review and just go grab the game.

Within moments of beginning the games first tutorial sequences you learn that you have the ability to fire targeted lightning lightning from your hands, leap off of buildings to the pavement below without getting hurt, shimmy up buildings, lampposts, and leap across other vertical structures that would make even spiderman turn his head. And all of this is one with controls so intuitive, you feel as if  you helped design them. The onscreen display is effective and minimal, you have your energy and Karma in the top left, and a mini-map in the bottom right. Health is shown as damage on the screen and darkening and desaturation to inform you that you are near death. Switching between abilities is nothing more than pushing a different button, or holdingdown a modifier such as the R1 button, Making battles a cinch.

The world created for this game is lifelike and enticing. There are lots of side missions to partake in. and even scattered collectibles in the form of “blast shards” which unlock both trophies and increase your energy reserves. After the completing the first mission, the open-world sandbox begins.  You can immediately proceed to story missions or side missions. They are visible on your map as blue markers for story and yellow markers for side missions. One benefit of proceeding with story missions is that new abilities are unlocked at specific story missions where you restore power to parts of the city, conversely completing side missions eliminates crime in their respective areas, ensuring that you encounter less opposition as you travel about empire city. You can easily spend hours traversing the city and completing side missions, healing sick pedestrians, traversing buildings without ever touching the storyline thanks to a good deal of diversity in the side missions. Some missions range from rooftop dashes similar to the “rooftop” races in crackdown, to finding hidden packages, to escorting a gang of thugs to a nearby precinct. One of the greatest features is that if you die mid-mission, you do not have to start over again.  Most missions have invisible checkpoints that you will start off at if you fail midway through. This lessens the frustrations you would get in a game such as GTA IV, Infamous will not make you partake in a 20 minute mission only to force you to start from the beginning if you die.

Cole follows the “with great power comes great responsibility” superhero motto, as certain in game decisions will affect his Karma changing his rank from various levels of good and evil. Karma is an integral system in the game which will shift public opinion of you, how your character looks, what your power upgrades are available to you, and even how the city begins to look and even changes certain key points in the storyline. There are “good” and “evil” side missions, this will directly affect your karma balance. There are also points within the story where the action will pause and cole spells out his choices and what will happen as a result. Giving the player such dilemmas as “Do I let this guy hurl an explosive at me and end up fighting this battle at half health, or do I zap it blow it up in his hands, killing all the nearby civilians” . Gray areas are discouraged a couple of ways, every time you complete a good mission, an evil mission will be locked out and vice-versa. Also power upgrades are dependent on your karmic rank. Even if you purchased a “Hero” rank upgrade, you cannot use it if your rank is now “Thug”. Which is OK, since the game is definitely worth at least a second play through.

Cole's abilities and slick controls help to make your travels through Empire city so much more fluid. It is very commonplace to climb up a skyscraper, then dash across power line to a building across from it, leap off the building, hover to the top of a lamppost, then jump to the streets below while firing lightning bolts at enemies below before you land with a thunderous drop. Over the course of the game, Cole becomes exceedingly more powerful thanks to points in the story where you gain new abilities. And you will make good use of these abilities as well, Empire city is packed with goons that are surprisingly skilled at sniping moving targets from long distances. You will get shot at...a lot. is coupled with an XP system that lets you dole out points to upgrade abilities as you wish. As if this system wasn't enough, the way your abilities behave change depending on whether or not you're karma is good or evil.. Good powers tend to be more precise, and provide you with bonuses to health and help you restrain criminals. While evil powers prove to be more destructive causing numerous explosions at every opportunity. For instance if Cole's karma is good, a lightning bold headshot will restore health, however when evil, a lightning bolt headshot will cause the opponent to explode! This encourages you to do at least a second play-through just to experience the difference in Cole's abilities.


Story-wise, Infamous won't win any awards, however the story is more than competent, and drives you to want to get to the bottom of the calamities that plague the city. Although Cole  appears to be the only super-powered crime fighter in town, he still will get messages on his 2 way radio and also interact with in game characters including his best Buddy Zeke who provides a bit of comic-relief to Cole's stoic demeanor. You also have Cole's Girlfriend Trish who lost her sister in the blast, and now faults her boyfriend for the destruction. Throw in a couple of megalomaniacs, and a secret organization behind the explosion and plague, and you've got yourself a web of intrigue worth delving into, and a couple of plot twist you definitely will not expect. Cole himself is a likable guy, playing the role of bike messenger turned unlikely hero delivering witty actio hero lines, and making himself appear menacing to foes, while retaining human qualities such as uncertainty and compassion.


Although Empire city might  not be designed from a real life city like another game that was released recently, it feels quite lifelike and well designed, after playing through all the boroughs, you will always know where you are, the city maintains a unique design, between its layout, landmarks and buildings that you will always have a sense of which borough you are in and where you are within it. The citizens are quite full of life themselves, in addition to citizens who serve as markers for side missions, the general populace will act accordingly based on your actions. They will run in fear if your create explosions near them. Some will mutter on about the decay of society. Some will run up to you and ask you to heal their sick friend, and if you're traveled along the evil path through the game, they will curse your name, and possibly throw rocks at you. All in all the city itself feels alive, it's well thought out, looks wonderful and truly reflects the crime and destruction. And will even change depending on your actions throughout the game. I'm also constantly wowed by the she sheer number of climbable surfaces in the game. Pretty much if you can see it, you can scale it.

Enemies are great shots, they have no trouble sniping a moving target from hundreds of meters away. So be prepared! In addition to the gun toting street thug, you have enemies who carry miniguns, rocket launchers, even mounted turrets on flatbed trucks! Each Borough has their own specific group of hoodlums who become more powerful with each borough, keeping the difficulty level constant as you abilities upgrade. There are also “Conduits” who are enemies who appear to have gained abilities from the blast as well, and will keep you on your toes. When cole is low on health or energy to supply his powers, you need only click down the left stick to send out a pulse that briefly illuminates the nearest electrified surfaces on the map which cole can run up to and  drain to restore both health and “energy cores”. The game also has a few bosses, while they are fun battles that will make good usage of your abilities and reflexes, most players will be able to make short work of them with minimal retries.

Infamous is a “Must Play” as an exclusive for PS3 owners, it reignites that sense of entitlement and reminds you why you own the console. The game draws from the strengths of many open world predecessors and limits its weaknesses making it one of the best games in its genre and one of the best ps3 games to date. Responsive and intuitive controls, great design, and decent replay value provide you with a game that is well worth sinking your teeth into.