The first few times I saw screenshots of the exclusive PS3 title Infamous, I was blown away. It looked so good, it made me want to get a PS3 at home (instead of playing at wherever I can get my hands on it). Luckily, I didn’t. For all the amounts of amazing (sorry, been following the NBA Conference Finals) that the game brings forward, it isn’t the platform-defining number I thought it would be.
Touted as the superhero genre done right, it stars a virtually unknown, un-caped and un-spandexed Cole McGrath, who finds himself bestowed with “electricity powers”, more and more of which he discovers as the game unfolds. Let me get this out of the way: The Incredible Hulk on the PS2 was “the superhero genre” done right, so there!
The powers the hero finds himself bestowed with are insane to say the least. While it starts off innocently enough, with shooting electric bolts and clambering up walls, it turns entertainingly dangerous the deeper you go (i.e. you can summon the heavens to send lightning bolts down to earth). Even better, the repercussions of these powers in your environment is decked out in glorious detail.
An open-world game, InFamous implements a morality system that brings a certain depth to the game. The world around you actually reacts to your eventual personality, cheering you on as the good guy and going after you when you go rogue, with the type of reactions that can change the way you experience the game. While the actual morality actions may be overly-simplistic (good and bad, basically), it adds to the title’s replayability in a whole different way, even if it’s unable to build any overarching emotional connection.
Gameplay itself is fun, with the beautiful backdrop of Empire City and the well-set moods adding immensely to its enjoyment. While the missions themselves are pretty repetitive (the same way they are in GTA 4), the side activities does add a bit of variation (some of which I’ve seen for the first time).
So is InFamous worth the hype? Frankly, I may have just set my expectations too high, because I don’t think it is. The game is great, though, and are among the few PS3 exclusives that can truly make a case for getting the console.
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