inFamous – 1/1 - Good or Blog First Edition Special Feature!
Sucker Punch’s electric Spiderman sandbox game, inFamous, is one of polarity (pun totally intended). Remaining firmly in the cartoon realm, the creators of Sly Cooper have departed quite nicely from their cell shaded thief and into the equally outlandish world of comic book superheroes. The story, structure, progression, and gameplay are all classic Sly, with an interesting twist of next-gen grit.
It means more than famous
However, unlike its cartoony predecessor, inFamous includes one of this generation’s banes of my existence: the extraneous morality system. Initially it doesn’t make much sense, you’re the hero of the story, why would you pick up a game where you play as a hero and willfully choose the “Evil” (it’s called that in the game) path? Much has already been said about the whole industry-wide debacle, but I’m happy to say inFamous actually utilizes the concept rather well occasionally, which inspired me to do a Good or Blog First Edition Special Feature! Inspired by sparky protagonist Cole MacGrath’s bipolar journey, this reviewer will provide you with the good AND the bad here. I bet you are practically catatonic with excitement.
1. Energetic Travel: Simply getting from point A to point B with a variety of electric powers and freerunning techniques is incredibly fun. While Cole looks incredibly stupid magically floating from hand grab to wire balance, the extra leeway given to the player makes for some pretty neat looking sequences. With progression this becomes even more fun, as you get levitating powers and electrically charged rail grinding abilities, both of which can be chained naturally into an already expansive freeforming repertoire.
2. Comic Relief: The comic book aesthetic is more than just a simple application of cel-shading and filters, it bleeds through the outer appearance and into the story. Big, interesting villains punctuate an interesting tale of conspiracy and desperation. These figures polarize the entire story and like the pulp pages they’re ripped from they’re simply normal people in abnormal circumstances, doing what they think is right. In the final act, events are woven together nicely into a gleefully didactic tale of the cost of heroism. Also, time travel!
3. Fight Crime, Be a Hero: When you aren’t unraveling the latest mystery or taking on the next big boss, you’re likely performing one of the many side missions throughout the island. By the last island you’ve seen it all, but they’re mostly enjoyable little excursions into what it takes to be a hero. It’s not all supervillains and bank robberies. Sometimes you gotta pose for photos, bring power to the city, fix the el-trains, and protect the people. For what is a hero without people to protect?
Evil:
1. GTA Mandated Collect-a-Thons: Every sandbox game needs to have collectibles (or so the developers will say), and inFamous has two sets. The rooftop Dead Drops are rather sparse, easy to find, and expand the story naturally. On the alternating side of these are the Blast Shards, chunks of debris from the explosion that gave Cole his powers. There are three hundred and fifty of these goddamn things. Initially they help grow your electric capacity and they’re picked up like candy. But later on, your capcity is already maxed and you’re down to maybe 70 shards. This is dumb in my opinion. Not every sandbox game needs ridiculous amounts of items to ensure you see every corner of the city, especially if by the end of the game they’re little more than Trophy fodder.
2. Resistance: From the outset, the game assigned me to the Hard difficulty, and so I figured I could hack it. Though probably the more rewarding of the difficulties, there are some questionable lumps in the difficulty curve, especially about midway through the game. Sucker Punch seems to have studied at the Ninja Gaiden 2 school of difficulty, whose primary : MORE GUYS WITH ROCKET LAUNCHERS. Every now and again these guys will get in a sucker punch (ha) and instantly kill you, though you can deflect explosives with some powers. But when you’re asked to defend a slow moving bus from 35 transients with rocket launchers (yeah I don’t know either) the game seems less hard and more stupid hard. The last third of the game evens out a bit, for some reason the wealthy government agency doesn’t have as many rocket launchers, with the exception of an enemy you only run into maybe five times: Invisible Shotgun Guy.
And now for something inFamous sort of only acknowledges.
Gray Areas:
1. (And only 1) Morality: Enough has been said about the sad state of affairs in the bandwagon industry of morality systems, but inFamous provides a nice middle ground between the wretched and the righteous and even a little insight into what a morality system should be. Some of the choices have these nice gray areas and intertwine with the game’s message of selfish vs. selfless, but others, like rescuing a guy hanging from a lamppost, are so ridiculously forced they bring down the whole system. What human being with a beating heart would leave him to hang when all it takes is literally two seconds to sever the rope? Unless, of course, they're looking for easy evil points.
The two sides, Heroic and Evil, are similarly forced. They reward you for committing to one or the other, so the choices themselves really start to become redundant, and those beloved gray areas immediately evaporate. I mean, the choice is obvious when it means upgrading your powers.
And “Evil”? Really? Why such a stark contrast? A wise man once said that nobody thinks of themselves as evil. We work for what we think is right. Disagreements arise, and opposing forces brand each other as evil. I refuse to believe that a rational human being would see another strung up in the streets and refuse to let them down when it takes only a few seconds of their time.
Why couldn’t the developers just call the opposite of heroic infamous and call it a day?
So, inFamous goes down in gaming history as anything but. It’s a really good superhero game and a pretty good sandbox game. The Sly Cooper games were whittled down until they eventually reached near perfection in the final entry, and hopefully whatever comes from the further adventures of Cole MacGrath follows suit. That is, we can only hope Sucker Punch CONDUCTS itself well and makes a good sequel, but CURRENTLY, inFamous is WATT the first Sly game was, an INDUCTION into a SHOCKING new world of sheer potential.
The two sides, Heroic and Evil, are similarly forced. They reward you for committing to one or the other, so the choices themselves really start to become redundant, and those beloved gray areas immediately evaporate. I mean, the choice is obvious when it means upgrading your powers.
And “Evil”? Really? Why such a stark contrast? A wise man once said that nobody thinks of themselves as evil. We work for what we think is right. Disagreements arise, and opposing forces brand each other as evil. I refuse to believe that a rational human being would see another strung up in the streets and refuse to let them down when it takes only a few seconds of their time.
Why couldn’t the developers just call the opposite of heroic infamous and call it a day?
So, inFamous goes down in gaming history as anything but. It’s a really good superhero game and a pretty good sandbox game. The Sly Cooper games were whittled down until they eventually reached near perfection in the final entry, and hopefully whatever comes from the further adventures of Cole MacGrath follows suit. That is, we can only hope Sucker Punch CONDUCTS itself well and makes a good sequel, but CURRENTLY, inFamous is WATT the first Sly game was, an INDUCTION into a SHOCKING new world of sheer potential.
ELECTRIC POTENTIAL.
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