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Word from BBPS headquarters for the past year or so has been fairly consistent; the traditional video game is dead. While we've still played and enjoyed a number of AAA titles since 2008, the one thing has become resoundingly clear to us is that originality in major releases has bitten the dust. GTA IV was just another in an endless series of GTA releases. Killzone 2, while an amazing FPS, was still just a brilliant game in a genre that we've seen so many times before. It was beginning to feel like everything that there is to do in a major title has been done. That's why we've spent so much love and attention on games like LittleBigPlanet and the Pixeljunk releases; they're fresh, well-polished, and well-deserving of exposure. While we could still enjoy a major release, we just didn't see it paving the way to any sort of a new future in gaming.
...then we played inFAMOUS.
inFAMOUS is like a big leather glove slapping anyone who feels the way we do right in the face. It'll find you in your sleep, shake you awake, get two inches away from your face and scream "I'M HERE, I'M TRADITIONAL, AND I'M FUCKING BRILLIANT, FUCKFACE!!" And it'll be right in doing so. inFAMOUS is the first game in as long as I can remember that has taken a number of tried and true gaming conventions, cherry picked the highlights, and mixed them into something new and miraculous in a sea of games that can always be compared to something that game before it. So what exactly is inFAMOUS?
It's a third-person action game. It's a superhero game. It's a sandbox game. It's a moral decisions game. It's a parkour game. It's... well, you get the picture. It's not entirely all things to all people, but it's damned close.
inFAMOUS puts you in the role of Cole, a delivery courier at the epicenter of an explosion that wipes out most of Empire City. Miraculously surviving the explosion, Cole develops some crazy kick-ass electrical powers that he learns to control over time. As the story unfolds, we quickly learn that Cole was carrying the package that caused the blast, but he has no memory of the incident. What then unfolds over 20 or so hours of gameplay is this Memento-meets-Bourne-Identity story of Cole trying to figure out what happened, why he had the package, and who's responsible. Being essentially a comic book story sans-comic book, everything unfolds in a way that should feel right at home to regular comic book readers. Double crosses, not knowing who's really a good guy and who's really a bad guy, etc.. The whole thing feels very comic-booky in a good way.
Interesting story aside a video game will always be judged on its gameplay and structure, and this is where inFAMOUS really shines. Cole will amass an amazing array of powers by the end of the game, each feeling distinctly different from the previous. And while there are some powers that aren't combat-related (let's call them "support powers"), the myriad of combat powers can be mixed and matchd in just about any combat situation to awesome effect. Of course, the powers you get (and the powers you choose to use) will vary greatly depending on the direction of the moral compass you've chosen for Cole.
Like many games over the years (Knights of the Old Republic, Fable, etc..) inFAMOUS attempts to put moral decisions in the hands of the players. And while the marketing would tell you this is the strongest pull for the game, it's really the only aspect that left me feeling a little disappointed. We've yet to see a morality game where the choices the protagonist makes truly affect the story, and inFAMOUS is no exception. Sure, some secondary storylines and the attitudes of characters in game will vary depending on your actions, but all in all the same story will unfold before you regardless of your good guy or bad guy status.
That's not to say that morality doesn't have an amazing effect on the gameplay. Many of the powers that become available to you are dependent on your morality, including the powers that both sides share. Shock grenade, for example, will split into multiple grenades when you're super-evil because you don't give a shit about getting civilians caught in the crossfire. When you're super good though? It'll put electric cuffs on the bad guys without killing them because you're trying to spare all the lives you can while keeping Empire City safe.
Morality affects other aspects of gameplay too, most notably the choices that you as a gamer need to make. On my first run through inFAMOUS I played it as a good guy. If I was the cause of any innocent deaths, it would negatively impact my morality meter. That meant I had to be smart about which powers I chose and how I intended to use them. Sure it would be easy to fire half a dozen megawatt hammers into the fray, but I could kill everyone. As a good guy, I often felt the self-imposed obligation to use my healing power to help innocent bystanders, many of which were lying there half-dead due to something stupid I had done. But then when I started a second game as a bad guy? I was frying civilians left and right just to help my morality decline.
Based on my experience with both I can say pretty definitively that inFAMOUS is a much easier game when played evil. There's a level of challenge to the good side that just isn't there when you don't care about how you hurt. If you're debating which way to go, I'd definitely nominate easy. So much of what I loved about the game came form the challenge of keeping my morality at full nice guy.
As a sandbox game, the developers at Sucker Punch seemed to nail something no other developer has really gotten right so far. They created a relatively small map, but they managed to make it feel huge. Games like GTA and Mercenaries drove me batshit because of how long it would take you to get from point A to point B. That was never an issue here. Empire City is broken up into three islands that open up as the game progresses, and each of these are connected via hydro wires and train tracks. At one point you'll get a power that lets you grind these, adding a fantastic new level to the gameplay.
Cole's main method of transportation is parkour, the art of scaling buildings and rooftops. Think Mirror's Edge. This makes getting around Empire City almost as much fun as participating in your missions. Just picture this for a moment; You're standing on a rooftop. You need to go east. There's a hydrowire connecting your building to one about 1000 feet away, but to get there you need to grind over two smaller rooftops that have bad guys with rocket launchers on them. So you grind, fire up your Matrix-like power "precision" as you travel, and try to pick them off before they pick you off. To me, that's inFAMOUS in a nutshell. Even getting around the city is edge of your seat awesome.
SuckerPunch, inFAMOUS's developer, has also done a great job of incorporating side missions into the overall relevance of the game. More often than not, side missions are exactly what they sound like; something on the side. Most of us will dabble a little when we first start a game and then abandon them to focus on the main story. inFAMOUS isn't like that. Completing side missions have some very tangible rewards. Every side mission you complete eliminates bad guys from that section of the map. You're taking back the community from the gangs. And while that doesn't sound very tangible, you need to look at the big picture. When you're on a main story mission in that area, do you want to contend with what the mission throws at you, or what the mission throws at you AND all the standard NPC villains kicking around? Other things like respawn points, new powers, and massive XP make side missions an integral part of the game -- so much so that I finished every last one and enjoyed every minute of it.
As hard as it is to believe, this review has really just touched the tip of the iceberg. As I re-read what I've written all I can think about are all the things I've left out that totally deserve a place in your headspace. I just can't say enough good things about inFAMOUS. It's fun, it's challenging -- it's everything a good game should be. inFAMOUS proves that you can still keep things fresh and original when working in a tired old genre. It's single-handedly restored my faith in traditional video games. If you own a PS3, this is a must-buy.
Yay! Challenging combat. Parkour done right. Amazingly well paced -- never a dull moment.
Nay! Moral dilemmas felt a little hackey.
For those of you that REALLY hate reading, or only learned to read numbers: 10/10
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