inFamous Second Sons Initial Impressions - spoiler free

[binary solo]

No spoilers.

So I've just arrived in Seattle (no spoiler there because we all know the game is set in Seattle). You see very early in the game, essentially in the prologue, one of the key powers you need for the purposes of the story. I won't say which because that would be a spoiler.

Gameplay is classic inFamous it's immediately familar and comfortable. There is use of the trackpad for certain things, like you use the trackpad to drain power, and swipe it to open doors. It using a controller feature for the sake of it, but it's fine and works well.

I LOVE the use of the speaker in the controller (first experienced playing the Warframe prologue, which looks like a bloody great F2P game by the way). Sony was smart to adopt that aspect from the Wiimote.

Characters and voice acting are solid so far. Story is shaping up to have good potential, but too early to judge.

Graphics:

Clearly this is an excellent example of graphics not possible on last gen platforms. If you think about the graphics kings from gen 7 - I will only refer to PS3 titles because those are the only ones I've seen personally: KZ, Uncharted, GoW, TLOU there is no question inFamous is a generational advance. So crisp and clear, no jaggies, fantastic particle and smoke effects, though still rather stylised than realistic. Textures and fine detail are great, but there are still bits and pieces that look flat and 2-dimensional. So clearly there is room for improvement on graphivs through the generation. For the purposes of this game 1080p@30fps is great, sacrificing resolution to get 60fps would have been a terrible error IMO. There are graphics elements that hark back to past gen, for instance hair and facial features don't look much improved, though facial movements and expressions are generally better. Foliage still looks really naff, like fake trees and bushes so not much by way of improvement over last gen. Over all very impressive, and is a sign that some pretty incredible graphics are in store for this generation. 

Very excited to get more time on the game. And now that my wife has taught her last piano lesson for the day I'll say bye and get back to it.