OXCGN investigates – Is it a game to make 360 owners jealous…?

by Shadow Wave:

©2009 Ben Cadwallader

Sucker Punch’s brand new Playstation 3 exclusive inFAMOUS is out and selling like hotcakes,  countless PS3 owners are happy and Sony fanboys are trying to rub this title in 360 owners faces.

I recently had the pleasure of playing through the entire game to find out if this title really is worthy of all its hype and if 360 owners should really be jealous or not… Here is the lowdown:

In Sucker Punch’s new game, you play as Cole McGrath (no, not the guy from Gears of War), an ex-bike messenger who accidentally opened a package which contained a unique bomb called the Ray Sphere, which of course caused devastation to everyone around him, except for himself.

In inFAMOUS, he wakes up from the devastating blast with new inner strength and a swag of wicked electrical abilities: he essentially becomes a human battery.  But sadly, as anything electrical can’t go near water, Cole will never be able to swim, drink or have a shower again….stinky!

Cole McGrath is essentially a human battery.

Shortly after the bomb, a pandemic was declared and the government sets up quarantine for the entire city. Three different gangs rise up quickly and take complete control of the Neon, Warren and Historical districts of the city.  With the entire city now ruled by fear and chaos, it can only be saved by Cole in whatever way he wishes thanks to a great moral choice system.

Every story sequence that plays during the game is shown via a comic book style cinematic, told from McGrath’s perspective as the narrator.  These cut scenes I thought were presented very well with fantastic artwork which really pulled me into the game’s universe. These cut scenes often reflect back and mention various choices you have made over the course of the game, with the final cut scene really amazing as it felt like it had been put together from every single choice you have made over the course of the game.

inFAMOUS probably has the best moral choice system I have seen used in any game before it. Almost every choice affects the story directly, and these choices actually give you that feeling of being a Hero or Villain.  Do you give the food supply drop to the people? Or do you keep it all for yourself?  Some of the later choices you have to make give you a very strong moral feeling when choosing what to do.

The choices you make affect the story directly.

It all works very well.  Depending on your good or evil alignment you get a cool different look:  a good character gets lovely blue lightning bolts and a slight blue aura and an evil Character gets wicked red lightning and a complete ‘The Dark Side’ evil look. I chose to be a good, Heroic character throughout my game.

The game play for me generally was very entertaining but I found it could have been much better.  Almost every single mission McGrath has to complete over the course of the game involves killing masses upon masses of gang members with his awesome lightning abilities.

Cole gets to learn various new abilities over the course of the game each time he restores power to an area of the city, but from then on you need to spend precious experience points on upgrading these abilities to be stronger and more effective.  Most abilities can be upgraded up to 3 times, but the amount of XP they require ends up being too much for the amount of XP you earn by killing enemies or completing missions.

This essentially means that sometimes it might take an hour or 2 of playing the game before you can upgrade an ability and there is almost no way you will complete the game with all your abilities maxed out unless you dedicate a lot of time to doing some repetitive side missions.

For a superhero, Cole McGrath is quite underpowered, as a human battery he can deplete his power quite quickly so he must recharge himself at the nearest electrical appliance, whether it be a TV, or a street light quite often.

The main form of attack you will use over the entire game is a standard lightning bolt ability; hold L1 and mash R1 as fast as possible to fire as many bolts of lightning as you can. You will use this ability the most because it’s essentially the only one that does not deplete your energy and can even use it to fill your energy back up once you have upgraded it.

Why oh why all this flash – please!

One thing I hated in this game is the flash on the screen when you fire your lightning bolts. Because you use the ability so often I found my eyes a tad sore/worked out after a decent gaming session.

McGrath does earn a decent amount of abilities over the 12+ hour campaign though.  Ranging from an electrical rocket launcher, to being able to hover in the air, but for the most part all his offensive abilities can drain your energy very quickly and you’ll often just resort to using your standard lightning bolts until you are in a tough spot, because Cole dies quick, really quick.

As mentioned earlier, there are three islands or districts of the metropolis that Cole gets to adventure through and conquer. Each district, Neon, Warren and Historical, plays host to a different gang that are literally swarming throughout the city.  Performing repetitive side quests can unlock new abilities, but more importantly makes areas of the world enemy-free. And believe me, you’ll want some recovery zones in your adventure.

Which brings me to a bit of a negative: free roaming isn’t as fun when you’re being shot at from every angle by enemies with near perfect accuracy. If you are planning to go to the other end of the city to start a mission through enemy infested areas, the chances are you are going to have to fight the whole way there, which I found a tad annoying. Sometimes I just want to do some cool tricks and flips with no death involved.

Who said free roaming was always fun?

Free roaming isn’t as fun when your being shot at from every angle by enemies with near perfect accuracy.

As Cole is an underpowered Superhero (he can’t fly or run at super speeds) he must climb up many, many buildings.  Generally I found this quite fun, and it definitely is a new interesting take on the free roaming superhero game.   But climbing can become almost a routine as there is almost no strategy involved in climbing; essentially all you do is mash the X button until you reach the top of a building.

When you have to do this for almost every single building in the game, the basic mash X can get a little tiresome, but with that being said, a more complex climbing experience would also have been potentially even more annoying because it would have taken away from the superhero experience.

Interestingly enough, you can NEVER go indoors in Infamous, which some could say was VERY last gen. But I think this step made for a much better game. I think if most people think back to almost every free roaming game, they often would find the indoor sections the most annoying.

Graphically the game is pretty good.  It’s such a plus to essentially have no loading screens during the game and because of this it flows so much better than similar games such as Prototype.  There are jagged edges in the distance and there is pop in when you are moving fast, but this is a no-load-screen free roaming game, so we can forgive all of this.

Ahhh . . no loading times . . .

It’s such a plus to essentially have no loading screens during the game.

Sound effects are decent, but nothing overly amazing during game play. During those amazing cut scenes. however, are some great sound effects which somehow all work well with its comic book presentation.

Overall, Infamous’ greatest strengths are its awesome moral choice system, accompanied by its great story and presentation.  The moral choices do affect the story and can make you question your own morals.

The story is fantastic and it’s great how the choices you make from early in the game are referenced much later on and show development of the main character. The presentation of the cut scenes is so unique and well done it’s great to sit back and enjoy them.

While I personally don’t think it will be a Game of the Year-type title, it is without question a fantastic game, and all 360 owners who are bored of Prototype should be very jealous of this fantastic, superior game.

If some of you 360 owners are lucky enough to have a PS3 as well, definitely pick this one up and have a go.

Would we steal this title for the 360?

Steal It? YES!

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thought this was an interesting read, its nice to see them being honest, although i disagree with them saying free roaming you get shot at all the time. i think that aspect is kinda fun and keeps action up.

if any xbox owners get a chance to play this game give it a go its great.