InFAMOUS Review.

InFAMOUS
Reviewed by Gaspforthirst

Time Spent: Over 35 hours.
Playthroughs: 2
Completion: 91%

What to expect : This review is kept short, simple and to the point, so don't expect it to be fancy. Spoilers are kept to a minimal, but as the ideas of spoilers are subjective, please read at your own risk.

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In INFAMOUS, you play the life of Cole Macgrath, who used to be a regular everyday bike messenger, that was until he realized whatever he was delivering was the last thing he would deliver, as the package went off in his hands, resulting in a catastrophic explosion that took out a good portion of the city, at the same time leaving Cole in a coma. As Cole wakes up, he discovered everything was screwed, there's a plague going around the city making people sick, the government has put the city into a quarantine, and worst of all, gangs have taken over the three districts that make up the city. But all that isn't nearly the gist of it.

As the game begins, you are introduced to your friend 'Zeke' , for whom some of you may find increasingly annoying. After a rather quick run through of the basics, you are given a few moves to deal with your foes with, and as the game progresses further, you will be given new moves to play with, granted, you will need to work for them on specific missions. InFAMOUS is an open-world game, filled with collectibles all over the map. One of which are the blast shards, there are a total of 350 of them scattered over the three islands, and by collecting a certain amount, the number of battery-cores on Cole will increase, and these 'battery-cores' are the essence of Cole's power, It is to help you spam energy consuming moves more efficiently, and ultimately make you more effective in combat, as the majority of moves consume battery cores, but luckily, Cole is able to recharge them from various electrical sources throughout the city.

Welcome to Empire City, your playground.

There are a total of 16 moves in the game, but fortunately all of them are thoughtfully mapped onto your controller for fluid and simple execution. Some of Cole's abilities are upgradable from exp points, which are attainable from completing missions, killing enemies, to performing stunts.
Some of these aforementioned abilities have a "Good only" and "Evil only" version, and obtaining these karma specific versions are solely based upon your karma level in the game. The "Good" versions are generally based around precision and utility, whereas the "Evil" versions are based around destruction and raw power. However, there is no "Neutral" karma in this game, you are either good, or evil.

The karma system in the game is based around the actions you take, and the decisons you make during various scenarios and missions. It is simple to grasp, as both good and evil decisons can be easily differed during these "karma moments". So It is safe to assume that most people would play the game through at least twice, one as good, and one as evil, in no fixed order.

Cole is able to latch onto objects, and attack simultaneously.

There are essentially two main mission types in the game, the "Story mission", and 'Side mission", both which are self-explanatory. This all goes without saying, but the story missions are generally longer, and higher in difficulty, with direct relevance to the main story, whereas the side missions are casual and fun, but frankly don't make sense sometimes. All in all, there is an excellent variety mission-wise to keep it from being anywhere near repetitive, be it story missions, or side missions.

Cole is fluidly animated and intuitive to maneuver, as Cole latches onto nearly everything you jump at, or fall towards. And sometimes, that is precisely the issue, Cole seems to latch onto things too well. But such things are to be expected when you decide to make platforming as leisure as InFAMOUS, It isn't hard to see it was quite the design dilemma, but even that doesn't stop the platforming in this game from being anything short of enjoyable. Visually, InFAMOUS is quite beautiful for an open-world action game, minor terrain glitches and pop-ins do exist, but It is nowhere game-breaking.

Bad Cole is bad.

Overall, InFAMOUS is a fantastic game with fluid and addicting gameplay, excellent voice acting, lasting re playability, and an enthralling storyline, all of which that overpower its minor short-comings.

The final verdict: A superhero game done right.

9.5/10