What would you do if you were given super powers? Would you be a hero, do good deeds, and help people? Or would you be corrupted by power as you strive for personal gain and trample on anyone who got in your way? This is the question asked by the inFAMOUS franchise. To anyone who hasn't played the first inFAMOUS game, I highly recommend it if you enjoy open-world action games. I'll try to avoid spoilers from the first game for this review, so here is a (very) brief summary of the events that unfolded. You play as Cole MacGrath, a bike courier in Empire City and you are unknowingly the cause of an explosion that wipes out city blocks, and despite being at the epicenter of this disaster, you survived. As you recovered, you discovered you have electrical powers; firing bolts from your hands, draining electricity from objects to regain strength, healing other people, and of course, blowing things to pieces. Fast forward to the end of the story: through the game's events you come to find out a Beast is coming that will destroy everything in its path and you are the only one who can stop it, but as of now you are not strong enough to do so.
Enter inFAMOUS 2. The Beast is Coming. You once again take on the identity of Cole as you head to the southern port city of New Marais along with your best friend Zeke, and NSA agent Lucy Kuo, to meet with Kuo's friend Dr. Wolfe. The good doctor claims he has a way to enhance your powers so you'll be able to combat The Beast. New Marais draws much of its design and culture from modern day New Orleans with everything from swamps and marshes to a bustling city complete with a Red Light District.
One of the best things about inFAMOUS 2 in my opinion, is the environment. You won't get bored exploring New Marais, and there's always something interesting to see. In Flood Town (a portion of the city that looks like post-Katrina New Orleans), buildings are underwater, debris is scattered about, and you can even find graffiti on the walls that lends some humor to a desperate situation (my favorite being "Wanted: One Giant Sponge"). You really get a feel for the environment and it feels very natural. The presentation is fantastic, with each section of the city having new challenges to offer. The citizens walking around the city always have something to say and depending on if you perform good Karma deeds (such as healing injured citizens, or saving civilians from muggings and abductions), or bad Karma deeds (killing/injuring civilians, blowing up random buildings, or attacking police forces) the people of New Marais will have varied opinions of you. As you build up your good karma, some citizens will praise you as you pass by and even help you out in a fight by attacking your enemies! The more destructive and reckless you are, you will be chastised by the passers-by, and some may even come up and attack you, or throw rocks from a distance. Just another excuse to defend yourself, am I right?
The combat in inFAMOUS 2 has been improved upon vastly from the first game, with the most noteable change being melee attacks. Cole is given a new weapon called the Amp, and you can use this to perform combos on enemies leading up to awesome looking finisher moves. Attacking with melee moves basically means mashing Square and pressing/holding the directional stick towards where your enemy is. The powers are not only easy to use, but inFAMOUS 2 has a new system for switching between different types of powers on-the-fly. So if you're firing regular bolts and it's just not doing the job, hold down a button, and you can momentarily pause the action and switch to rapid fire bolts then resume the fight.
In this game, there is much more emphasis on the Karma choices you make, instead of just "Oh, he did something bad!", now your Karmic choices will actually affect the story at times and even your relationships with other characters. As to be expected from the inFAMOUS team at Sucker Punch, the story was very well done, although I will admit it was lacking something that the first game had. Don't get me wrong, it's not a deal-breaker by any means, I was just slightly less pulled in by this story than I was with the first game.
One of the new features that inFAMOUS 2 has included is the ability to create and play User-Generated Content or UGC. This feature allows you to make your own missions, and have them displayed in the game in real time, for other people to try out and rate. From my own personal experience with the UGC Creator tools, there is seemingly no limit to the kinds of missions you can set up. Seeing some of the missions Sucker Punch created, and the kinds of things you can do with the physics engine of the game is just astoundingly impressive, and anyone with a creative mind will be able to use the UGC tools to give this game tons of replay value. One thing I feel the game lacked in this department was ANY kind of tutorial regarding the UGC interface is that there is no instruction whatsoever, which is a little unfortunate.
The only things I can really critique this game on negatively, aside from the SOMEWHAT lackluster story/ending, are difficulty and length. Playing through the game on the Easy setting makes it almost boring to play. The decreased amount of enemies severely takes away from the challenge, but I suppose if you chose Easy, that's what you wanted. Conversely, playing the game on the Hard setting was quite a challenge. a few of the levels will have you ready to pull your hair out and will require many lives/attempts to get through. Or maybe I just suck. It really doesn't take away from the game, just something I figured I would mention. As for the length of the game, even though there were the same amount of missions from the first game and some of those were even longer, I feel like this game had less play time. This could also be because I played it constantly once I got my copy. Luckily, there are plenty of collectibles and side quests to keep you busy, and the ever-changing lineup of UGC adds replay value as well. Not to mention, there's incentive for playing both karma stories, so you'll want to give the game a second play-through.
Overall, I believe inFAMOUS 2 to be a great game in its own right, and a very good sequel for the franchise. If you haven't picked up either of these games, theyre both available for download on the Playstation Store as digital downloads.
Gameplay: 9.0 - There's nothing better than living in a fantasy world where you can do whatever you please and not suffer the consequences. Using your powers on exploding towers, bad guys, civilians, it doesn't matter. It never gets old and it feels GOOD.
Graphics/Presentation: 8.5 - A lot of thought and design went into the various aspects of New Marais, and there's always something new to see. I don't feel like the graphics are as perfect as they could've been, but they're still damn pretty.
Story: 8.5 - As I said above, the story is great, but it DID lack something that the first one had. Definitely worth playing through both endings.
Sound/Music: 9.0 - The various sound effects and music throughout inFAMOUS 2 really lend to the atmosphere, and even gets your adrenaline pumping for some of the harder missions.
Replay Value: 7.5 - Being that this is a single-player action game, it doesn't hold as much replay value as some games, however, in the single player department inFAMOUS 2 has plenty to offer. Side missions, collectibles, User-Generated Content, and of course two separate storylines to play through.
Overall Score: 42.5/50.
Thanks for reading! This is my first attempt at actually writing a video game review so opinions, comments and suggestions are all welcome.
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