inFamous

"Infamous- The boring story of Cole, the "electric errand boy""

Most people will see a three and wonder why this game is getting such a low review. I played through the entire game as an evil character, and the game is simply bad for many reasons as listed below.

Graphics- 8/10 - The graphics in this game are excellent. The draw distance is superb, and the city literally gets destroyed as you play through the campaign. The city is full of pedestrians and cars, and the world is littered with smashable objects. The textures are top-notch, and the character animations are excellent as well. This game is an excellent example of the power of the ps3 when actually utilized, and the game looks fantastic.

Sound -4- There is little to no music in this game, and what is there is forgettable. The major problem however are the voiceovers. The main characters' voice is simply irritating, and he is not in any way a likable character. Most of the other characters voices are also run of the mill, bordering on decent. The sound effects themselves are good, with nothing standing out, but nothing detracting from the experience either.

Controls- 4- While the controls work well for most attacks, this game is plagued by a dealbreaker that essentially ruins the game if played on any difficulty other than easy. Specifically, the jump button "sticks," meaning the character when he jumps, will stick to the closest object. While this is helpful when gliding around the city, this becomes infuriating when trying to detach from something on anything other than the easiest difficulty, where precision jumps are required or you may otherwise find yourself falling to your death, or getting struck by bullets and almost instantly dying. As I said, the other controls are good, but the sticky jump essentially ruins the controls in the latter half of the game.

Gameplay- 1 - I played this game to the end, and I don't honestly know why. It was probably for the supposedly "deep" moral choices that never were, but the gameplay itself is horrible. while the game starts off fun enough, the first half of the game is fun, while I would describe the second half simply as broken. The missions utilize every tired videogame convention. To give an idea, some of the later missions include escort missions, follow missions (where because of the jumpy stick mechanic you can easily lose track), and extremely monotonous and non-fun missions like destroying weather balloons, and annoying spy drones....and did I mention escort missions again, because you will do ALOT of escorting and protecting in the world of infamous. Even as the "bad" guy, you don't have a choice for the story missions about what you choose to do, essentially rendering the good/bad narrative pointless outside of the comic style cutscenes. In essence, the first half is fun, the second half is broken and ruins the game. The game further ends with a boring and typical boss battle. I should also mention that apparently this city has locked doors....because you will never see the interior of one building....yes, not one.

Story- 4- Remember the reviews that talked about the deep choices you must make. Well, not so deep. The good/bad system is not done well, and the story itself lacks any great hook. It is fairly convoluted, and the faceless enemies you fight are not a diverse group. Personally, I found the story to be boring.

Replayability-2- I give it a 2 simply because there are two endings. I can't imagine why anyone would ever want to play this twice however. As I said before, the gameplay is the second half is so boring and monotonous that completing it once was a chore. Cole is simply an errand boy, and most missions in this game feel like that, simply errands. After beating the game, you can continue on, but you cannot change your status, and there is absolutely nothing to do in the city besides collecting shards that at that point serve little purpose.

3/10

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 07/08/09

Game Release: inFamous (US, 05/26/09)