Infamous is an alright game to pick up, and it would be harder to answer why than to answer why not.
Small problems hold Infamous 2 back from greatness, but there's still a lot of electrifying fun to be had in Cole's latest adventure.
The Beast draws ever closer. The prophesied monster from the end of Infamous marches toward its inevitable confrontation with Cole McGrath. Toppling your colossal foe is the impetus for your latest adventure, but there is something far more sinister stalking you: an unshakable feeling of deja vu. The superpowered third-person action that was once novel and exciting has turned predictable. New problems arise as well. An overactive camera is a mild irritant, but the biggest issues stem from aimless pacing and suffocating enemy encounters. Infamous 2 is a disappointing sequel, but a solid foundation ensures there are still plenty of thrilling moments. There's no denying the inherent fun in sliding along an electrical wire while shooting bolts of lightning from your fingertips. And a few notable improvements, such as revamped visuals and a robust mission editor, add to the experience. Infamous 2 struggles to reach the lofty heights of its superb predecessor, but wanton destruction and carefree exploration provide good reasons to see how Cole's journey plays out.
A little bit of power is never enough. Cole can absorb an unholy amount of punishment, scale buildings with a simian grace, and wield lightning like he's Zeus' son, but such parlor tricks aren't enough to vanquish the all-powerful Beast. So he travels to New Marais to find out just how much stronger he can get. Although the premise is decent enough, the story lacks a hook to invest you in Cole's affairs. New characters such as Nix and Kuo are one-dimensional caricatures who represent the two sides of the morality coin, and the slight growth exhibited by this bland duo does little to make you care about their well-being. Zeke resumes his role as the comedic best friend, though his banal dialogue fails to make a lasting impression. The cast of supporting characters is certainly lacking, but it's the star who drags this ho-hum tale down. Cole is the kind of guy who chuckles at the term "penal code," and his gruff voice acting is just grating.
Karmic decisions should invest you in the story, but the implementation of the morality system is woefully inept. During certain story sequences, you have the choice to complete the mission in either a good manner or a bad one. Unlike in Infamous, in which evil and pure were sometimes indistinguishable, your options here are entirely binary. Without a moral gray area, there is no reason to give these decisions serious thought, which makes the adventure seem slight. This issue is compounded by how the game grades your actions. You may set out on a mission to rescue a group of hostages from a gang of armed assailants. Ideally, you would kill the henchmen to free the captured citizens, but it's not important to exhibit such loving care. Instead, you can kill the whole lot of them with a devastating tornado attack and still ring up the good karma points. The system is flawed at a fundamental level and turns what should be interesting decisions into laughable situations. The bright spot is that there are unique missions depending on which branch you choose, which makes it worth replaying this lengthy adventure.
Thankfully, showing off your heroic powers is a lot more entertaining than the bland story. The controls from the original game are virtually unchanged. Exploration is still a strong part of this adventure, and movement is forgiving enough to ensure that even those afflicted by acrophobia have fun. Stickiness is the defining feature of your jumping abilities. Cole gets sucked toward nearby objects, which makes it a cinch to jump onto thin electrical wires or leap across treacherous rooftops. The breezy nature of your movement makes bounding across the city a pleasure, though just like in the original game, problems do crop up when you need to be precise. Cole has a mind of his own, so if you want to shimmy up a specific drainpipe, he may grab hold of a balcony, guardrail, or ladder instead. When you're out for a joy run in the sprawling city, these tiny issues aren't too noticeable. But things take a turn for the worse when you're caught in life-or-death struggles. Cole latches on to ledges even when you're desperately trying to flee from a treacherous shoot-out, and those moments can lead to more than a few frustrating deaths.
It's a shame the movement controls haven't been refined at all from the previous game. Luckily, combat suffers from no such problems. Shooting enemies with your lightning blasts feels as great as ever, which makes it a snap to pull off a headshot or land a sticky grenade right on some poor sucker's back. Infamous 2 is at its best in large-scale fights across the expansive rooftops of New Marais. Mixing up your attacks between long-range sniper strikes, devastating rocket blasts, and rapid-fire electrical bursts gives diversity to your actions, and you can seamlessly unleash your destructive powers while gliding along a wire or hanging precariously off a drainpipe. Melee has also been vastly improved from the original game. You now wield a two pronged bludgeoning device called Amp that lets you beat down your foes in a few powerful smashes. This is an effective way to clear out a crowd, though the camera is too interested in delivering a cinematic view during these attacks. It moves with a disorienting style that makes it difficult to know what's going on around you and where your still-living threats stand.
Your attackers take many forms in Infamous 2. Gun-wielding lowlifes, mutated warriors, and repulsive-looking monsters give combat a dose of variety the original game lacked. Each enemy has a different weakness to exploit, and figuring out which of your attacks is most effective gives a layer of strategic depth to the lightning-spewing action. Bosses rear their heads every few hours, and these foul monstrosities are as ugly as they are large. They fill the screen with their vile presence, forcing you to make smart use of your evasive abilities as you await an opening to unleash a few deadly attacks. When these terrible beasts first appear, they bring with them a feeling of awe that makes you shake in your boots. But these oversized monsters reappear as you get deeper into the game, and once the surprise of their hideous design fades away, you're left fighting predictable enemies with inflated life bars.
Tedious fights are a sour trend in Infamous 2. The combat is at its best in wide-open spaces, but all too often, the flexibility afforded by these locales is taken away from you. You may find yourself in a warehouse or surrounded by walls of ice, and with your movement abilities severely limited, fights turn into arduous wars that drag on for an interminably long time. Creatures that used to be bosses are tossed in alongside normal, low-level grunts, which turns ordinary missions into frustrating battles. To make matters worse, the health-regeneration system is as poorly balanced as the other combat elements. The screen turns to black and white when you take enough damage, and this makes it extremely difficult to properly see the environment. It's incredibly aggravating when you're near death and you can't tell if that's a deadly body of water you're running toward (Cole can't swim), or if you're able to climb the pipe in front of you. Furthermore, the black-and-white filter takes a long time to fade away, and often gets triggered again if you sustain only a couple of hits. This means you spend half of each fight desperately trying to see what's going on, which leads to more than a few untimely deaths.
Tom Mc Shea loves platformers and weighty moral decisions. Some call him a T-Rex with bigger arms, some call him a gorilla with smaller arms -- you can just call him the jerk who hates all the things you love and loves all the things you hate.
I think this is an unfair rating when you compare this game to the 1st one and many many many other games that have been reviewed. This is way better than the 1st one. I asked my friends and they say that inFamous 2 is such an amazing game and that they love it. I play good games such as MGS, Skyrim and it may not be as good as them but I love it just as much. It deserves a higher rating. And I also think I'm not the only one as seen from the user score.
most of your point are very stupid and irrelevant i mean"cole is a dancer in another life"i mean seriously.the recently released metal gear rising was given 8.5 for fun gamplay completely ignoring every other aspect of gaming.infamous 2 on the hand is as fun as the next game with a very longer and good story driven campaign and its given a 7.5.you need counselling.
The biggest problem I've had with both inFAMOUS games was that the side mission stuff, while they can be fun, felt very much like filler. When I had initially played and beat inFAMOUS in 2009, I didn't really like it all that much, I thought it was OK, but on my secondary play through on hard, I really loved it.
Now, I had just beat the inFAMOUS 2 on easy yesterday, and I enjoyed it quite a bit other than the side missions feeling like filler, and therefor feeling like a somewhat arduous and mundane task to want to do, other than that, I really, really liked it, and I think if I go through it on its hardest difficulty to see the other side of things, I'll enjoy it more.
I hope there's a third.
tom complains about the fading grey effect when your health is critical ,but many games use this effect e.gUNCHARTED 1-3, KILL ZONE 1-2,RESISTANCE 2,even INFAMOUS 1 so does he hate all these games this effect.what i am saying in all its a stupid point
INFAMOUS 2 IS A GREAT GAME!!!!!!!.it surpasses it predecessor in every aspect, game play,graphics,combat you name it. i know this because i have finished the game 3 or 4 times on evil and good karma.for christ sake IGN gave it a 9,GAMETRAILER gave it a 9.2.what the hell is wrong with game spot i am really disappointed.not an 8.0, not an 8.5,but 7.5 DAMN!!!!!!!!
I mean, the end credits are rolling and I'm still in awe of how cool this game is. The soundtrack is just outstanding.
2 Like Just finished the game and I am absolutely astonished how this can be "only" a 7.5. Not wanting to bitch and complain, just wanted to join my voice to how "horrendus" and misleading this review this review can be in a way that it might put off people who are curious to try this game. If you are thinking about getting this game because you somewhat or really enjoyed the first one, just get this, your missing an awesome gaming masterpiece. It's the first one plus ten when in comes to quality, fun, story, soundtrack, fighting, missions, everything.
1 Like Tom Mc Shea said the game is 'good' (check the review score again) and people come here, complain about his review and say that its 'good'. What exactly is the problem here, both you and Tom have the same opinion, mainly that the game is good, except that he also points out why it isn't 'superb', which is his job. If he gave the game a 'superb' rating, we wouldn't know that its actually just the same as Infamous 1, just without the 'wow'-factor because its not new.But no, the internet gaming community comes on here and complains. Then we wonder why nobody takes gaming seriously.I don't even know if I take it seriously with this kind of behavior. HE IS A PROFESSIONAL VIDEO GAME CRITIC PEOPLE, ITS HIS JOB TO BE CRITICAL.
When I played the first, it was one of those games that I went through and didn't think much of initially, but when I went through it again, I absolutely loved it. It was a few steps behind Dead Space for me, and Dead Space is one of my favorite games of all time, so that means a lot; I even read the downloadable comic. At the time, I was very much a devoted fan to the series in general, as much as I could be, and was quite excited for this game, but when it came time for its release, I just never got it. I think I was led to believe this was just going to be a disappointment, and I shouldn't have. I still didn't get it, but I believe I will at some point. While Tom doesn't say it's a bad game, he pretty much says it's disappointing, and that's not what I want from a game, but in the end I probably won't be disappointed.
1 Like it is a great game far more epic than the first, you will not be disappointed.check IGN for more perspective
I stayed away from this game until a couple of days ago precisely for this review score. I didn't realize it was Mc Shea, or I would have ignored it altogether and bought the game on release day. Having played it through, I can honestly say I don't understand what Tom was thinking.
The combat is better, the enemies are better, the sub-bosses are way better and more varied. Okay, so the morality system doesn't challenge you. I don't think it's supposed to. For all the whining about lacking a gray area, consider that most people are going to play this game--and every game like this--twice: As a heel and then as a hero, or vice versa. The game doesn't promise difficult decisions, it offers a clear choice between good and evil. Just look at the difference in the endgame (no spoilers). You see any shades of gray there?
Yes, the game is more challenging. Why is that a problem? Yes, it takes a long time for your heath to regenerate. Interesting that Tom would complain about heath that doesn't regenerate fast enough, since he felt the very premise of regenerating health in war games is immoral...
Anyway. Great game, decent voice acting, good story, high menace and tension, big payoff at the end. Oh, and the game is balls-out fun. This game was an 8.5 at the least.
Had it since release and still playing it thanks to the awesome UGC system, gosh I love inFAMOUS.
I played the game and i dont understand why is 7.5 really TOm Mc Shea hates pretty much when a game is a little big harder.On normal difficulty is okay for normal on hard is ok for hard.Tom must be a pretty bad gamer.The paceing is a little bit of but not much.
@NIkoscho Wrong. He likes Dark Souls. Is that not supposed to be one of the hardest video games ever?
i would say that the game is totally awesome but comparing it to the previous version it would fall behind for certain. the reason i would say the enemy troops introduced here are over exaggerated and not well defined and the environment is pretty small compared to the previous infamous version.other than that the objectives and other stuffs are totally new and crazily creative. still would hav felt happy if the game was given 8+ rating by gamespot. :)
1 Like This review is horrible. Don't listen to it. This game deserves an 8.5 at LEAST.
Ive been playing this game almost nonstop for a week now. I loved the first one and am enjoying this one even more. Tom is so freakin critical on little things it really gets annoying sometimes. If you enjoyed the first one then pick this one up.
I've not played inFamous 2 but if this is the guy who reviewed the first game, then I think I'll pass on this game.
4 Like @Lightsyde Really? You're going to decide not to get a game based off of one person's opinion? If you've played Infamous and enjoyed it, then you should also like this one. If you havn't played Infamous, you should start there, if you're interested of course.
@SoNin360 The problem is, I did not really enjoy the first game as much as to give it a personal rating of Nine. 8.5 maybe-ish. (Although I admit that I've only played the Hero aspect of the game)
That's why infamous 2's lower rating discourages me. I've checked other sites though, and gamespot seems to be the one of the only ones with this low rating.
if you didn't like the first one all that much i assure you will like this sequel it a lot better
1 Like @Lightsyde the game is great this review is bad. It's every bit as good as the first.
1 Like Wow. That guy shouldn't write reviews anymore. The score should be a lot higher.
1 Like wtf??? seriously??? laughable morality system??? the reviewer must be a loon if he couldn't distinguish good from evil in infamous 1.
@mstrchf12 He's talking about Infamous 2, so why would you bring up infamous 1? I think he means except for the different ending the morality choices make no difference in the rest of the story.
1 Like Got the game cheap. I've got to say I completely agree with the review, the first one was better. I'm glad I listened and waited for a price drop, I'd have felt ripped off at $80 bucks but it's a steal at $30. Well worth the money.Thanks McShea :)
3 Like @FlamingFury Get of his d*ck. Just because you suck at the game, doesn't mean it's bad.
I am just replaying it and it's definitely NOT a 7.5. It's worth every penny. There should be a law for people like you: Don't sell great games, to cheap Tom Mc Shea lovers.
i could see an 8 for the game because it didnt live up to the hype and it didnt have as much of an epic feel as the first one. but 7.5 seems like a little below the belt.
5 Like I'm surprised this is the same person that did the first review. I know it's opinion-based and all, but I don't see how someone could give Infamous a 9 and then the second one a 7.5. And to point out a few things, the whole grey screen thing wasn't really even mentioned in the first review, yet he complains about it in this review when it's no different than it was in Infamous. I also don't see it as a legitimate complain, it's a good warning that your health is low, plus it encourages you to find some electricity and heal yourself. And another thing I don't get is that he seems to complain more about the combat in this game than the previous game. So far in my experience, Infamous 2 has actually been easier. So given that one has played Infamous, I don't see how you could struggle more with this game. He may have made a few fair points, but other than that I think this is a rather lousy review.
Agreed, JukedSolid. I really dislike the new voice actor. The game's still worth buying though.
The game is still just as fun in terms of combat, but why doesn't this article say anything about how they *changed* Cole's voice actor?!? It mentions how the voice actor drags the story down, but it doesn't acknowledge how even though the original Cole McGrath voice actor was a little over the top and probably smoked 3 packs a day, this new guy is severely lacking and has zero credibility as a superhero. He doesn't even sound remotely cool. I think a lot less people would have bought this game if they knew information like that beforehand because although it might seem like a small change from the original, it makes a huge impact on the overall effect of the game.
