It doesn't matter that the protagonist's name is Delsin. He's basically just a male version of Rogue from the X-Men, in that he can touch other mutants and absorb their powers. Unlike Rogue though, it doesn't kill him to do so, he retains these powers and - gee whiz - he actually has fun using them rather than angsting every five minutes.
In a way, the character tells you all you need to know about the game - it's derivative. Completely nothing original here that I can see. But when you're derivative and you steal from the best, and you put all the stolen bits you've magpie'd together in the best way possible, that doesn't matter at all. Because you get a damn good game at the end of it, with a surprising amount of depth and a clear sense of craft or flair poking through.
I haven't played the previous two inFamous titles, so I have no frame of reference and started playing with no expectations at all. What I found at first was that I'd done all of this before - the flaming chains reminded me of Kratos' Blades Of Chaos/Athena in God Of War, the building jumping histrionics of Crackdown, the open world playground of Saints Row by way of San Andreas era Grand Theft Auto, the karma system a clear lift from the Fable series. The leaden narrative that you have to wade through at the start, coupled to the fact that Delsin has Tommy Vercetti syndrome (he can't swim) seemed like a missed opportunity. The combat seemed confusing as hell with Master Chief style gray soldiers shooting at me every time I tried any of the smoke powers. I didn't like it much.
But then after a couple of hours everything seemed to click. I decided that I wasn't going to worry too much about the story missions, I was going to do some gangland style takeovers and set about smashing the light out of every DUP fixture I could find - drones, control towers, soldiers. I didn't like the oppressive regime and it seemed like a good move to liberate the people so they didn't have to stop at checkpoints and endure constant surveillance. And then, it got really really fun. I took back the starting half of the map then completed enough story missions so I could plow through the harder second island, meeting Faith and gaining the more powerful yet trickier to use Neon powers in the process.
The combat has a surprising amount of variety and finesse required, it's quite impressive. No two battles ever play out the same way, they look and sound different and the enemies never feel like they're rigid in terms of patrol routes - more like they dynamically react to how you fight, which strategies you use. They're smart enough to try and outflank you and seek you out in a style not too different from the better Metal Gear Solid moments. This makes every territory takeback a real challenge that remains thrilling even when you've already done it several times. The light puzzle solving elements like figuring out the drone patrol routes and sniping the tiny hidden cameras break things up nicely, as does the response of random pedestrians while you're tooling around the city.
No, there's no multiplayer. For me no big loss - I don't really care for the online pissing contest of leaderboards, clans and all that nonsense anyway. Even Rockstar couldn't get it quite right in GTA V - maybe sandbox games just aren't suited. This means there's a purity and focus about the single player experience that's both memorable and addictive.
It has decent Remote Play support if you happen to have a Vita, with the game developers smartly realising people might like to play that way too and changing the control method - and even the onscreen prompts in most cases (the pause screen map controls say L and R rather than L2 and R2 for example) so it's great too, with only a little aliasing present on the video feed from the PS4 when doing long distance neon power sprints, the control method is still tight and compares well to the DualShock 4 most of the time.
I have one other problem with the game besides the lack of originality - the story isn't that compelling. I found this to be the case in Red Dead Redemption as well. But when the control system is this good and there's a whole bunch of fun things to do, it's no big loss. In a ocean of remasters, reissues and other shovelware approaches to the PS4 this one still stands tall as one of the best on the platform, something I expect will be the case for the next couple of years, making it a must-own title if you the console.
Sucker Punch have done great work here.