electrifying combat, free-flowing movement, and a stand-out story make infamous one of the best super hero games around.
A bomb goes off in the Historic District of Empire City, buildings are decimated, and cars tossed through the air as if they were as light as a feather, your character finds himself in the epicentre of the blast, is it game over already?
not quite, you play Cole Mcgrath, a courier of sorts who wakes up in a crater, to slowly realise he has been given super powers, by a culmination of the blast and coming into contact with some open electrical wires.
This gives you electical based powers, such as electric blasts, a shock wave that is reminiscent of a force push in Star Wars, and a thunder drop, which sends out a wave of electricity when you jump off of a building.
Throughout the game there are also moments in which you travel into sewers, and have to re-establish electricity above the surface, by doing this you can expand your powers to include an electric sticky grenade, a force shield, and a lightning strike, to name a few.
In addition to this your powers can extend to speeding up your movement around empire city, for instance later on in the game Cole will be able to grind on railroad tracks, slide along power cables, and hover through the air.
But dont think cole isnt a mover from the get go, because Cole possesses a great ability of climbing up, around, and on any type of structure, whether its latching onto window siles, shimmying up lamp posts, or jumping across rooftops, Cole is certainly a match for Assassins Creed twos Ezio.
Whilst Coles movement is fine for the most part there can be times where you want cole to grab onto a precise point, but this can be hampered by the fact that he will gravitate towars the nearest climbable object, while this is great for getting around town normally, it can be annoying if you want to drop down to a point on a building, and Cole latches onto everything on the way down.
While moving around Empire City you may come across one or two (or 350) blast shards, which are shards of blue crystals that have been scattered far and wide by the bombs detonation, these act as your collectibles, just like pidgeons in GTA4, unlike with the pidgeons though collecting a certain number of these shards actually strengthens Cole, so he can use more of his powers before he needs to recharge by sucking electricity from televisions, lamp lights, car lights, and almost anything you can think of that contains electricity, even people, though this is a decidedly evil action.
Infamous you see, lets the player choose if they want to be a hero, or the villain, evil actions include sucking electricity from downed pedestrians, electrifying by-standers, and generally causing chaos, whereas good actions include healing people, by using your electricity as a defibulater, and tying enemies down with electric handcuffs.
The enemies you face on your quest to help/hinder Empire City come in a myriad of forms, from your standard hooded Reaver with a gun, to those with shields, rpgs, and kamikaze bombers. These are your initial enemies in the neon district.
Empire city is made up of three islands, which are unlocked as you progress through the story, the first is Neon, a city with many neon signs and tall buildings, the second is called The Warren, a slum-like area with many dilapidated buildings, a large police stations, and a river running through it, the last the Historic District, has many classic looking bulidings with one huge skyskraper dominating in the middle.
As you unlock these islands you will see each is dominated with different types of enemies, Neon is filled with Reavers, The Warren with Trash Men, and Historic with gas mask wearing goons, both the enemies and the islands themselves feel significantly different from each other, and offer a great variety of platforming and combat.
At a certain point in the story you will have to face a boss character to progress to the second and third islands, as well as face a final boss, they are all challenging fights, and require a bit of thought, as well as offering allot of spectacle, but as great as the second boss is, i find it a bit of a cop out seeing as he has psychic powers, and all you do is fight a giant mech.
Though Infamous is hardly a dissapointment at all, as you grow stronger so do your enemies and the difficulty scales accordingly and feels just right.
Another thing about Infamous that is spot on is the story, which is rich, and develops in a satisfying manner the more you play it, a few interesting twists involving your best friend and girlfriend, as well as one of the best endings to a video game in quite some time make Infamous shine.
Another stand out element of Infamous is the lighting, your powers look great, explosions are fantastic, and trips underground are great spectacles, as your powers light up the dark, and dance across the murky water, you might wish the rest of the game looked this polished, as the game can often look a little rough around the edges, and textures can pop in from a distance with alarmimg frequency.
Despite this youll want to see all Empire City has to offer, and it has plenty, from a wealth of varied and fun missions and side missions, to collectibles, and amusing stunts to perform, which will last you around 20 hours or so, but youll definately want to play through again to see the other side of Cole.
To conclude Infamous is a blast from start to finish, the lighting is fantastic, despite some visual glitches, your move set is excellent to use/miss-use, the story will immerse you in Cole's world, and is engaging throughout, enticing you to come back for more.
Whether you are fond of heroic or anti-heroic antics, Infamous is the game for you.
Infamous is available exclusively on the playstation 3, and was developed by Sucker Punch, and distributed by Sony Computer Entertainment.