And after much turmoil and confusion, we finally return to our regularly scheduled programming. Huzzah! We do maybe have an actual schedule around here!
Superheroes: The icons of our culture. The powerful men and women who go around doing good deeds and helping others (or blowing shit up for the hell of it, see Iron Man). We're entertained by them. We go to see their movies. We cosplay as them. We make creepy fanfiction porn about them. (Eww.) But what is the ultimate realization of this adoration of superheroes? The chance to be one yourself. To slip on your form-fitting costume and wield extraordinary powers in whatever way you see fit. Surprisingly, however, very few video games have tackled this concept with great zeal, with superhero games usualy ending up as half-baked movie tie-ins created just to suck a little more money out of the Hollywood nipple. Where's the game that truly gives you the chance to step into the shoes of a true super? Well, last year, this idea was finally realized. Did it work? Did it truly make you a superhero failing the chance that you would hit yourself with gamma radiation? Is there porn of this as well? Two of these questions will be answered as It's Dangerous To Go Alone takes on.. inFamous! (The third is something I really don't wanna know.)
Story
inFamous stars a courier living in the large (entirely not related to New York) Empire City by the name of Cole MacGrath. (No, he is not in any way Irish. Go figure.) One day, Cole recieves a special request delivery order- he has to deliver a mysterious package to a specific location, and then open it. Simple enough, right? That doesn't sound suspicious at all! Cole complies, and promptly gets hit directly in the face by an absolutely massive explosion. When our friend Cole comes to, he discovers that the explosion has done two things- 1. Leveled several blocks of Empire City, killed thousands of people, and caused seismic tremors across the entire city that have caused massive destruction, and 2. Turned Cole into a walking battery with electricity-based superpowers. I'd say the latter makes up for the former, wouldn't you? Well, apparently the government disagrees, and the folks in Washington order a quaratine of the entire city as the situation worsens, with food and medical supplies running low. Formerly docile street gangs assume power in the devestated city and overrun all the districts with their influence and fear tactics. Cole and his best friend Zeke are trying to survive and get by in the new Empire City, but Cole's new superpowers sweep him into a conflict that will test his powers to the limit as he fights to restore order in his city. The story starts out grounded in realism, but about halfway through starts going batshit crazy, throwing wild and awesome things into the mix that I won't spoil for you here. The game is presented in a cool-looking graphic novel style, with important cutscenes presented as comic book-style interludes. These cutscenes are fresh and inventive, paying homage to the superheroes it takes nods from and creating a cool visual effect. The characters are interesting and hold your attention, and overall the story is pretty good, with plenty of twists and turns that will keep you looking. Sure, it's no Bioshock, not by a long shot, but it still holds its own.
Gameplay
inFamous is a sandbox style game, similar in nature to games like Grand Theft Auto or Saints' Row. You have a big, open world to play in, which you can just randomly run around in and mess with stuff for as long as you want. Story missions and side missions appear on the map, with the former needed to progress through the story and the latter used to gain shiny extra stuff. So far, same old, right? Well, here's where inFamous takes Grand Theft Auto and punts its sorry, scrawny behind out the nearest window- EFFING SUPERPOWERS. Because of the blast, Cole has become a walking generator- he can drain electricity from his surroundings and use it for his own ends. He can shoot blasts of lightning out of his fingertips, grind on power lines, create electric grenades and explosives, smash into the ground and cause a giant electrical explosion, drain the bioelectricity out of people, glide around on alternating currents of electricity, and much, much more. inFamous gives you so many tools and powers to play with that likely your first play will consist of you running gleefuly around the city, shocking and blowing up random things to test your powers and jumping across buildings, cars, and whatever else gets in your way. Then you'll find some of the aforementioned street gangs (the first gang is known as the Reapers) and start frying them with your electricty as they shoot at you. Rifles? Guns? HAH! I have no need of these things! inFamous very successfully achieves the key element of a great superhero game- EMPOWERMENT. You will feel like a total badass, growing even more formidable in badassery with each new power. Even before his powers, though, Cole was a formidable customer. He is highly skilled in melee combat and is very adept at climbing buildings and urban structures. This proficiency, combined with the strengths of Cole's powers, allows you to shimmy up the tallest buildings in a matter of seconds. From there, you can run across the rooftops like electro Batman, gaze upon the puny city below, or simply jump from the highest point you can to smash some poor pedestrian into the dirt below you. However, Cole's jumping prowess comes with one major flaw- Cole has a very intense fetish for ledges. (His dates must be interesting.) Cole's jumping is designed to guide you from one ledge to the next, with Cole gravitating to and sticking to the nearest ledge in order to climb a building as fast as possible. This effect, while helpful, can prove annoying. When you're trying to make a perfect, precise leap to reach the shiny collectable on the pipe overhead, Cole will sometimes flip around it to grab onto the nearby ledge, ask it the time and whether it comes here often, then start making advances to it. Cole's ledge-love aside, however, the platforming is solid at its core, and it is helped when you get more advanced powers, which are unlocked throughout the game. At its heart, inFamous is a third-person action game with some neat platforming tricks tossed in, and it handles this balance like a pro, with intense combat and incredibly awesome and suprisingly varied superpowers.
Sandbox
Of course, a sandbox game is ruined if it doesn't have a big and fun sandbox to mess around in, and inFamous is happy to oblige all of your sandy needs. Empire City is massive, with three distinct districts, each with a different style of building, challenges, and enemies. The city has a lot of territory to explore, but you can get where you need to go quite quickly by means of rooftop running, grinding on wires or train tracks, or simply hitching a ride on the top of a moving train and letting it take you away. The city also feels alive, with many people, vehicles, and enemies, all interacting and creating a changing environment that's yours to play with. And play with it you can. Do you want to be the dashing superhero who saves the pedestrians from being mugged by a vicious street gang, or the kind gentleman helping the people with their issues and becoming adored and loved because of it? You can! Do you want to be a vigilante, dispensing violent justice across the rooftops and bringing order with might? You can! Or, do you want to just be the asshole that runs down the street, launches three people into the air, followed by their cars, blows up the other parked and moving cars, throws random grenades down the middle of the street, then pins an enemy or citizen to the road or railroad tracks? You can do that, too! inFamous allows you domination over the city, and you, as the awesome super that you are, are free to do with it as you will. True, it's not the only dicking around simulator on the block, and if you simply just want to mess with things all day, Prototype is next door. But inFamous has a massive sandbox that is more tightly designed than most, and its missions are excellent and, more importantly, valued. The story missions are epic and intense, but the side missions also feel worth doing as well, as they allow you to take over portions of the city and add them to your growing domain. Once a part of the city is yours, order is established and crime goes down, lessing the enemies and improving conditions. All of these things put together create a sandbox of epic proportions that has something for everyone and can draw you in for hours.
Graphics
This game was the first game to run on my HD-equipped PS3, so at first I was in awe of the wide-open HD cityscape with its wonderful HD people living HD lives and driving HD cars sweating HD sweat... You get the idea. Then I saw games like God of War 3 that really pushed the PS3, and suddenly inFamous didn't look quite as pretty any more. inFamous is still a damn-good-looking game, with lots of cool effects and visuals, but its the kind of damn good that is just expected from the PS3. Being a Wii owner, I'm easily impressed, but graphics snobs will probably find their turn-ons elsewhere. It looks very nice and pretty, but it doesn't really push the envelope in ways that other games have.
Difficulty
inFamous is a game that does not mess around with its difficulty. Sure, you start out being able to fry every enemy that comes your way with little-to-no problem, but soon those guys wise up to your tricks. They gang up on you, snipe at you from a distance (and they're damn good shots sometimes, too), and generally up the ante. Once you move on to the second and third areas, the enemies start taking more and more shots of lightning, and they can keep getting up when you repeatedly shoot them down. The third gang in particular has certain troops that still got up and came after me after I blew them off a low rooftop and shot them in the chest with lightning. Makes you wonder how much these guys must be getting paid. An odd exception to this high difficulty level is the bosses. inFamous's bosses are epic and awesome setpieces that will have you saying "whoa" and "crikey," but they all actually tend to be easier than some of the basic enemy encounters. Huh. inFamous starts out simple enough for you to get the basics, but then launches you into a challenging thrill ride.
Moral Choice System
Ahh, my old foe. We meet again, here, on the battlefield. I could go on for hours about my views on moral choice systems in games, but I'll spare you the boring agony. The short version: Moral choice systems just don't work. They usually simply present the player with two completely opposite options, with one being Mr. Loves-all-of-God's-wonderful-creatures-and-gives-them-kisses, and the other being Mr. Asshole-who-kicks-puppies-and-eats-babies-raw. Game code simply doesn't allow for any of the ambiguity or middle ground that would make such a choice interesting. inFamous contains a moral choice system that pretty much sums up all them major flaws of these things. At certain points in the game, you're presented with a choice, where you can do one of two, and ONLY two, options. Example- the first choice involves you freeing a crate of airdropped medical supplies. Do you sit back and allow the people to take their food and share the bounty, or do you fry a couple of people and take all the food for you and Zeke? Every choice has only two possible options (one good, one evil) that are clearly spelled out for you, with no sense of actual decision involved. Why, you asked? Because of the other part of the moral choice system- the upgrade tree. Certain powers change and gain new abilities depending on whether you've been more good or more evil. However, you can only recieve the best powers and upgrades if you're ALL the way good (a Hero) or ALL the way evil (inFamous). Thus, you only really ever make one choice- the choice of whether you want to be Cole MacFriendly or Cole MacAsshole before you even start the game. Players will usually just pick all good or all evil, regardless of what the choices actually are, simply because you can become the most powerful that way. Also, some of the choices feel cartoonish and forced. The game tries hard to cast all of the "evil" decisions as realistic choices that are more selfish and lazy than outright evil, but a couple slipped through. Case in point- a side mission in which a pedestrian asks you to disarm a bomb strapped to a building. Suddenly, a choice appears- do you go disarm the bomb, or just walk away and let it blow up? I just stared dumbly at the screen. What possible benefit would Cole get for letting the bomb blow up? It's just being a dick for the sake of being a dick! Granted, it's kinda funny that some side missions give you the choice of either doing the mission or frying the person who gave you the mission and taking their stuff, but that's not enought to make up for this poor system. It's not entirely inFamous's fault, though, as moral choice systems in games are inherently flawed at this point.
Conclusion
Despite my gripes with the moral choice system, inFamous is overall a stellar title. It combines the best parts of a sandbox game (freedom, empowerment, messing with stuff, missions) with a well-designed structure (tight story, interesting characters, missions are excellent, real sense of accomplishment) that ties all that sand together quite nicely. It offers something for everyone, but never ends up spreading itself too thin. But it truly nails the most important aspect of a great superhero game- empowerment. Stepping into Cole's shoes is a truly realized superhero experience that allows you to wield Cole's immense powers as you see fit and grow and cultivate them over time until you are the most powerful being in Empire City. This game truly nails the superhero experience, and I strongly recommend it to anyone who has even the smallest inclination to the sandbox genre. Heck, it's only $30 at most now, so what are you waiting for? (Sorry 360 owners, this is a PS3 exclusive. Hah.) I am currently inclined to call inFamous the greatest superhero game ever made.
