Infamous (PS3 Game Review)

Maet · Jun 16, 2009

*Small Spoilers Within. This is your only warning*

Infamous

Infamous is a third person sandbox style game developed by Sucker Punch Productions exclusively for the PS3. While Sucker Punch has had experience in 3D platforming with the Sly Cooper series on the PS2 (the company?s only other notable franchise), Infamous is only their first project for Sony?s next generation console. This is quite the luxurious property for Sony to have in its pocket since Infamous is not just an exclusive new IP, but quite an ambitious game as well.

A terse description of Infamous would be ?Electric Spider-Man sans web-swinging,? but this is only half the package. While the gameplay boasts platforming that is largely fluent with varied combat (gameplay that speaks for itself), Infamous is equally as ambitious with its narrative design. A superhero parable unravels as the player traverses the game?s Empire City, or rather two separate parables unravel depending on whether you play a resplendent or reprehensible game. Infamous espouses its morality as much as its electricity oriented gameplay, and these two elements are permanently tied to each other. If both of these aspects were able to succeed in equal measure, Infamous would have truly been a remarkable experience. But when the morality stumbles, the gameplay is brought down with it. The botched handling of the game?s ethical grounding is the only thing that holds Infamous back. A complaint that many will gleefully overlook in favour of blasting enemies off of high-rises with shockwaves and lightening bolts, but it?s still a complaint that ought to be examined in order to discover just how close Infamous was to shocking everyone (pun intended).

The root problem with Infamous is that its morality is incredibly superficial. It doesn't matter whether or not you choose to head down the righteous path because you will experience the exact same game regardless. The only difference in the narrative between the good and evil play through are certain dialogue trees, and even still these differences are very minute. A good example of this is the mission "Anything for Trish" which occurs around half way through the game. You're tasked with providing Trish and a busload of injured civilians with safe transit from the Neon district to a hospital in the Warren (or: escort a bus from island 1 to island 2). If you've been playing a heroic game, you will reconcile with Trish after the mission. If you've been playing an infamous game, Trish breaks up with you for good. Her reaction to you isn't based on shades of grey, and it doesn't matter how far along either path you are. There are only two possibilities, and it's based solely on whether you're immediately good or bad.

Stark black and white is perfectly fine by me, provided that there is a unique game built around both extremes. Unfortunately, this isn?t the case. There is no distinct and unique progression through the game that changes based on your behaviour, and there are no alignment specific story missions. Good or bad, the game is the same. The only difference is the epilogue, and whether or not Trish dies liking you at the end of it all.

But how can you have the exact same game approached from polar opposite characters, and still expect the narrative to make sense? The simple answer is that you can?t. Contrary to what the title of the game might lead you to believe, the canonical story is most likely the virtuous one, and I have two main reasons for this (one speculative and one substantial). As with the vast majority of fiction, not only is the good guy supposed to win, but he is ostensibly destined to. I think that the developers had this in mind when they created the game. The narrative was built around a sense of moral integrity on the player?s behalf while the dark side was approached as a novelty. You?re expected to be a good boy, while the evil option exists mainly to offer a reason to beat the game again.

The more substantial reason is that the story simply doesn?t make any sense from the evil perspective. Why would evil Cole even bother with his bitchy girlfriend? Why would he entertain the whims of an FBI agent of dubious legitimacy? Why would he willingly help paramedics and police officers? The majority of the story based missions have clear moral aims, whether it?s rescuing hostages, protecting a prison, or cleaning up Empire City. Certainly there are less than wholesome options for consideration during those missions, but the intended outcome is clearly a benevolent one. It?s almost a reversal of Machiavelli?s maxim, where the ends consist of free range malevolence and the means is a collection of helpful chores.

What bothers me most are the many opportunities for separate ascensions to God?s right hand and express elevators to hell available. For example, the boss of the Neon District (again, island 1) is a woman named Sasha who controls the area?s reapers via a black hallucinogenic tar. She taunts and teases you as you travel through the tunnel to her base of operations with all these delightful quips about how you should watch out for traffic when you visit her and about how you should get dressed properly to meet the dinner reservation at 7PM. She?s a very charismatic and evil person, and exactly the type of person evil Cole should hook up with. How great would that have been? It gives the moral elements some serious weight and creates a unique divergent story to explore. It even happens at an ideal time in the game, immediately before the world opens up and just after you?ve had time to explore both sides of your power. This is where the game?s real disappointment and disconnect lies. There?s no split story to match with the split morality.

If the developers wanted to ameliorate this disconnect without going through the trouble and cost of doubling development time, I can think of one option that they should?ve considered: axing the morality meter (or at least the immediate visualization of it). For the entire game, the top left corner of the screen is occupied by a meter that lets you know exactly how good or bad you?ve been. If that had been removed, along with the incessant reminders of morality that appear after a completed mission, the game would?ve been better for it.

Don?t get me wrong, the problem isn?t the moral issue itself, but with how overt and apparent it is. Morality is ambiguous and, if you will, subtle. There is no subtlety to the way Infamous handles morality; it?s right there in plain sight at all times, looking you square in the eye. The outcome of the very first moral choice, which has you rescuing some suspended relief supplies, even reflects this. If you share them with the general population and pursue altruism, you are blessed with sterling blue bolts. If you hoard the supplies for Trish, Zeke (your best friend), and yourself, you are blessed with badass red bolts. Your course of action for the entire game is more or less determined within the first five minutes, offering no middle ground or sense of leniency.

If nothing else, an attempt should?ve been made at pursuing the illusion of choice instead of boiling the issue down to extremes. Perhaps the game should?ve started the player off with pure white bolts (pure in the sense of being unadulterated) that gradually change colour to reflect the player?s actions? Couple this with more diverse dialogue trees and a reduced emphasis on the stark contrast between good and evil, and this would?ve given the player the freedom to carve their own unique path through the game. It wouldn?t make the inherent dichotomy any more or less distinct, but at least the flaw would no longer be so clear.

This ties neatly into another problem, which is the way Cole?s powers evolve and become stronger. Cole?s strength is directly linked to how good or evil he is, which means trekking the neutral path is a suicide mission. You need to be either heroic or infamous in order to utilize the best powers, otherwise you remain weak. If you flit between a thug and a guardian, don?t expect to last very long. This isn?t so much of a big deal in itself, I mean even Spider-Man was pretty useless when he began doubting himself, but what it does do is render the experience point system obsolete. You need to be at the next karma level in order to purchase the upgrades with all the experience points you?ve been needlessly saving, and once you hit that level, you basically have enough experience to buy every necessary upgrade anyway. It?s a nuisance, which delays the fun juggernaught aspect arbitrarily. Doubly so too, when certain story missions need to be completed before those karma levels become available. Even if you systematically butcher every resident of the Neon district (once again, island 1) the game will still call you a worthless thug because you haven?t turned the power grid back on yet.

Sadly, once your karma is maxed out in either direction, there?s only one measly alignment specific power. The tough and righteous path rewards you with Overload Burst, a focused electrical blast which is useless even before you wrap your fingers around the odd button combination (Hold L1, hold R2 to charge then release R2 to fire), where as malevolence allows you to arc lightening Palpatine-style. Though truth be told good powers are more concerned with precision and finesse while evil powers are more for extravagant destruction, which is evidenced in the unique ways certain attacks power up. However this doesn?t change the fact that one unique power per side is hardly any fun at all. Don?t let this criticism mislead you into thinking that Infamous? electricity based gameplay is limited. Shock grenades, electric missiles, thunder drops, shockwaves and lightening storms are all toys in Cole?s arsenal (along with the standard thunderbolt), but these are available to both alignments. Only one single unique power each is alignment specific.

The means to obtain the unique power is also rather strange. They?re not unlocked based on your karma rank or your experience, but rather on how many good or evil side quests you?ve completed. Side quests are littered around all three of Empire City?s island, but only ten on each have any moral consequence (five good, five evil). In order to unlock the unique power, you need to complete the five side quests on each island that affect your morality. This can be misleading because most side quests involve doing something that is largely benevolent, such as destroying enemy security cameras and retrieving medical supplies, and you might wonder why you?re not receiving a positive credit for it. No, the difference between a good and evil side quest is that the completion of one locks the other out. While this further deepens the dichotomy between the game?s idea of good and evil, it is a rather interesting way to become stronger. Shame that it makes no sense in the grand scheme of things since Cole receives new powers through powerful electrical surges when he re-establishes generator circuits, but it?s a neat thought all the same.

Side quests in themselves are rather oddly handled since they both decrease the enemy respawn rates in the affected area and inspire the civilian populace to grab a broom and clean the place up. The game calls this ?reclaiming territory,? which is something I find strange. I can understand why this works for a virtuous play through since you?d presumably be an inspiration for the people, a man who is taking back the city for them (also another point in my favour for calling this the canonical ending), but how does this work for the evil run? It?s dropped in banter that you may be scaring the citizens into uniting against you, which still seems rather flimsy. Why can?t I be an agent for one of the gangs tearing the city apart, expanding our territory? That would certainly explain why no one attacks me anymore since I?m the vengeful war God of Empire City who no one dares oppose. Still, the result of all this is a severe reduction of wooden ducks for you to take aim at, and now you have to ask yourself what?s keeping you around. Once the game is finished and all the side quests have been completed, where?s the fun in exploring a city with hardly any obstacles to overcome?

In truth, there isn?t very much. Dead Drops, Blast Shards, and Trophies are all that remain for you. Dead Drops are satellite dishes that hold information and expand the story when collected, and are worth three trophies. Blast Shards are electrically charged bits of debris that increases your electricity capacity, and once again collecting them nets you three trophies. Once the main game is completed, side missions and all, it?s time for a good old fashioned and incredibly tedious scavenger hunt. While collecting Dead Drops isn?t much of an ordeal because there are only 32 of them and the game kindly keeps track, Blast Shards are a completely different beast. The explosion that gave Cole superpowers and wiped out six square city blocks scattered literally hundreds of blast shards across Empire City. There is no simple way to keep track of them. The game does not let you know how many you have or even how many of them are out there. To make matters worse, certain blast shards can only be attained through moral side missions, which means the trophy can be locked out of your play through. Your only way to know you?ve collected them all is when the delightful ?trophy achieved? soundbyte dances in your ear. This specific sound is one I will never enjoy.

While it may seem like I?ve written a negative review of Infamous, I assure you this isn?t the case. Infamous is a truly great game, start to finish. It is the rare game that never dragged on or left me begging for the final cinematic (even Resident Evil 4 pressed my buttons in the third act). While there are certainly questionable design choices, the occasional glitch (falling through buildings was common), and an unfortunate and permeating sense of squandered potential, Infamous was the most fun I?ve had with a video game since learning to effectively use the kick pedal in Rock Band 2. While I never always agreed with the game, the visceral and satisfying electrical powers are incredible fun. The city is thoughtfully crafted with unique and distinct landmarks occupying each of the three boroughs, and the gameplay is fairly tight, save for the ?mash X to ascend building? rigmarole. The only thing the game really lacks is a bigger selection of enemies with a more varied design, and a more finely tuned story. Still, Infamous is an excellent game despite this. A very strong title that demands the attention of any PS3 owner.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

It's terrible, don't watch it. The entire premise is directly undermined by the inability of the audience to care for the hostage situation. What good are boring human hostages if they have the same charisma and magnetism as a pile of bricks?

A complete waste of time.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.110707

Pimppeter2 · Jun 16, 2009

Man, I was looking forward to that movie

Fenring · Jun 16, 2009

Really nice review. I'm surprised I haven't read more by you.

Having read a number of reviews of this game, I've noticed that most if not all reviews of this game have reviewers playing through inFamous as a good character before a bad character. Did you do this? And if so, why? Is there a specific reason for that choice?

Maet said:
Bonus Capsule Review!!

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

It's terrible, don't watch it. The entire premise is directly undermined by the inability of the audience to care for the hostage situation. What good are boring human hostages if they have the same charisma and magnetism as a pile of bricks?

A complete waste of time.

Did you see the original Pelham? o you know if its any good?

bodyklok · Jun 16, 2009

pimppeter2 said:
Man, I was looking forward to that movie

Excuse me? As I understand it 'InFamious' is a video game, not a film.
EDIT EDIT EDIT!:
I just realised what you were talking about, that 'bonus capsule review' right? Don't answer that.

Pimppeter2 · Jun 16, 2009

bodyklok said:
pimppeter2 said:

Man, I was looking forward to that movie

Click to expand...

Excuse me? As I understand it 'InFamious' is a video game, not a film.

Talking about Pelham. That movie looked like it kicked ass

Dr.Sean · Jun 16, 2009

Is that the Unreal3 Engine?

Maet · Jun 16, 2009

pimppeter2 said:
Man, I was looking forward to that movie

I had a feeling that little bonus would probably enjoy more attention.

CountFenring said:
Having read a number of reviews of this game, I've noticed that most if not all reviews of this game have reviewers playing through inFamous as a good character before a bad character. Did you do this? And if so, why? Is there a specific reason for that choice?

I also played the good character first, but I also beat the game as evil Cole too. Like I said in my review, I think most people have been conditioned to be the good guy while they treat evil as the novelty. It's not like there was any connection to the characters (Trish is a ***** no matter what and Zeke is still a dick) and I certainly never thought to do it to spite the game's title a la Yahtzee. It's just the way I do it. I had a feeling the game was designed with moral actions in mind, and I turned out to be right.

What I do wonder about is if the decision to activate or destroy the ray sphere at the end will turn a previously good character straight into Infamous if they activate it. Maybe I'll play through a third time just for that.

And I've written something like 35 movie reviews and 5 other video game reviews on this forum since August. I have a lot more stuff, if you're interested, it's just floating around out there.

Edit -- I never saw the 1974 Pelham, although I may hazard a download of it. Ebert's review made the original sound good.

scotth266 · Jun 16, 2009

I'm gonna do a review of this soon. You might want to note however that you're not ENTIRELY correct about good and evil only having one specific power though, as the good/evil upgrades for the nuetral powers offer distinctly different powerups. Take the grenade power for instance: heroes get to autocapture enemies at the highest level, but bad guys get multigrenades.

Maet · Jun 16, 2009

scotth266 said:
I'm gonna do a review of this soon. You might want to note however that you're not ENTIRELY correct about good and evil only having one specific power though, as the good/evil upgrades for the nuetral powers offer distinctly different powerups. Take the grenade power for instance: heroes get to autocapture enemies at the highest level, but bad guys get multigrenades.

While true, the core ability is still available to both sides. The difference is mainly how destructive the force is, which I made note of when I said "good powers are more concerned with precision and finesse while evil powers are more for extravagant destruction." I'll change that up a bit, but I did make note of that point.

Edit -- Fixed it slightly.

scotth266 · Jun 16, 2009

Having re-read this, I now have some more criticism: there are some spelling mistakes (your vs. you're) scattered about, but they don't bring down the review too much. I think that a bigger issue is how much you've focused on the karma system. Granted, there are mentions of other parts of the game in there, but it seems like you talked about the karma system a little too much, to the detriment of the other parts of the review. There's good food for thought in there, and you seem solidly invested in the issue, so why not write a piece about karma meters in games? Lord knows that's one of the issues I'll be taking a crack at as time goes on...

Also, the Pelham thing does not suprise me. I've been told that this is a remake of a movie that was already remade at least once, and that hardly bodes well for anything.

Maet · Jun 16, 2009

scotth266 said:
Having re-read this, I now have some more criticism: there are some spelling mistakes (your vs. you're) scattered about, but they don't bring down the review too much. I think that a bigger issue is how much you've focused on the karma system. Granted, there are mentions of other parts of the game in there, but it seems like you talked about the karma system a little too much, to the detriment of the other parts of the review. There's good food for thought in there, and you seem solidly invested in the issue, so why not write a piece about karma meters in games? Lord knows that's one of the issues I'll be taking a crack at as time goes on...

Maybe it's just my tired eyes, but I haven't found any errors regarding "your vs. you're," aside from one instance near the beginning where I added an "r" to the end of "you." If you could tell me where you found them, that would be great, but so far I haven't seen any.

To be honest, I think the reason it seems like I focused on the karma system is not only because that was my real jumping off point for the entire review, but because I tied most other criticisms into the karma system. I talked about the story through the karma system, the side quests through the karma system, the powers through the karma system, and karma system istelf, naturally. It's not so much that I ignored the rest of the game that I managed to tie everything into one core aspect of it.

Maybe this works well for some, maybe it over burdens others. I'm not sure yet. This is the most ambition review I've done, 800 words (more if I ever get that first paragraph done) over my previous longest.

scotth266 · Jun 16, 2009

Maet said:
Maybe it's just my tired eyes, but I haven't found any errors regarding "your vs. you're," aside from one instance near the beginning where I added an "r" to the end of "you." If you could tell me where you found them, that would be great, but so far I haven't seen any.

...

Maybe this works well for some, maybe it over burdens others. I'm not sure yet. This is the most ambition review I've done, 800 words (more if I ever get that first paragraph done) over my previous longest.

I think I was hallucinating: that was probably the only real mistake I saw. Looking over it, the only other thing I can find fault with is the odd sentence that doesn't flow right. An example is below:

You're tasked with providing Trish and a busload of injured civilians with safe transit from the Neon district to a hospital in the Warren (or: escort a bus from island 1 to island 2).

It's too sticky, try something like this: "You're tasked with providing Trish and a busload of injured civilians with an escort from one island to another."

Also, I started my inFamous review not 20 minutes ago... and there's already 431 words. And I only talked a bit about the story and wrote a intro. Guess I'm just verbose

Maet · Jun 16, 2009

scotth266 said:
Also, I started my inFamous review not 20 minutes ago... and there's already 431 words. And I only talked a bit about the story and wrote a intro. Guess I'm just verbose

Nothing wrong with being verbose as long as you're saying something. I actually learned that the hard way when I wrote 5000 word Hamlet essay that had maybe 1500 words worth saying. I got a low mark because I wasted my teacher's time.

I think part of the reason why that one sentence you mentioned sticks out is because that's just a one clause line flanked on all sides by more complex sentences. Maybe if I worked the bracketed clause into the main line or just subordinated it better, it probably wouldn't be such a big deal.

Good luck with your review. If your review turns out to be better than mine and it takes you less than four and a half hours to write, I will picks its nits so badly that it will be in danger of dying from excessive blood loss.

scotth266 · Jun 16, 2009

Maet said:
Good luck with your review. If your review turns out to be better than mine and it takes you less than four and a half hours to write, I will picks its nits so badly that it will be in danger of dying from excessive blood loss.

(0_0)

I am scurred for the blood of mah review... vury scurred indeed.

R.O. · Jun 16, 2009

Huurrmmm. Well, the game is in a sandbox. If you are gonna have a sandbox game, give me a sandbox story. But if all you can do is shoot lightning, well that's pretty lame. You don't even get any God of War cutscene, button mashy, kill porn money shots. What's the point in playing if I can't see something cool?

pigeon_of_doom · Jun 16, 2009

scotth266 said:
I think that a bigger issue is how much you've focused on the karma system.

I'd probably agree with that. I appreciate the kind of in-depth analysis you've done on it, but you've ignored core aspects of the game (sound and graphics namely) and perhaps went into too much detail about what is a fairly standard complaint of morality systems in games. Like scott said, I think you could probably do an entire piece about the subject rather than limiting your thoughts to how it relates to this one game's shortcomings in that area.

It's a good review, I love the way it's not formulaic and wish I could avoid being so in my own reviews (admittedly, with only 6 so far, 2 being game reviews, I should improve in that respect) but while the focus on the karma system makes the review more cohesive, it forces the review down a narrow track that it never quite manages to break out of imo. Personal qualms with the game's core design need to be addressed, but I reckon you went beyond the call of duty here. It was a valiant, ambitious attempt which we don't see enough of in reviews and I'm sure you'll get it right with some experimentation. Hopefully we'll see some more game reviews from you in the not too distant future (or another Bioshock analysis instalment...)

MrBrightside919 · Jun 17, 2009

Fun Fact

It's not "Infamous"...its "inFamous"

Maet · Jun 17, 2009

pigeon_of_doom said:
Hopefully we'll see some more game reviews from you in the not too distant future (or another Bioshock analysis instalment...)

Don't hold your breath for game reviews since I spend a lot of time and effort on them. I favour movie reviews because I can sit down in the theater for two hours, fire off around a thousand words, and call it a day. I actually have to invest myself in game reviews, which is why I've only done about 5 or 6 of them (two of them were PSN games, so really it's more like 3 or 4).

I've been meaning to get around to BioShock part 4, but... I have no excuse. I'd like to do it, but I'd also like to maintain my lazy, over-indulgent lifestyle. It's hard for me to feel obliged to the internet.

MrBrightside919 said:
Fun Fact

It's not "Infamous"...its "inFamous"

Actually, it's "inFAMOUS," but for my reviewing purposes it will only be "Infamous."

Edit -- I also finished the introductory paragraph and did some mild reformatting.

Infamous (PS3 Game Review)

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